Josh Sargent’s day began on a positive note for Norwich City on Saturday, but ended with major worry for his immediate future.
Sargent delivered the breakthrough goal for the Canaries at Huddersfield Town on Saturday before being substituted off in the 14th minute. The American forward got behind Huddersfield goalkeeper Lee Nicholls before heading into an empty net.
However, Nicholls collided with Sargent after the ball crossed the goal-line, which led Norwich City manager David Wagner to replace Sargent before halftime.
Sargent was diagnosed with an ankle injury postmatch and the timetable for his return is unknown.
“It looks like a serious ankle injury unfortunately. We will assess him tomorrow, and then we will have to wait and see how serious it actually is,” Wagner said postmatch.
Sargent has three goals during the early stages of the league season for Norwich City, continuing where he left off in 2022-23. The 23-year-old led the Canaries with 13 goals last season and remains their top scoring threat this season.
However, an injury would be worrying for both Norwich City and the U.S. men’s national team forward. The USMNT is set to face Uzbekistan and Oman in a pair of home September friendlies.
Norwich City started the campaign unbeaten across all competitions, including earning advancement in the EFL Cup.
This is unfortunate for Josh as he was off to a very good start to the season. Here’s to a speedy recovery.
From a USMNT perspective this is unfortunate as it’s another player injury which will enable Gregg to justify calling and playing one of his favorite mediocure MLS guys.
The way haters can turnanything into a GB rip ceases to amaze me.
Sargent hurt? Cut into GB
Malik Tillman on the bench? GB sucks
Burned my toast this morning? ….GGG
Tiresome….
So do you like it whens he calls up Ferreria, Roldan, Long, Haji Wright and the list goes on and on of players not deserving of the call up?
Owen, I agree that players like Roldan and Aaron Long no longer deserve call ups, and I’m sure their days are done, but what makes a player not deserving of call ups btw. Is it because they play in MLS, because all except one was from MLS, and one can argue that Haji Wright has been the most in form ST in the pool over the last 2 seasons playing in Europe?!
Tiresome they may be.
But Gregg’s ongoing mediocrity is even more tiresome.
A lot of us rip him precisely because Gregg has given and continues to give “haters” all kinds of ammunition and reason to doubt him.
I spent three years watching Gregg get chance, after chance, after chance, after chance, after chance to lay everyone’s doubts about him to rest.
And watching him fail to do so.
You want this “hate” to stop? Tell Gregg to stop giving everyone reason to “hate” him.
Are we supposed to accept that his normalizing incompetence and mediocrity by being just good enough, is the way to go ?
It doesn’t matter if every manager and every team before he came to power was shit. The idea is to get better. I always thought the USMNT was supposed to be about being the best we could be. Not just “get by” or “pretty good for an American soccer team”
His entire USMNT manager career can be summed up by the phrase,
” just good enough to skate by”
If the USMNT were an EPL team they would be Crystal Palace, not likely to get relegated but not likely to ever qualify for Europe either. And certainly awful for a neutral to watch.
To be clear, our kids continue to mature and win playing time at their clubs and hopefully by 2026 we will have a core of veteran cub regulars who are better equipped to handle a World Cup. I am confident this will happen because more and more of them are getting experience at high level club situations like the Champions League.
So we’re going to get a better team over all because the players are getting the experience and confidence they lacked in addition to their considerable talent.
But not Gregg.
He’ll be rotting on the vine playing cash grab friendlies going against weak CONCACAF aggregations with his usual 2nd stringer selections like Yueill, Roldan, Moore, Long, etc.
He wasn’t that experienced going into the job in the first place so where he is going to get the additional tough game experience so he can get better and face guys who are the equivalent of Louie or Didier on something like an equal footing?
Maybe Gregg can do well in Copa America. We’ll see.
To do well in a World Cup you need that combination of the best players you can find with the best manager you can find.
The players do the playing and the manager sets them up to succeed with appropriate tactics and intelligent roster composition and proper man management.
The player component thing is proceeding along nicely but the managerial component remains questionable.
Was he going to call up Sargent over Pepi and Balo anyway?
if we are tactic-tinkering this should be an unusually heavy callsheet to maximize exposure. plus i just think as roster competition he should be calling 3-4 forwards a window right now. or are we per usual deciding the competition before they compete?
that’s setting aside this regime has generally emphasized club form and pepi’s played 70-something minutes as a sub in 4 games so far. if you buy such things — and to be real i am into longer term talent ID than what have you done this week — what he had fixed with gronigen is so far back out of whack for PSV.
JR,
What caught my immediate attention was that they felt the need to sub him out at 14 minutes.
That tells you someone is worried.
It’s early yet. It wouldn’t bother me if Josh wasn’t available until the Copa America build up. Better if he forces Gregg to pick him then by having a lot of goals for Norwich at that point.
B. Aaronson having a rough start to life at Union. Double yellow turned red today.
Unfortunate about Josh, but that’s sports. Hopefully he won’t be out to long.
Of course. Our players simply can’t stay healthy. Bad luck, made of glass, you name it. In hindsight it’s an absolute miracle most were healthy for the WC TBH.
What really hurts is that three of our most important/high ceiling player are completely unreliable. Reyna, Richards and Admas oh my.
“In hindsight it’s an absolute miracle most were healthy for the WC TBH.”
TK,
If you really want to be honest most of our guys were not really “healthy.” at Qatar.
A lot of them had only recently come back from injury and many of the rest did not play regularly for most of the season and were not what most like to think of as really “match fit”.
No guarantees but when most of our regulars get to the point where they are 90 minute regulars for their clubs, (like Antonee and Timmy who showed well for all four games ), then I think you’ll see less injury impact on the USMNT.
This mere fact alone undermined GGG;s ridiculous tactics and poor substitutions and squad rotations. There was NO WAY we would have moved on past the round of 16 with the “health/fitness” of the squad. Just poor management all around.
Can’t believe our highest ambition was to bring him back again 🙅🏽♂️
Get well Josh. Future is bright for the youngin’
sorry but this isn’t a delicate guy pulling up non-contact from a muscle pull, the keeper bundled into him from behind almost like tackling a wide out going for a high pass. we don’t wear pads for that and being undercut on a header often doesn’t end/land well. that’s “soccer” not glass.
i am also gonna air some USMNT dirty secrets and say pre-2010 or so our players, particularly MLS ones, would loaf in the weeks right before NT games, or at least major events. but then with the bias at that point against our players, we usually weren’t worrying about our role that week in Milan vs. City in UCL.
i also think GB’s emphasis on club form over NT performance gives you no “breaks.”
Bullshit.
While Josh probably could do nothing about being “run over by a truck”, he can be in the best shape possible so that :
+ Maybe the truck does not hit him in the first place
+ If he does get hit and hurt he’s not injured as bad or recovers quicker.
“i also think GB’s emphasis on club form over NT performance gives you no “breaks.””
There is plenty of evidence, like Aaron Long, that your theory about Gregg’s preferences is weak minded,
When it comes to injuries and physical conditioning it is pretty difficult to deny the importance and the relevance of what is currently happening at a player’s club.
Gregg’s team ran out of gas by the time Louie and his boys showed up. Much of that was because, during the Group stage, Gregg was either unable or unwilling to rotate the players and give them some rest. The World Cup often requires positive and sometimes surprising contributions from the entirety of your roster, Gregg was unable to get that from this roster , for whatever reason. “Game sharpness” and “fitness” is a huge part of having your entire roster prepared for a World Cup.
They weren’t fully prepared for Qatar.
Does anyone know what he actually hurt the clip I saw showed the goal but none of the training staff checking him.
“Unfortunately it looked like Josh Sargent conceded quite a serious ankle injury” according to Wagner after the match.
sprained ankle my guess, either rolled it on the awkward pushed landing or the keeper falling on the back of his feet/legs. not sure how you would have missed how he could have gotten hurt if you really saw it. keeper bundles him over awkwardly on the header and he immediately rolls around on the ground before limping off.
My highlight cut out as they landed. Couldn’t tell if it was the swat to the head, the leg getting rolled on, or he seemed to be clutching his elbow that he landed on. Figured it was probably the leg as it looked the most dangerous but didn’t know if it was knee or ankle.
JR,
What caught my immediate attention was that they felt the need to sub him out at 14 minutes.
That tells you someone is worried.
It’s early yet. It wouldn’t bother me if Josh wasn’t available until the Copa America build up. Better if he forces Gregg to pick him then by having a lot of goals for Norwich at that point.