Disagree completely about hunger. The one thing I will credit them for is that Berhalter has them playing exceptionally hard, at times to their detriment. It doesn’t have to be this physically demanding but I think they’ve had a superb effort with absolutely scant execution thus far
There have been some definite strengths of the team in the Gregg era. Grit, determination, togetherness are all part of it. Generally speaking the US comes out of the gate the stronger team, which is a credit to Gregg as well. But there are very real issues. I think that the results this summer glossed over a lot of performance issues. Of the 8 games this summer, 6 were 1-0, one was against Martinique, and 1 was the 3-2 thriller over Mexico, all three goals coming on set pieces. This team has problems creating chances in the run of play. Summarizing my beef (or is it beefs???) with Gregg:
1. Squad selection- Even if you are happy with the 26 (or 25 post Weah injury) that Gregg named- and I was not totally thrilled- why did he not bring more players? There were several open slots. Was Weah even replaced? The exclusion of creative midfielders who can link up with the attackers was obvious over the summer, and painfully obvious now. We have those players in Reyna (when not injured and playing as he is asked to play at Dortmund), Luca de la Torre, and a lesser extent Green. These players could have been called in
without replacing any of Gregg's binkies. I am not even getting into Musah right now as he is just getting back from injury.
2. In Game Management- This has been a problem for a while. Gregg rarely makes changes tactically during a game and is very slow to make any non-injury substitutions. Even when every indication is that what the US is doing is not working, he refuses to make a change in terms of how we play or who is on the field. I think maybe against Qatar he made some halftime tactical changes, but that is the exception the proves the rule.
3. Player positioning and roles- I'll keep banging this drum. Just ask players to play where they play with their clubs and to do the same things that the clubs ask them to do on the field. This is especially true for the top players in the pool. Players spend their lives with their club teams and that is how they make their living. They come to play for the USMNT occasionally during camps. But Gregg has to "see" things in players that others don't, so we get shit like Hoppe as a winger or refusing to put Reyna in the middle where he now plays at Dortmund. Others are less egregious but still there, like putting Dest as a RB on an island defensively where at Barca they know he isn't good at defense so he either is given support or played as a RWB. He does play LB/LWB in an emergency, not when there are two other options.
4. Gregg's System- He is so stuck on his system and refuses to deviate at all. The formation and tactics are outdated by now, and more importantly they do not play to our player's strengths. There is so much "square peg in a round hole" here. I could care less about formations really, but there needs to be
someone between the lines to connect the midfield to the attackers. Otherwise you have Pulisic and Reyna dropping back too far to receive the ball, and leaving the striker even more isolated than they already are.
5. The whole is less than the sum of their parts- pick your saying, but this team has consistently underperformed its talent under Gregg. Like I said, results covered up poor performances, and in soccer performances are more predictive of future results. I had less of an issue with a 0-0 tie in El Salvador and more of an issue with how the team performed. You can tie 0-0 and pepper the opponents goal all game long, hit the post 3 times etc... and I would be ok with that because that shit happens in soccer. But that is not what we are seeing here, and quite honestly that is not what we have seen in a long, long time.
The players deserve some of the blame here, but the problems in attack have been so consistent and for such a long time that most of the blame lands squarely on Gregg. His stubborn refusal to change how he plays has led to poor roster decisions and poor performances. I've been done with him for a while but realize that he is who we are stuck with because he got results. The results are just catching up to the actual performances.