Ayo Akinola

[VinceA]

18 minutes ago, Obinna said:

He means the Ocho.

Also, hard not to love John Herdman. I say this as a guy who was critical of his appointment. This man exudes integrity whenever he speaks and his relationships with his players is real. That arguably trumps tactics when the going gets tough.

Same. I've flipped very much on how I feel about him.

[trc2014]

1 hour ago, dyslexic nam said:

I think it is just shorthand for the Ocho.  At this point obviously no one has qualified for 2022 - us or the US. So I assume it is just a not that we still have a ton of meaningful and massively important games ahead of us over the next year (just like the US).  So if we would have missed out on the Ocho, we probably would have lost him to the US - or at least seen him delay any international decision for years.  

Not sure I agree.  Sounds like he was ready to flip to Canada based on spite no matter if we made the Ocho or not.

[Shway]

40 minutes ago, VinceA said:

Same. I've flipped very much on how I feel about him.

He did say this is what he knew he had to do. Make the doubters - believers. 

He’s a smooth guy. I think him also increasing his coaching staff, and AirPod in the ear has shown he’s open to change and opinions. 

I’ll wait for the praise until we play “real” competition, and how Davies is used.

[VinceA]

8 hours ago, CanadaFan123 said:

He said "top level striker". 

If Ayo turned out to be as good as Jozy I would be ecstatic. Jozy's numbers for the US are great and despite his failures in England his time at AZ was prolific and he was (when healthy) a great FW at TFC.

It's easy to meme the guy but prime Jozy was a fun player to watch. Except at Sunderland lol.

[LeoH037]

3 hours ago, Obinna said:

He means the Ocho.

Also, hard not to love John Herdman. I say this as a guy who was critical of his appointment. This man exudes integrity whenever he speaks and his relationships with his players is real. That arguably trumps tactics when the going gets tough.

if the players genuinely look up to their manager, then they will run through brick walls for him. I know Herdman gets a lot of flak for his inexperience as a coach, and because he is no tactical genius, but he does have other qualities that are just as valuable and cannot be taught. He seems to have his players genuinely and fully committed to his vision, and if the players are willing to run through brick walls for him to get Canada to a World Cup, then nothing we watching from the sidelines think or say really matters in the end.

[LeoH037]

On to the topic of Ayo, I really want him to succeed with both club and country, one because he is one of us, but two, because of boy would it ever upset the Americans to see a talent they underrated get away and come back to haunt them... Jonathan David and Ayo Akinola.. how hilarious would that be?

Edited July 9, 2021 by LeoH037

[TGAA_Star]

6 hours ago, LeoH037 said:

On to the topic of Ayo, I really want him to succeed with both club and country, one because he is one of us, but two, because of boy would it ever upset the Americans to see a talent they underrated get away and come back to hunt them... Jonathan David and Ayo Akinola.. how hilarious would that be?

I know right and if he succeeds the more interest he garners from other clubs around the world

[RS]

6 hours ago, LeoH037 said:

On to the topic of Ayo, I really want him to succeed with both club and country, one because he is one of us, but two, because of boy would it ever upset the Americans to see a talent they underrated get away and come back to hunt them... Jonathan David and Ayo Akinola.. how hilarious would that be?

The Americans didn't underrate Jonathan David. They tried to get him into a youth camp but he turned them down.

It's also hard to say that they underrated Akinola considering he was on their youth teams for years and got a senior cap seven months ago.

[Obinna]

9 hours ago, LeoH037 said:

if the players genuinely look up to their manager, then they will run through brick walls for him. I know Herdman gets a lot of flak for his inexperience as a coach, and because he is no tactical genius, but he does have other qualities that are just as valuable and cannot be taught. He seems to have his players genuinely and fully committed to his vision, and if the players are willing to run through brick walls for him to get Canada to a World Cup, then nothing we watching from the sidelines think or say really matters in the end.

How many tactical geniuses are there in international football. Is Garath Southgate a tactical genius?

Not quoting to pick on you, just using your comment as a chance to bring up the criticism of Herdman's tactics. Is he really a tactical dunce or is that an unfair reputation he has garnered due to his resume? What we do know is that he's not a tactical genius, but that's not to say he is tactically illiterate, know what I am saying?

I am not saying he is Guardiola or anything, but the doubts about Herdman tactically feel like the doubts about Canada defensively, at least to me. In other words they are based more on reputation than reality. 

[CanadaFan123]

8 minutes ago, Obinna said:

How many tactical geniuses are there in international football. Is Garath Southgate a tactical genius?

Not quoting to pick on you, just using your comment as a chance to bring up the criticism of Herdman's tactics. Is he really a tactical dunce or is that an unfair reputation he has garnered due to his resume? What we do know is that he's not a tactical genius, but that's not to say he is tactically illiterate, know what I am saying?

I am not saying he is Guardiola or anything, but the doubts about Herdman tactically feel like the doubts about Canada defensively, at least to me. In other words they are based more on reputation than reality. 

Agreed completely. There are those who want to look down on Herdman and I'll freely admit I was one. But the tactics I have seen from him are a step up on any manager I have seen since I've followed Canada (Hart, Mitchell, Floro, Miller, Zambrano). 

Every other manager we've had has chosen one formation and rigidly stuck with it. They've stubbornly used players in roles that didn't suit them. 

The 4-2-2-2 vs. the States was a stroke of genius. The change to 3-4-3 vs. Bermuda was great. The foresight to  keep his cards close and turn to a 3-5-2 vs. Suriname/Haiti with Johnston at RCB and freeing Davies at LWB was great as well. Johnston mentioned in an interview that he was contacted ahead of camp about this role - so it wasn't just last minute tinkering.

If we got by Haiti in 2019 who knows what he would have had in store for Mexico in the semis?

I've been really impressed. 

 

[Kadenge]

16 minutes ago, Obinna said:

How many tactical geniuses are there in international football. Is Garath Southgate a tactical genius?

Not quoting to pick on you, just using your comment as a chance to bring up the criticism of Herdman's tactics. Is he really a tactical dunce or is that an unfair reputation he has garnered due to his resume? What we do know is that he's not a tactical genius, but that's not to say he is tactically illiterate, know what I am saying?

I am not saying he is Guardiola or anything, but the doubts about Herdman tactically feel like the doubts about Canada defensively, at least to me. In other words they are based more on reputation than reality. 

I think this is a spillover from the Haiti game at the 2019 GC and the away USA game in CNL...but the tide is slowly turning. In addition to the USA home win, JH now has wins vs Suriname and Haiti X2 in WCQ and we are in the Ocho. A result vs the USA and an appearance in the GC semis will go a long way to dispel any concerns with pre or in game tactical ability

[frmr]

29 minutes ago, Kadenge said:

I think this is a spillover from the Haiti game at the 2019 GC and the away USA game in CNL...but the tide is slowly turning. In addition to the USA home win, JH now has wins vs Suriname and Haiti X2 in WCQ and we are in the Ocho. A result vs the USA and an appearance in the GC semis will go a long way to dispel any concerns with pre or in game tactical ability

Those were bad results but against Haiti, it was some pretty horrendous individual errors that led to that game turning around on us, and against US (in the US) we dominated possession. The scoreline is obviously what mattered but it's not like they were running us off the park, they just took their chances. I'm not saying Herdman doesn't deserve part of the blame for those results but it's not like he completely lost the plot in those games either. I think he takes more criticism than he deserves when it comes to tactics. Or least he did, it seems like people are starting to come around in that sense in light of his recent results, which have been excellent.

[Obinna]

1 minute ago, frmr said:

The scoreline is obviously what mattered but it's not like they were running us off the park, they just took their chances. 

Yet when Americans provide us with their revisionist history of this game they always talk about how they dominated Canada lol

[CanadaFan123]

15 minutes ago, Obinna said:

Yet when Americans provide us with their revisionist history of this game they always talk about how they dominated Canada lol

Not very different than our version of events from when we won 2-0.

They beat us in possession, passes and corners. 

[Obinna]

40 minutes ago, CanadaFan123 said:

Not very different than our version of events from when we won 2-0.

They beat us in possession, passes and corners. 

Absolutely. I never liked the narrative that we dominated them at home. It was clearly a back and forth game where we scored and they didn't. Same is true down in Orlando. We had more posession but they put their chances away and we didn't. 

I expect a tight game against them.

[CanadaSantos]

am i missing something? we had 49% possession in the U.S. how is that domination? I will say to that the haiti game that yes we had some bad individual plays that hurt us but we weren't impressive in that match at all. we took a 2 goal lead pretty much from 2 shots and haiti were constantly dangerous with their high press that our defenders were struggling with it all game, i remember at half time still being nervous despite the lead because it was easy to see haiti coming back into the match with our numerous giveaways in dangerous areas, it was clear as day our defence couldn't play out of the back but yet we didn't change anything at all

 

[frmr]

13 minutes ago, CanadaSantos said:

am i missing something? we had 49% possession in the U.S. how is that domination? I will say to that the haiti game that yes we had some bad individual plays that hurt us but we weren't impressive in that match at all. we took a 2 goal lead pretty much from 2 shots and haiti were constantly dangerous with their high press that our defenders were struggling with it all game, i remember at half time still being nervous despite the lead because it was easy to see haiti coming back into the match with our numerous giveaways in dangerous areas, it was clear as day our defence couldn't play out of the back but yet we didn't change anything at all

 

It says we had 64% possession. Interesting that the lower possession team won both games. 

[CanadaSantos]

on flashscore and concacaf site they both have it as 49% so i dont know what to believe

[Obinna]

17 minutes ago, frmr said:

It says we had 64% possession. Interesting that the lower possession team won both games. 

What is the possession at the BMO game?

[frmr]

11 minutes ago, Obinna said:

What is the possession at the BMO game?

57% for US.

[frmr]

12 minutes ago, CanadaSantos said:

on flashscore and concacaf site they both have it as 49% so i dont know what to believe

Interesting. This is just from Google so yeah, I don't know what to believe either. I don't know where Google fetches their data from.

[Obinna]

21 minutes ago, frmr said:

Interesting. This is just from Google so yeah, I don't know what to believe either. I don't know where Google fetches their data from.

When in doubt you should always trust Google. For everything. Always.

[El Diego]

I think in both matches the possession stats were a little swayed because of score effect bias -- the team in the lead is often fine giving up the ball as the match goes on. We didn't dominate the first match by any stretch, but we played really well and achieved what we set out to achieve. The second match I remember we were punished for some poor play and could never really get into it after that.

[gator]

Forge had 36% posession in a fairly dominant 2-0 win last night, just sayin'!  

[LeoH037]

10 hours ago, RS said:

The Americans didn't underrate Jonathan David. They tried to get him into a youth camp but he turned them down.

It's also hard to say that they underrated Akinola considering he was on their youth teams for years and got a senior cap seven months ago.

Never meant to imply they underrated David, it would just hilarious to have not 1, but 2 American born strikers that end up being good not play for them. And regarding Ayo, disagree, as soon as the shiny new European players showed up Ayo seems to have become a 2nd though. Im sure Ayo has a thing or two to prove.