I know that neither bagged a goal, but I thought Mitri was much more dangerous in his limited minutes than GAS had been up to that point. Mitri had the breakaway that was saved,* a dangerous shot from distance, and two runs up the right side where he put the ball into dangerous areas. He was a handful for the Crew from the moment he stepped on the field.
* - Worth noting that this was entirely a solo effort. Mitri wasn't played in with a well-timed pass from a teammate. He won the ball in midfield and outraced the defense to the box.
I agree with all your Mitri points but also think it's worth pointing out that GMS showed a super high work rate tracking back and made considerably more off ball runs that opened space than Mitri. I think the biggest take away from last night is that they are vastly different players. GMS is a high work rate 2-way wing that makes well timed runs early in the attack to open space. Mitri's effort in the high press and occasional tracking back have improved considerably but he's an attacker and we will never see the level of effort or defensive aggression from him as we've already seen from GMS. On offense Mitris rarely makes the diagonal space opening runs early in the attack instead he either picks up the ball early and leads the break or floats in behind the attacking line. To me the contrasting styles are a good thing as we now have multiple attackers that fill different roles as compared to last year:
2019
- Early runs to drag/unlock the defense: Taty, Heber, GMS
- Take people on 1v1: GMS, ITS, Mitri
- Drop in behind and create: Mitiri, ITS, Heber and Maxi
- Target man/hold up: Taty, Heber
2018
- Early runs to drag/unlock the defense: Berget, Villa
- Take people on 1v1: ITS, Villa
- Drop in behind and create: Villa and Maxi
- Target man/hold up: Berget
Add in the fact that everyone of our attackers can dribble and finish as compared to Berget and we appear to be in much better shape even with room for both Mitir and GMS to improve their chemistry with the other attackers.
