Jack Harrison [Midfielder]
- Thread starter Falastur
- Start date
not sure what Pirlo has to do with this discussion. But if youd like to talk about pirlo hype im happy to head over to the Pirlo thread.
Jack's whoscored ranking last year puts him in the same company as players like Ola Kamara, Sebastian Blanco, Michael Bradley, and Clint Dempsey, all of who we consider greatly above average players in this league. Difference is, Jack was only 20 compared to them being seasoned vets. Feel this is an awfully revisionist take. Sure, his production the second half of the season dropped. It's hard to keep his first half production consistent for a full season as a 20 year old. His first half production was all-star quality. Would have also loved to have seen what he could have done with a competent rightback like Tinny on his side.
im not hating on jack by any means... hell my username is in reference to him, i liked the kid. My personal opinion is he wasnt that amazing and i dont think hes gonna be anything amazing in Europe either. I think he had the capacity to be a great MLS player and an average European player. From what i saw I dont think he has it in him to be anyone special in Europe that people will be talking about. God bless if he proves me wrong.
You mentioned overhyped and I was trying to gauge the level of which you were referring. Jack was hardly overhyped, either coming out of HS, college, or in MLS, and as
dannd23 mentioned, he has stats to back it up. I used Pirlo as a litmus test/barometer because the Uber hype of him, by fans and not media, was off the charts while he was looking a shell of his former self.
too bad there's no stats for:
-missed sitters
-unnecessary dribbles to the corner flag when he should have cut in
-bad touches after pirlo passes
-poor first touch on breakaways
-scores 10 goals, misses 300.
-number of times hes shit his pants.
-missed sitters
-unnecessary dribbles to the corner flag when he should have cut in
-bad touches after pirlo passes
-poor first touch on breakaways
-scores 10 goals, misses 300.
-number of times hes shit his pants.
Funny, I thank god everyday they don’t keep stats on how many times we shit our pants.
Slightly above average? Are we talking about the same player? When he was playing well in the first half of last season, Jack was a dynamic force in our offense and one of the guys opposing defenses had to key on. He was our second-best offensive player last season, even when taking into effect his second-half struggles.
The thing with young players is that they have all of that. He also made a lot of bone headed moves and had bits of his game he needed to clean up. I think
Kangaroo Jack 's assessment of his ceiling is more or less on point. His floor probably is about "slightly above average".
I think it's widely accepted that Jack has great potential (he was in Man U's academy). What he always needed was minutes in order to develop that potential in game. He did that here, and excelled.
I personally think he (or someone) jumped the gun on this move. No one would have thought he would get a starting spot over Adama Traore. He needed to continue seeing the field. Not saying he necessarily needed to do that here, but he (or someone) should have better considered the odds on him getting minutes.
That being said, how much of a choice did he actually have? That someone mentioned above is probably CFG. I feel like the move was somewhat forced when his performances started generating a lot of attention. A handful of clubs were in for him, and it seems like CFG did not want to let go. So they turned clubs down, and eventually felt it necessary to just buy him from NYC.
That's fine, but I think the right move would have been to either loan him back here, or loan him to a club where he was more likely to see game time. There's a strange track record being developed as a result of CFG starting NYCFC, with players like Mix and Jack being held up in the CFG cycle for reasons no one is really sure about. The one thing that I think you can say definitively is that it's not always the player's best interests that are at the forefront.
It all just feels a bit dirty.
I personally think he (or someone) jumped the gun on this move. No one would have thought he would get a starting spot over Adama Traore. He needed to continue seeing the field. Not saying he necessarily needed to do that here, but he (or someone) should have better considered the odds on him getting minutes.
That being said, how much of a choice did he actually have? That someone mentioned above is probably CFG. I feel like the move was somewhat forced when his performances started generating a lot of attention. A handful of clubs were in for him, and it seems like CFG did not want to let go. So they turned clubs down, and eventually felt it necessary to just buy him from NYC.
That's fine, but I think the right move would have been to either loan him back here, or loan him to a club where he was more likely to see game time. There's a strange track record being developed as a result of CFG starting NYCFC, with players like Mix and Jack being held up in the CFG cycle for reasons no one is really sure about. The one thing that I think you can say definitively is that it's not always the player's best interests that are at the forefront.
It all just feels a bit dirty.
I also think there's an eye test. When you saw Jack's technical ability, how he could receive and control a 50 yard pass without breaking his stride, for example, you realized he had a technical ability that was way above MLS level. In our team only Maxi and Villa compare. Everybody else's first touch is poorer than Jack's at 20. It is quite possible he won't ever develop into the full package, with the speed, athleticism, tactical awareness, discipline, tenacity, etc to compete in the EPL or La Liga, but he has the natural talent and the foundation, and 90% of players in MLS don't have either and won't ever.
Totally agree! If Jack was on this year's team, with Tinny behind him and Medina playing Wallace's position (or even if Tajouri is LW), then he'd be so much more dangerous than he was last season. His production drop off the second half of the year was two-fold:
One, as others have mentioned, a 34 match season is rough on a young player, especially one that came from the college environment and subsequently had a long term-injury that delayed his initial transition from college to pro.
Two, Harrison's defensive duties were increased and he was regularly dropping back to the 18 & below to shadow an attacker. This directly affected his ability to press the attack because he was always starting so low (lower than Maxi is this season and the Forums have been complaining about wanting Maxi higher to help with his offensive production). Add in that White was his RB (who over-performed the entire season) who had nowhere near the offensive supporting capability of Tinny, or even Struna who replaced White at the end of he season. An overlapping RB would have helped Harrison tremendously by not leaving him on an island 85% of the time. The extra defense, coupled with sparse support, taxed Harrison with each match as the season wore on.
Two-A, having an attack-minded LW opposite Harrison would have spread out the defenders more so that they couldn't key on both Villa and Harrison, while also providing both a capable recipient of passes/crosses and also being the provider of them (for Harrison).
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Erik Palmer Brown is another intra-MLS/CFG example of less than good outcomes so far, but SKC deserves at least as much blame for not playing or selling him beforehand.
CFG signed him without a good loan landing spot, so he’s occasionally playing for a mediocre Belgian team.
oh google has that data don't you worry.
*depends banner ad start showing up relentlessly*
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Would CFG move Jack if he didn't want to go in the first place? I thought the reason they sold him now was because the offers were getting serious and most of us speculated that this was something Jack was pushing for. Or at least strongly desired. If he didn't want to move, couldn't him and CFG just said no to the offers, at least for this window?
Sure, but I think you are overestimating a 20 year old's ability to consider what's in his best interest. Did anyone go to him and say "Middlesbrough is interested in taking you on loan, but you'll be behind a bull of a Spanish winger who can outrun your mom's car, came through Barca's youth system, and is probably too good for the league he is in" ?
His mom had the foresight to bring him here, and that worked out, but now CFG has him locked up in questionable loans sitting on the bench for probably the next 5 years. Who is going to buy him off Man City if he isn't playing?
And sorry if my tone sounds perturbed. It's been one of those days.
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The timing was odd. He wraps a full season with us in early November then moved at the end of January. At best, if he was getting minutes, he’d have just over 3 months of competitive play between November and mid-August.
For someone already getting attention from England’s U21 team with us, it seems much more sensible if he had played himself into form with us so he had steady minutes from March and then moved in July/August.
I think the going home to play in England factor played a bigger part than the realization he wouldn't be getting much playing time. Would hate to see him become an Agudelo type player that has the potential to go abroad but went a year or two too early, and never reached full potential. TBD on Agudelo, he's still only 25. Needs full playing time which is something he hasn't gotten the past 4-5 years.
You know, that's exactly the choice that would have been made if we were a farm team. It's miles better for us to get our new attackers/wide mids integrated early and not in the final few games before the playoffs.
You let Jack hang around and have a great early season, you either have to hold onto him for the rest of the year and end up in the same situation as what actually occurred or you sell him for a touch more money and have a fan revolt at selling a star player with trophies on the line.
And that's the absolute BEST case scenarios. Under any circumstance, you've got a young player that's had his head turned, and you just don't know how it will impact him, regardless of what we'd like to assume about Jack's level of professionalism.
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