Dog Bites Man

No big surprises at Wembley, where England easily dispatched the U.S. by a score of 2-0. The lack of a coherent U.S. attack was troubling, but perhaps unsurprising given a front line of Josh Wolff and Eddie Johnson. Head coach Bob Bradley seems to be giving Johnson every opportunity to step up, and the striker hasn't responded. I wouldn't be surprised to see Nate Jaqua start at least one of the next two exhibitions.

Meanwhile, back in the midfield, Ricardo Clark may be in danger of becoming the new Pablo Mastroeni, and I don't mean that in a good way. Clark looked sloppy and reckless, and I wouldn't be surprised to see Maurice Edu lay claim to that second central midfield role alongside Michael Bradley. Those two together might minimize the implicit damage of starting two primarily defensive midfielders in a 4-4-2, as they're not pure "destroyers."

Even further back, I think the defense is as set as it's going to be for the near term, although a healthy Jonathan Spector might change the equation somewhat.

If I was going to pick a U.S. squad from scratch based on the existing pool, it would probably look something like this:

G Howard
D Cherundolo Onyewu Bocanegra Pearce
M Donovan Edu Bradley Beasley
F Dempsey Altidore

I'll jump on the Jozy bandwagon for that second forward spot for now, but wouldn't be surprised to see Nate Jaqua or Kenny Cooper assert themselves. Freddy Adu might sneak into the equation up top as well, as he's still a bit too small and too purely offensive-minded -- last time I saw him, anyway -- to push Donovan up top. And the dark horse for Edu's spot would be Sacha Kljestan.