The midfield play against Honduras was significantly better. Bradley worked better with Nagbe, Pulisic, and Bedoya/Lleget than he did with Jones on the field. There is no reason to ever play Jones and Bradley together, and hopefully this marks the last time that it happens.

Every time Bradley brought it up through the defensive third, he was staring at four Panama players pressing the midfield. There was no link-up and Jones was all over the place.

I'm less concerned about the performance last night because of the slew of talent that could not be on the field, and I'm confident that Arena would have had this setup look quite different if Johnson, Yedlin, Wood, Brooks and Cameron were all available.

And Altidore for that matter? Or Deuce. Or Wood.

I seem to recall that Arena likes to play with 2 strikers. And suddenly we seem to have those resources now.

I really don't see a way to keep two strikers on the field and also play Jones. Theoretically, you could put Deuce behind the striker in a 4-4-1-1 but that still pushes Pulisic back too far IMO. You can't pair Jones and Bradley together. You definitely don't want Jones in a diamond anywhere. 3-4-2-1 would accommodate Jones better.

But IMO, it's time to bench Jones.

Guy has been a liability to the MNT.

The polarizing coach that has the cohones and credibility to actually get away with benching a superstar. We'll see.

FWIW, there are games in which I believe that Jones would be much better suited than Bradley at the 6. So if Arena actually rotated them accordingly, I would be completely floored. But more so because that means the armband goes to someone else.

But for as long as Jones has been a rock solid player for this squad, I doubt fans will be sorry to see him go. He will always be an enigma.

I think Klinnsman liked his mentality and confidence, and I think he allowed Jones to entrench himself as a freewheeling midfielder much to the detriment of this team. There were days when I thought JK was afraid of him.

For all of his faults, JK did have a way of finding the best out of JJ. But I disagree that it was to the detriment of the team. There were times in the last world cup when it seemed like it was JJ, Howard and Deuce versus 11.

The detriment came with the "evolution" of Bradley as a #6 and his slow and steady decline as a player. There really was no way to accommodate both of those superstars. Remember when he tried the 3-4-3? Or tried JJ as a defender? It was always about trying to find a way to work with them both on the field.

If we had to play tomorrow against a team like Germany or Brazil that I knew would dominate possession, JJ would be the first player in my outfield (ok, after Pulisic). I don't trust JJ in an open midfield. But I'd trust him in a compacted final third for sure.

who else can play CM/DM for the US besides Bradley/Jones? Those guys need a chance to start playing.

I doubt he's enough of a leader to replace the captain right now but it would be nice to start him in the Gold Cup. Danny Williams at Reading is a consistent performer but never seems to get a shot at the NT. Perry Kitchen could be called up from Hearts, but I think he's not as good as Bradley in a lot of ways.

Past that, I don't really know who would fill that spot.

I don't know much about him beyond what I saw last night.

Caleb Stanko? Mix Diskerud? Victor Ulloa? I don't think so.

I'm not sure what happened to Wil Trapp.

Hard to complain about it either, when he's behind Kruze and Gnabry as well as 2 others.

Everyone else at Bremen is in better form, so he rides the bench and he's not happy about it. He will probably be traded or something this summer. Bremen probably doesn't need him (even though I really want him to stay)

Edit: he was injured most of last season and through the summer, so you were right he was injured last year