With national teams required to submit World Cup squads to FIFA by May 30, every appearance now carries added weight for American players. The past week produced clear positives and growing concerns for the USMNT pool.<\/p>\n
Haji Wright played 28 minutes for Coventry City in a 1\u20131 draw with Blackburn Rovers as his club secured promotion to the English top flight for the first time in 25 years. Wright entered in the 62nd minute and registered a single shot in that match. Across the Championship campaign he has 16 goals and an assist in 29 games, placing him second in the Golden Boot race behind \u017dan Vipotnik. That goalscoring return and the prospect of remaining with Coventry for the Premier League step up have strengthened his appeal for a World Cup roster spot, even if he is not a guaranteed starter.<\/p>\n
Brenden Aaronson is enjoying one of his best seasons with Leeds United. He played 86 minutes in Monday\u2019s Premier League fixture against Manchester United, creating an assist on a day Noah Okafor netted a brace in a 2\u20131 victory at Old Trafford. Aaronson now has four goals and four assists in 31 Premier League matches this season and is pushing to make his second World Cup after debuting in Qatar. While Leeds remain concerned about relegation, the club also prepares for an FA Cup semifinal against Chelsea after ousting West Ham United. \u201cThe biggest thing was the Premier League, staying up and just having a great season, which I think we\u2019ve done and we\u2019ve put ourselves in a great position,” Aaronson told ESPN . “And then the cherry on top is being in the FA Cup and getting to the semifinals … It\u2019s going to be a massive game for this club and for this team.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chris Richards continued his rise with Crystal Palace, producing 10 defensive actions and nine clearances in Conference League action against Fiorentina as Palace advanced 4\u20132 on aggregate despite a 2\u20131 loss. He also delivered nine defensive contributions in a league win over Newcastle, a match settled by Jean-Philippe Mateta\u2019s 94th-minute penalty.<\/p>\n
By contrast, Christian Pulisic\u2019s form remains a concern. The 27-year-old has gone 17 goalless games for AC Milan after a 3\u20130 loss to Udinese in which he recorded three attempts but no shot on target. Since his last goal he has one assist, versus Torino in March, and he struggled for the USMNT against Portugal and Belgium. Tim Ream\u2019s veteran presence still matters, but recent showings with Charlotte FC raise questions about his level against top attackers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Wright\u2019s promotion boosts his World Cup case; Aaronson and Richards rise while Pulisic\u2019s form falls.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12135,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1330,1249,465,961,702,969],"tags":[1162,1587,1582],"class_list":["post-12136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ac-milan","category-championship","category-crystal-palace","category-international","category-leeds-united","category-premier-league","tag-analytics","tag-brenden-aaronson","tag-centre-back-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}