The Analyst's Corner: Atlanta United vs Chicago Fire

Welcome to the Analyst’s Corner. A retooled, less structured version of What We Learned. Here I’ll be talking about all the on-field tactical stuff I notice throughout the course of last week’s game, and try to contextualize it with larger trends through the season.

On Shaqiri and the Midfield

One of the questions we all had when the Xherdan Shaqiri signing was rumored to be a done deal, has where was he going to play. We all figured he would play in the middle, as that’s the presumption when you sign a designated player and give him the number 10. It didn’t take long for us to find out, as Ezra Hendrickson said in Shaq’s introductory press conference that he would be the starting CAM for the…