HalfSpaces usmnt Scouting Report: Bryan Reynolds

Scouting Report: Bryan Reynolds



Whether Bryan Reynolds moves to Juve, Brugge, Roma, or somewhere else this transfer feels significant. Young Americans players don’t get bought for near $10 million often and when they do get sold it’s after they’ve proved they are “good” by playing solidly in MLS for a season or two. Altidore, Miazga, Cannon, Aaronson, McKenzie(?) all had at least a year of solid playing time before they made the move to Europe.

Bryan Reynolds played 110 MLS minutes 18/19 with one start (at left wing btw) and 1,267 minutes in 19/20 with 14 starts (13 at RB and one at RM). His move is a shift that demonstrates European teams are ready to gamble in an attempt to land high end talent from North America.

And I do think Reynolds is a gamble. In preparation to write this scouting report I watched Reynolds against Seattle, Portland, Miami, and Salt Lake. In my opinion, he was bad against Seattle (Nouhou got the best of him there), fine against Portland, not great against Salt Lake, and really good against Miami. So what is all the fuss about?

I’m not arrogant enough to think that I know more than the people in charge of player acquisition at the clubs he’s rumored to be moving to, but this transfer seems like an NBA style “upside” move to me.

As usual, I watched these games (except Seattle – I watched him, but more or less “fan” watched that game) solely focused on Reynolds. The clips below simply highlight things that I noticed repeated over the matches I observed. Any devoted FCD fans that want to tell me how wrong I am are welcome to @blharreld. (Compliments are cool too.)

*At time of writing his transfer destination is not known – I may update when that gets finalized*

Strengths

Speed/Burst

The man glides around the field. It almost never looks like he’s running full out and he’s still gaining ground on people. He’s 6’3″, so you know he has good long speed, but here are a couple gifs showing it:

Shows some “easy speed” down the line here. He glides.
Catches up easily and deflects the ball away

Perhaps more important than the speed over distance, is the burst he shows to either create space or get to a ball first. In the game against Miami he drew a penalty and assisted the 2nd goal in a 2-1 win for Dallas. Watch the quickness over a short distance he shows here to win the penalty:

On the underlap Reynolds shows some quickness to get there first and draw the penalty
Here he uses some quicks on the dribble to put in a nice cross

Combination Play

Reynolds has the whole pass and move thing down. He frequently plays the ball and then springs into space looking for the return ball. This might be my favorite part of his game. There is a lot of passing the ball horizontally and then running up the line, but he shows some creativity too. Take a look at this:

I like this around the corner pass and move. Doesn’t get the ball, but good movement.

I really like the inventive pass and forward run to follow it up. You can see the offensive upside that has big clubs interested. When he was asked to sit back and defend (see the game against Portland) Reynolds does not look nearly as appealing – going forward is his thing.

Decent little combination here down the sideline

The gif below is his game winning assist against Miami. It’s a great example of his suddenness, combination play, and ball skills. If you want an “Exhibit A” of what big clubs see in this kid…here you go.

Crossing

Reynolds has a way of wrapping his foot around the ball and I want to say flicking his wrist, but since it’s his foot that doesn’t work (can you flick your ankle?). In any case, he hits a nice cross, with good bend on it.

When you combine the speed/quickness and ability to provide quality service, you end up with the components for a dangerous right back.

Puts in a nice cross on the break.
Really nice ball to Hollingshead. Would have been nice to at least get it on frame.
Beats his man easily and then clips in a dangerous ball to the far post

Room to Improve

Consistency

I don’t know if any of you are anal enough to do something like this, but if you check the clips I cut out above – eight of the ten come from the same game. Have I mentioned that Reynolds was really good against Miami?

That isn’t to say he was bad against Portland and Salt Lake, but there weren’t a lot of highlights to cut out in those games. Miami wasn’t a great team this year either. So while his attacking qualities are great – he needs to show them more often. It’s possible I just picked four games that weren’t his best (it’s what was available on ESPN+), but it would have been more encouraging to see at least one more standout performance in there.

Defense

I don’t think teams are knocking down the door for defensive fullbacks and that’s fortunate because it ain’t exactly Reynolds’ calling card. He’s not a disaster or anything, but he can be taken advantage of. When RSL was taking the game to Dallas for a stretch it was because Salt Lake was getting chances from Reynolds’ area. Here’s a couple examples:

Completely unaware of the attacker sneaking in behind him. Should have been a goal.
Ten minutes later in the same game he doesn’t track the runner and RSL nearly scores but manages to dorf the attack.
Loses track of Pizarro here for the goal – needs to be more aware of attackers
Tends to dive in a little playing 1v1. Almost costs him here.

I’m sure coaches look at these type of things and think, “I can fix that.” Maybe they can – their job is to teach/coach after all, but the point is that he’s not Sergino Dest. It’s going to take a little while before he’s ready for prime time.

*It’s worth remembering that he was a forward up until this year btw*

Final Thoughts

I asked a couple people for thoughts on Reynolds in the process of writing this and one person whose opinion I respect said, “His upside is Davies or Alexander-Arnold.” So while he may not be a finished product, that sounds like a player worth rolling the dice on.

I’ll leave you with this:

In the midst of getting picked on against RSL – Reynolds pops up with this combination and run (the cross got blocked out for a corner btw). Watching him flow down the sideline is a beautiful thing. I can imagine a scout seeing a couple of these clips and picking up the phone post haste.

We’re all rooting these guys. Go get em’, kid.

If you enjoyed this and would like to be informed of future articles type your email address in the box and you’ll be notified of each new post. Also, feel free to follow me on Twitter @blharreld 🤓

Spread the love

1 thought on “Scouting Report: Bryan Reynolds”

  1. Dallas defence plan in all those game Seattle, Portland, and salt lake were all road games , were to bunker and counter , and he force to defend first, he main job stay home, they pind down in all those game, but you seem not to watch the game against the best team league or western conference was kansas city., were dallas was not bunkering

Comments are closed.