Armchair Analyst: Total shot ratio, a lack of identity and the USMNT's current woes

Welcome back to my Thursday Q&A series, where I pick one particular topic to write about - today's being the current funk of the US national team - and focus primarily upon that.
However... you should feel free to ask about anything game-related (MLS, USL, NASL, USMNT, Canadian MNT, whatever) in the comments section below, and I'll be around for the next several hours to answer your questions.

“I think that the tricky part with entering a new cycle is trying to look at new players but also still maintain the identity of what you want to be. I appreciate that they've tried to look at a lot of new players but I'm not sure what the identity is of what they're trying to build there.

“It looks to me too much like a bunch of guys kind of thrown together on the field.”

Those are the words of New York Red Bulls head coach (and former USMNT assistant) Jesse Marsch to BigAppleSoccer.com's Kristian Dyer. If you're familiar with my analysis of the US under Jurgen Klinsmann over the past couple of years, it's probably unsurprising to hear that I 100 percent agree with Marsch. HERE is Wednesday's column, in which I went into a little bit of depth about the current issues facing this group.

Here is what "thrown together" means: At this point, even if somebody's playing their normal position, chances are the person next to them is not. We saw this yesterday with Alejandro Bedoya - primarily a central midfielder with his club team and previously a wide midfielder with the US - asked to play primarily as a d-mid. We saw Brek Shea, who's finally playing left back with his club team, brought in as a left winger - a spot where Klinsmann hasn't used him regularly since 2013. We saw Gyasi Zardes, who scored 16 goals for the Galaxy as a center forward last season, labor through 65 minutes at right midfield.

And we've seen the US continue to lose. That is mostly ok, because it's only a friendly. But it's also not ok, because if there's no scientific method applied to team selection, tactics or formations when it comes to Klinsmann's current situation. Thus there is no control group, so anying we learned from the loss to Denmark - and learning from these friendlies is the point - is compromised by a lack of consistency in the methods the coach is choosing to apply.

As a smart person once said to me: Results without process is luck. Bad results with process can also be luck… but not when the results come in the same exact fashion.

They're coming the exact same fashion these days (late goals, dislocation between the midfield and defense, lack of chance generation) whether it's the World Cup or friendlies. And teams are just pounding us, as one astute observer noted on BigSoccer:

TSR (click the image) is a much more reliable metric for hockey than it is for soccer because chance quality varies much more wildly in our sport, and because game state has an outsized influence. But it's still telling that after being outshot 94-44 in the World Cup itself, we've followed it up by being outshot in seven of the next eight games as well. Good teams, at all levels, don't let that happen.

Klinsmann's tried the 4-3-3, and the 4-2-3-1, and the diamond 4-4-2, and a flat 4-4-2, and the 3-5-2 and a flat, high block/low block 4-4-2 (like Atletico Madrid play) since the World Cup.

The one thing he hasn't tried is consistency. With so many changes from game to game, and so many guys playing out of position, what are we really learning here? And is it about the players, the team the tactics or the coach?