Jonathan Spector’s former Under-17 national team coach likes the American’s move from defender to midfielder for his English Premier League club West Ham United.
“I’m happy for him,” FC Dallas assistant coach John Ellinger said. “He’s going to get closer to goal and I’m sure he’s thrilled to death every time he steps on the field. I’m sure he’s re-energized and excited about getting on the field and contributing.”
Ellinger coached Spector with the US Under-17s and remembers the Illinois native joining the Bradenton residency program as a forward before moving to central midfield and finally settling in at central defender.
Last week, the 24-year-old Spector showed off the forward skills of his early years, scoring two goals for West Ham in a 4-0 drubbing of his former club, Manchester United, in the Carling Cup quarterfinals. Hammers manager Avram Grant played the US international at central defensive midfield for the game.
[inline_node:307072]"Spector is a good professional and always tries hard," Grant told English daily TheTelegraph after the match. "I changed his position in training to midfield."
Since the brace, rumors of a move to the Bundesliga have died down and there are now talks of a new West Ham contract. Earlier this week, ESPN Soccernet reported a West Ham source as saying: “Maybe he's been in the wrong position all his life at fullback.”
It was the Ballymena U-17 tournament in May 2002 when Spector made the permanent move from central holding midfielder to central defender. Although the US was jam-packed with talents at midfield and forward, the U-17s had a serious hole that needed to be addressed on the back line.
“After the first half of our first game I wasn’t happy with what was going on at center back,” Ellinger recalled. “Before I went in to talk with the team I told my assistant [current Philadelphia assistant John Hackworth], ‘You have 10 minutes to tell Jon everything there is to know about playing center back. It was worse in the back so we needed to fix it. In the end, we had a better balance with the team with Jon as a center back.”
Although it wasn’t a perfect debut performance, Spector enjoyed a standout showing in the next match of the same Ballymena tournament and Manchester United scouts on hand in Northern Ireland took notice.
After joining the Red Devils in 2003, it was Manchester United that moved him to fullback and since then, he has proven to be a jack-of-all-trades across the back line for both club and senior national team, earning 28 caps in the process.
But Ellinger points out that Spector would not be the first player to make a successful switch from the back line to midfield, citing Colorado Rapids captain Pablo Mastroeni as another case in point.
It is the enhanced tactical awareness, the defensive skills acquired and the match experience gained from years as a center back that can make Spector equally effective in front of the back line, according to Ellinger. The only difference is that now Spector can be more offensive-minded.
“You see it when he gets forward as an outside back," Ellinger said. "Jon is the kind of player that loves it if he can push forward and attack.”
The next phase of the Spector experiment unfolds on Sunday at Sunderland in EPL action.
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