Deuce Is On The Loose

It was a pretty eventful weekend of FA Cup action for USMNTers. Brad Guzan turned in another strong performance in Aston Villa's 3-1 win over Bristol, making several stops and coming within a few minutes of a clean sheet. Even after conceding, Guzan still wowed, adding to his legacy of cup heroics by saving a stoppage time penalty to preserve Villa's two goal lead.

Landon Donovan, meanwhile, set up Everton's lone goal in a 1-0 win over Conference side Tamworth, a match in which Tim Howard kept a clean sheet.

But the biggest story of the weekend came from Craven Cottage, where Clint Dempsey continued his stellar run of form with a hat trick in a 4-0 win over Charlton:



The goals are Dempsey's 10th, 11th, and 12th of the 2011-12 season in all competitions, and the first hat trick of his already storied Fulham career. To put that in perspective, his career high for goals in a season was last season's total of 13. It's only January, and Deuce is already on the cusp of tying his career high. Needless to say, he's on pace to blow past that number in much the same fashion that Jozy Altidore looks set to do at AZ.

Just how many is Dempsey on pace for? As always, there are a number of variables at play that often make extrapolation like this highly inaccurate. For instance, will Fulham make a deep run in the FA Cup? Will Dempsey stay healthy? Will he be at Fulham after the window closes? (For this interested, I think he stays at least until summer). But let's look at the numbers nonetheless, just for fun:

To date, Dempsey has played in all 20 of Fulham's league matches, scoring 6 times. Assuming he is able to match his total of 37 league appearances from last year, Dempsey would be on pace for 11 league goals.

Fulham's European run is over, so Dempsey will not add to the 3 goals he has scored in continental competition.

Fulham are now in the fourth round of the FA Cup, having drawn Everton (setting up a mouth-watering match-up of Yanks, with Landon Donovan and Tim Howard)- for the sake of this quick exercise, we'll say that Dempsey scores once more in cup competition. So that's 4 total cup goals.

All told, that would give Deuce 18 total goals for 2011-12. 18. With interest in his services from other clubs already at an all-time high, a season like that would only boost his stock further ahead of the summer window.

While those numbers likely won't exactly mirror reality when all is said and done, this point remains: Dempsey is playing some stellar soccer right now that is commanding respect and drawing a lot of attention from clubs in Europe. With World Cup qualifying set to begin in June (with one of the two matches being away to Guatemala, arguably the US' stiffest test due to the hostile environment), Jurgen Klinsmann will be hoping Dempsey can keep that form up.

Speaking of the USMNT, let's take a look and see what Dempsey has managed to do since June of last year with both club and country. With 5 goals in 11 international appearances (3 goals in the Gold Cup), Dempsey's totals since last June come to 17 goals in 39 appearances, a damn impressive strike rate that's all the more impressive when one considers how much of that time was spent in the midfield.

Last year, prior to the Gold Cup, I hailed the upcoming season as "the Summer of Deuce", anticipating big things from the Texan. But perhaps I was a little short-sighted, as Dempsey seems determined to make this the Year of Deuce instead. He'll be 29 years old in a few months and has stated time and time again that he wants to play in the Champions League. With his continuous upward rise to the top tier of Premiership players (you read that right), there might not be a better time for him to take the leap to a top tier club.

But all of that is in the background. For now, Dempsey seems content simply bagging goal after goal with the Cottagers.

The Year of Deuce marches on.