In the first part of this series, we looked at a standard four-man backline, comprised of players who joined MLS over the offseason. In this part, we are moving forward into midfield, where we will break down a defensive midfielder, a box-to-box midfielder and an attacking midfielder — three players who are worth paying extra attention to this season.



Defensive midfielder: Gedion Zelalem, NYCFC



If you want to get technical about things, former Arsenal prospect Gedion Zelalem isn’t new to MLS. He played a handful of games for Sporting Kansas City last season, but only made one full, 90-minute appearance for Peter Vermes. Zelalem, who only just turned 23 years old last Sunday spent more time playing for Swope Park Rangers (now Sporting Kansas City II) in the USL Championship than he did for SKC in MLS. Also, if I’m being totally honest, when I was mapping out which players I was going to analyze for this series, Zelalem was the first player that I...