Much has been made the past few days – months, even – about the state of Jozy Altidore’s club form. Add to that the ongoing repatriation of other USMNT mainstays such as Clint Dempsey, Michael Bradley and, now, Mix Diskerud, and some (US manager Jürgen Klinsmann chief among them) have voiced concerns about a dip in national-team form.

Here’s the thing: Altidore has scored before for both club and country, and not been half-bad at it. He will score again. But for a broken nose, Dempsey’s World Cup was typically gritty, productive Deuce. And while Bradley had a mostly ineffectual tournament by his standards, it has been papered over recently by the emergence of Diskerud.

No, the US attack will be fine. Just look at the talent both recently arrived and waiting in the wings, much of it scattered across Europe, and breathe a little easier. But only a little. Because even a cursory glance toward the back line will set the most diehard of Outlaws knocking down Tim Howard’s door demanding an immediate return to the fold.

Heaven help the man who reads too much into results from the so-called silly season, but it is hard to ignore the worrying trend behind last year’s consecutive 1-1 draws, against Ecuador and Honduras, plus losses to Colombia and Ireland despite leading in both: conceding late. What started in the buildup to the World Cup carried through the summer tournament and culminated in that deflating 4-1 defeat to a B-team Ireland side in December.

Klinsmann has publicly stated he believes MLS is inferior to the European leagues. He is at least in part correct. Quick – point to a striker in MLS with the capabilities of those who roam the pitches of many top-flight leagues in Europe. Or a midfielder with the tactical acumen that ranks among the world’s best. It’s not there, and while it may yet come, Klinsmann is promising better results in the here and now. It’s hard to see how without a stouter central defense.

No doubt the step down in quality stunts the growth of the ever-growing MLS representation along the back line. Those late goals? You can chalk many of them up to a lack of focus; tired legs and minds make mistakes, which are magnified by the kind of world-class subs that simply don’t exist in this corner of the Western Hemisphere. All it takes is one mental lapse for the likes of Romelu Lukaku to gut a defense.

The problem: a look at the current roster – albeit one in flux – and the talent pipeline feeding into it gives little reason for optimism. There may have been no more tell-tale sign of this than the decision to try out Jermaine Jones at center back.

Can Jones really be the answer in the middle? It’s no stretch to think he can effectively bully the minnows of Concacaf, and he provides enough in the way of top-flight European experience to bring cohesion to the unit. But he will also be pushing 37 by Russia 2018, and given the way Klinsmann unceremoniously dismissed ageing defensive stalwarts Steve Cherundolo and Carlos Bocanegra last World Cup cycle, it’s hard to imagine the manager will want to count on Jones beyond qualifying. There’s also the small, not insignificant bit about his move to MLS’s New England Revolution, and his social media output of late suggests an admirable if professionally damning affinity for the US.

Omar Gonzalez is a curious case for sure. He’s big, he’s mobile (when healthy), and he has flashed moments of brilliance – his part in 2013’s clean sheet at the Azteca comes immediately to mind. But he almost always seems to provide one or two match-altering head-scratchers and too often relies on heroic defending tactics resulting from poor reads. And he has previously pledged his allegiance to his current MLS club, LA Galaxy.

The other half of Klinsmann’s most-used central pairing, Matt Besler, has been the USMNT’s most consistent force in the middle but looked badly gassed last autumn after nearly two years of non-stop football. Ordinarily he is composed on the ball, solid in the air and positions himself well to close down passing lanes, attributes that will serve any center-back well. He also committed last summer to staying with Sporting Kansas City for the foreseeable future.

Geoff Cameron is based in Europe, but Klinsmann seems to prefer the versatile Stoke City man as a plug-and-play option. Besides, he has looked best – at least in this writer’s mind – when playing for country in the midfielder destroyer role. He doesn’t even feature at center back with his club and has occasionally struggled to find minutes in the past. (There’s also the small matter of his ball-watching blunder in the dying seconds against Portugal.)

Meanwhile, Nottingham Forest’s Eric Lichaj can’t seem to break Klinsy’s rotation despite showing well enough for club the past several years. Maybe Bolton’s Tim Ream is the hero the US needs now that he has been brought back in from the cold? His distribution out of the back is commendable, but much like Cameron at Stoke, Wanderers have been keen to utilize Ream along the flanks.

This seemingly pins the development of the central defense in the immediate future to young John Brooks, he of the set-piece match-winner against Ghana. Although his defending has at times looked reactionary, his youth and his current league (Germany’s Bundesliga) bode well for the kind of maturation Klinsmann needs from his defense. Only time will bear it out.

And that is, of course, something to be hopeful of: it’s still very early in this cycle, and if Klinsmann has shown anything, it’s that he isn’t afraid to feature previously unknown quantities in the team, often to good results. One name to watch: Steve Birnbaum, in California currently as part of the annual January camp and fresh off a rookie season with DC United in which he was often cited (stop us if you’ve heard this before) as possessing the poise of a veteran despite his debutant status.

Klinsmann is also doing his part, scheduling a slate of US friendlies in 2015 that should prove beneficial. The months ahead of this summer’s Gold Cup will feature no fewer than five teams from last year’s World Cup field – Chile, Mexico, Switzerland, the Netherlands and trophy winner Germany. These are the kinds of matches the US has been starved of in the past. It’s an experience they would do well to learn from.