Next Coach discussion - update Herdman is now coach

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Originally Posted by SirBobSaget

How awful has this Terry period been? This has to be the last time he is allowed anywhere near a team. They should have fired the interim for another interim after 4 loss start.
With Bob they had 18 Pts in 20 Games, with Dunfield 3 in 12 while losing 2 league cup matches! 1 win and 13 losses!!

To contrast, Javier Perez an actual qualified manager and not someone Bill Manning knows managed a 5-9-9 record, not great but 24 pts in 23 games with no DPs is not a catastrophe.

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Not sure if we’re back to being the worst team in the world but there probably aren’t many leagues in which winning nothing on the road for as long as we have and being outscored as much as we have would be anything other than bottom of the table.

After so many bad years and then a total turnaround I didn’t expect we’d be back here again so agonizingly soon: ridiculous corporate monetary wealth and so little knowledge about what to do with it. But isn’t that MLSE more often than not? We’re stuck with it.

And only this to add: Manning may not be as clueless as our former clueless ones but at times he’s acted the part. Sometimes perfectly (Goodbye Vanney and welcome, his buddy, Ali Curtis) and sometimes just poor judgement. The later can appear subtle (Welcome Bob Bradley coach and sporting director!) but really isn’t. BB has never been a SD and is fundamentally not suited to be one. This anyone who has real knowledge should be wise to. It’s not always about hiring the incompetent ones or the shysters… it’s about paying attention and a little depth.

As a Nats fan (as much as Soccer Canada/CSB can allow such a thing, that thing of being taken, of being a sucker), I hope Herdman can pull off something here.

But hmm, no club experience for our manager and no GM experience for our GM. From the fans point of view (not the corporate one - MLSE are the slowest overlords in world football, they don’t know the meaning of accountability) Herdman better work fast. So far I’m not impressed… taking the gig and then hanging around and watching us play like shit just like we’ve been doing for months (hasn’t he seen us play?) sounds like a national team manager’s sense of time. Of course, maybe he has all the time in the world like Bob and Terry have had. No matter, I’m not buying any more tickets until I see something respectful AND artful on the pitch. Youngsters trying hard (should we find a few more of those), sorry, that won’t - and shouldn’t - cut it.

I’m okay with losing and being poor if there is a good reason for it. Being run by incompetent people is not a good reason, not an acceptable situation.

I'm going to keep banging this drum, Javier Perez needs to be brought back in some way. Assistant or academy guy, we need pedigree badly.

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Originally Posted by Richard

I'm going to keep banging this drum, Javier Perez needs to be brought back in some way. Assistant or academy guy, we need pedigree badly.

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The pedigree of doing nothing except run a fancy website and some YouTube videos?

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Originally Posted by Ultra & Proud

The pedigree of doing nothing except run a fancy website and some YouTube videos?

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Dude, that's grossly unfair. He taught at Real Madrid's youth academy, he ran the US Under 18 program for several years. He was objectively better than Armas with a bad team.

I'm not saying he deserves a shot managing yet because he doesn't really project that sort of dynamism, but he's not lacking resume.

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Originally Posted by jloome

Dude, that's grossly unfair. He taught at Real Madrid's youth academy, he ran the US Under 18 program for several years. He was objectively better than Armas with a bad team.

I'm not saying he deserves a shot managing yet because he doesn't really project that sort of dynamism, but he's not lacking resume.

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I stick to what I have aways said; if he was as good as people here envision then why is he forever unemployed as a manager? His other old teams haven't asked him back either and no lower level teams ever bothered. There is a reason for that. Also objectively better than Armas was still not good and around Bob level-ish with a better (but not great) roster. He benefited from Armas being almost as bad as Terry more than anything else.

He is similar to Giovinco in that 10 years from now after Perez still has done nothing, people will still say we should bring him back and give him a shot.

The truth is probably somewhere in the middle. He's not useless, and has something about him, but we probably should be aiming higher all the same

I do feel bad though that his first gig which is so important was such a train wreck of a club, it may have set his career back years. And any manager at TFC with the balls so sit Michael Bradley deserves some level of respect

https://www.timescolonist.com/nation...s-face-7675661

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Originally Posted by Oldtimer

https://www.timescolonist.com/nation...s-face-7675661

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He's remarkably blunt for a football manager, isn't he? Basically he boils it down to bad teams that are losing lose their drive to perform and "permissiveness sets in."

He's not wrong.

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Originally Posted by jloome

He's remarkably blunt for a football manager, isn't he? Basically he boils it down to bad teams that are losing lose their drive to perform and "permissiveness sets in."

He's not wrong.

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He mentions that most would like to see ‘people out’ - meaning players gone. Certainly most on this board seem to think so. But when has that ever worked for us?

Maybe I’m forgetting something. Of course, mostly things haven’t worked out for us. But the biggest purges have been the shittiest seasons. And our only success, to some degree, worked intelligently with what we had, added intelligently to that.

I think what happened was simple. BB was never the talent acquisition guy. We let him and MB do it and they completely screwed the pooch.

I have little faith that Hernandez would be better, and am disappointed that Herdman didn’t make dealing with that a condition of joining. (I guess the Rubio hire could be good, but I don’t like Manning making this call, especially as Rubio is a former employee here - all it really tells me is that Manning is “comfortable”. Wonderful.)

I do think that Herdman will be much better at figuring out how to take what he has and do better with it. BB was a complete martinet for his system, BB was just a bullet head that way, Paul Westhead on the Lakers (you need to have watched Winning Time to get this one).

Herdman will make us a better team, but whether we really succeed in time depends on Manning's hand picked guys… a terrible bet it seems.

That is my unified field theory of TFC.

On the academy players getting another shot under Herdman,

I stand by this tweet from July

Check out this tweet at https://twitter.com/OgtheDim/status/1684379260402774016

Time to move on

^We have to figure out how to repatriate GTA players that went to Europe age 16-17 and are now bouncing around because it's now clear they are not Alphonso Davies, but still have lots of potential at the MLS level.

There are quite a few of them. It would cost money.

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Originally Posted by ensco

I think what happened was simple. BB was never the talent acquisition guy. We let him and MB do it and they completely screwed the pooch.

I have little faith that Hernandez would be better, and am disappointed that Herdman didn’t make dealing with that a condition of joining. (I guess the Rubio hire could be good, but I don’t like Manning making this call, especially as Rubio is a former employee here - all it really tells me is that Manning is “comfortable”. Wonderful.)

I do think that Herdman will be much better at figuring out how to take what he has and do better with it. BB was a complete martinet for his system, BB was just a bullet head that way, Paul Westhead on the Lakers (you need to have watched Winning Time to get this one).

Herdman will make us a better team, but whether we really succeed in time depends on Manning's hand picked guys… a terrible bet it seems.

That is my unified field theory of TFC.

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Agreed.

My concern is that, while Hernandez stands up and talks about repeating the old ways being insanity, they’ve offered NOTHING new or innovative with the current approach.

Analytics, people talking to one another, reorganizing departments… if these things succeed, at best it makes us average because any functional team in MLS is already doing this stuff. There’s a complete lack of acknowledgment from TFC leadership this is a competition and you need an edge to beat the next guy. But I suppose none of this is surprising when we’re owned by a couple of oligopolists who don’t understand this sort of dynamic to begin with.

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Originally Posted by ensco

^We have to figure out how to repatriate GTA players that went to Europe age 16-17 and are now bouncing around because it's now clear they are not Alphonso Davies, but still have lots of potential at the MLS level. There are quite a few of them. It would cost money.

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There are :)...

A shortlist?

https://ca.soccerway.com/players/players_abroad/canada/

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Originally Posted by Mr. Inbetween

There are :)...

A shortlist?

https://ca.soccerway.com/players/players_abroad/canada/

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Although to be frank, 90% of the guys on that list will never play in MLS. Most aren't marginals, they're guys who already had their shot at this level or have never gotten close.

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Originally Posted by jloome

Although to be frank, 90% of the guys on that list will never play in MLS. Most aren't marginals, they're guys who already had their shot at this level or have never gotten close.

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Yeah, tricky. Many either too expensive if they would be willing to play here, still with a shot at the better level, or not at this level.

Though to be fair, who could be we have hired who knows more than Herdman about this player pool? No one. It’d be strange if he didn’t try and take good advantage of that (even if he’s previously been an advocate for not being satisfied with making a career in MLS!).

Not so sure of the source… but this says a ton if true

Check out this tweet at [COLOR=#000000]https://twitter.com/tfcnewsoutlet/status/1713205363661488376?s=20[/COLOR]

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Originally Posted by Bushmancan

Not so sure of the source… but this says a ton if true

Check out this tweet at [COLOR=#000000]https://twitter.com/tfcnewsoutlet/status/1713205363661488376?s=20[/COLOR]

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It would be nice if they could decide on his future before Saturday so he can get a proper send off.

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Originally Posted by ag futbol

Agreed.

My concern is that, while Hernandez stands up and talks about repeating the old ways being insanity, they’ve offered NOTHING new or innovative with the current approach.

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Well first you have to do the basics...then you can innovate.

Then again, I'm a post-modernist and believe all new things are really just moving around of old things into new patterns.

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Originally Posted by Bushmancan

Not so sure of the source… but this says a ton if true

Check out this tweet at [COLOR=#000000]https://twitter.com/tfcnewsoutlet/status/1713205363661488376?s=20[/COLOR]

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Its from Davidson's article https://www.sootoday.com/national-sp...s-face-7675642

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He knows the respect I have for him," Herdman said. "He knows that I think heroes have always got to return and there's an opportunity to return next year for Mike. What he has innately as a human being is a leadership quality and quantity that you just can't buy … But I think for Michael he's got to really feel that this is where he wants to be. He's got to feel the purpose. He's got to feel that Toronto FC and that return to rebuild the club is what he wants to invest his life in.

"And if it's not there at 100 per cent, we both know it can't work. And we've been honest.

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I think that is...refreshing from Herdman.

^thanks… better context

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Originally Posted by OgtheDim

Its from Davidson's article https://www.sootoday.com/national-sp...s-face-7675642




I think that is...refreshing from Herdman.

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I do wonder however if he hasn't heard an earful already from Shaffleburg or MacNaughton about life under Bob, and where Bob got his roster advice from.

Herdman probably doesn't want the ex-coach's ineffective 36-year-old son playing next year. But he's being classy about it.

Anyone watching Shaffelburg help Nashville pull New England to pieces tonight? Tale of two Bradley decisions, right there: Shaffelburg sets up two goals, Nashville fans consider him a top-10 winger in the league, and say McNaughton has arguably been better than Zimmerman. Meanwhile, in New England, MAK continues to cough up the ball and make poor decisions defensively.

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Originally Posted by jloome

I do wonder however if he hasn't heard an earful already from Shaffleburg or MacNaughton about life under Bob, and where Bob got his roster advice from.

Herdman probably doesn't want the ex-coach's ineffective 36-year-old son playing next year. But he's being classy about it.

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Oso, Laryea too. Maybe even MAK.

This is exactly right. I hope MB will just negotiate the buyout this week, and we move on…

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Originally Posted by OgtheDim

Its from Davidson's article https://www.sootoday.com/national-sp...s-face-7675642




I think that is...refreshing from Herdman.

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He is the captain so he does have a purpose, having played 10 seasons here, where his two children have grown up and the youngest was born. Toronto is where he has lived the longest in his entire life, it is not like he was jetting off somewhere else once the season ended. The big thing will be how much of this roster turns over and where the new pieces fit in thus deciding exactly what Michael's role will be. There are a lot of moving parts here. Plus once and for all the future of the Italians has to be decided.

^No it is simpler than that.

He can’t do it anymore but has a year left on his deal. Plus, as jloome said, he is a kind of former GM - it's poison in the room, it has to be. Herdman is being nice, but getting MB out has to be pretty much his first priority.

Only question is whether we have to use the buyout on him, when we need it elsewhere (eg Diomande, maybe Petretta, maybe Rosted). After that is figured out, we can do the tribute bit.

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'Fraid our first overall super draft pick, which you will notice is never mentioned by anyone in management, must be a goner, as part of these calculations- given the price was the third overall pick to “buy a buyout” on the much-less-expensive Dom Dwyer a couple of years ago.

Yeah, let’s call a spade a spade here. Bradley needs to move on. If he comes back to TFC one day so be it but for now it’s time for a break.

ENSCO’s said it perfectly. He’s got nothing left in the tank and from a leadership perspective he’s a complicated person to have around because of the dynamics with Bob.

Yes, in many ways Bob being brought in, dramatically changed how Michael's time was going to end, how he is being perceived as he is declining as a player. At $614K think it is unlikely they would be able to find another team to take on the buy out like they did with Dwyer? If he does leave, will be interested to see if he ends up somewhere, guess that is for another day.

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Originally Posted by ensco

^No it is simpler than that.

He can’t do it anymore but has a year left on his deal. Plus, as jloome said, he is a kind of former GM - it's poison in the room, it has to be. Herdman is being nice, but getting MB out has to be pretty much his first priority.

Only question is whether we have to use the buyout on him, when we need it elsewhere (eg Diomande, maybe Petretta, maybe Rosted). After that is figured out, we can do the tribute bit.

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'Fraid our first overall super draft pick, which you will notice is never mentioned by anyone in management, must be a goner, as part of these calculations- given the price was the third overall pick to “buy a buyout” on the much-less-expensive Dom Dwyer a couple of years ago.

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Originally Posted by ensco

^No it is simpler than that.

He can’t do it anymore but has a year left on his deal. Plus, as jloome said, he is a kind of former GM - it's poison in the room, it has to be. Herdman is being nice, but getting MB out has to be pretty much his first priority.

Only question is whether we have to use the buyout on him, when we need it elsewhere (eg Diomande, maybe Petretta, maybe Rosted). After that is figured out, we can do the tribute bit.

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'Fraid our first overall super draft pick, which you will notice is never mentioned by anyone in management, must be a goner, as part of these calculations- given the price was the third overall pick to “buy a buyout” on the much-less-expensive Dom Dwyer a couple of years ago.

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Adama is apparently part of Herdman’s “team of winners” noted in the article so not sure the buyout gets used there…

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Originally Posted by Gringo Starr

Adama is apparently part of Herdman’s “team of winners” noted in the article so not sure the buyout gets used there…

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Not if he’s crocked. I think Herdman is being diplomatic, prudent, respectful. For the moment he’s on the team and he is a veteran who has won. It’s not good form to piss off your players unnecessarily.