Looks like a huge upgrade on Zavaleta.
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That's more like it - younger, would push Omar.
Chris Mavinga would know him from their youth academy days at PSG
Omar becomes tradeable only if TFC signs another starter calibre CB
Interesting. Very interesting.
I was going to type this, then I saw you said it already!
Omar should be in LA, he is a massively wasted marketing asset in Toronto. The guy won championships there and in Mexico, and really, nobody here cares.
I think MLS' allocation rules around guys who return are too “one size fits all” and generally suck. If Seba comes back for a swan song here, which I think he should, I am not going to enjoy the allocation order bs that will go with that.
If you can get rid of him for anything, I would, and find yourself another good CB. If not, that’s fine. Gives you the option to run 3 in the back, or have a decent CB to come off the bench. Long season, injuries, champions league, Canadian Cup. You need at least 4 CN that you can trust.
I think we have Omar for one more season and then a club option after that. I don’t think we’d get much by trading him, other than freeing up some TAM space. I hardly think Omar is the primary issue with this team, although adding CB depth will be important. TFC was pretty strong last season in goals against. After we moved stateside, the only game we allowed more than two goals was against Philly. The issue I saw with the team was the ability to score goals.
I get some Kantari vibes from Landre. Bounced around between Ligue 1/2, same age. Granted I have not watched him play at all. I’d rather target someone similar to Mavinga. When we brought him over he was 25 and still had room to grow.
I wouldn’t suggest Omar is the primary issue either and I think a trade would be more a function of player preference than a desire to push him out.
BUT
I don’t think he’s particularly top value for his pay packet and he’s certainly not getting any faster with age. So, if a team made me an offer and Omar wanted to go, I’d be inclined to listen.
You need 3 decent CBs to be successful now in this league. That is why Ciman was hired - to be that 3rd guy. When I said push Gonazalez, I meant push him to stay as the #2.
MLS allocation list says Victor Vasquez is currently without a club.
Seems a no brainer if he's on a TAM or regular deal.
Check out this tweet at https://twitter.com/JozyAltidore/status/1348758442186575872
eyes emoji
Michael Barrios just moved to Colorado for a fucking song. Can the front office please sort their shit. That’s the kind of winger we could of used.
That is an insanely cheap price.
Guy is on $500k a year and is hands down one of the most underrated players in MLS. Mainly causes he played in the wrong market.
Why can’t we make moves like these?
Curtis and Manning should be having a presser in the coming days to announce Armas. We should get a completely meaningless update on our DP search at that time.
I don't think that will happen but if I were to guess the worst case scenario, it would be that they'd graduate more players from the academy, maybe sign a CPL player or two, and recall Dunn & Romero from loan then use the young guys a lot. Trial by fire style and it'd be U-G-L-Y.
So now we have Armas, time to look at the current players we have and maybe do a spec thing on whether they fit a quicker tempo (I'm not talking about a press here - just quick incisive ball movement)
GK
Westberg - yes, good quick distributor of the ball
Bono - not accurate with distribution
Silva - unknown
Defenders
Auro - nope, thinks too much and the slowest throw in taker in the league
Dunn - unknown
Gonzalez - no speed but can make an incisive pass, does not doddle on the ball
Mavinga - has speed but not great passer, needs people to make movements
Laryea - yup, likes to move it fast and go
Romeo - unknown
Midfielders
Bradley - if forced to can move the ball quickly but wants to make the better pass rather then the quick one
Osorio - yes, on toast - always likes to move the ball, always looking for an outlet and always looking to be the outlet, can find a path through if nothing provided
Delgado - same but needs an outlet more then Osorio
Dorsey - unknown
Endoh - wants to move quickly but not all that fast or accurate and can't seem to find space
Fraser - not incisive in his off the ball movements but can make the quick pass if gets into a rhthym
Pozuelo - quick tempo, yes, but needs to be given outlets, best midfielder in the league when ball moves a lot
Marshal Rutty - less unknown then others with a tendency to want to move quick and find space but sooooooooo raw
Okello - unknown
Priso - a younger Osorio, so far
Shaffleberg - doesn't find spaces enough
Forwards
Jozy - can come back and play the quick passing game (was doing that in NYRB last season) - needs motivation to play quick balls in front of net
Achara - maybe but coming back from ACL & MCL
Akinola - yes but tends to play off the shoulder and be an outlet rather then come back
Mullins - 2014 MLS doesn't do quick - like him but not a quick guy
Nelson - unknown
Perruzza - unknown
******************
Players that have to change their style to play quicker
Auro, Bradley, Fraser, Shaff, Mullins, Jozy, Bono
I expect a few of those to not be around by mid season.
Hiring Armas flies in the face of a strategy that involves starting both Michael Bradley and Jozy Altidore. Going to be a interesting year.
I wonder if we look at bringing in Bruma again. He has played in the red bull system and is a free agent this summer.
Ali Curtis is finally starting to impose himself in TFC after Vanney was let go of. We're now going to move away from the win-now-at-all-costs approach and start building for the future. Expect more young/academy players to be integrated into the team as well as the club looking for younger replacements for Jozy, Bradley, and Omar if they aren't in the club. Armas is coming in merely as a head coach and not as a manager, so the majority of the squad building will be on Curtis and Manning.
In contrast, Bezbatchenko, whilst he's great, is more of a win-now guy, and we've yet to see him rebuild a team once they've gone as far as they could. Maybe if he spends more time with Columbus, we could see that. Curtis, though, has come into rebuild TFC's squad and help us move on from our current spine. Let's see how he good he really is at finding talented young players now that he doesn't have Red Bull's network to rely on.