Originally Posted by
portu
Agreed, look at the Hamilton plus International Spot for Mullins trade.
We gave up the more valuable asset plus an international spot for Mullins. Going into the trade, Mullins (27) put up 1 goal in 35 and Hamilton (23) put up 8 in 34 since 2018. But Hamilton was inconsistent and Mullins had more than 100 MLS games to his belt, basically double Hamilton.
They could have given Akinola (19) the opportunity to step up (2 in 17 since 2018), but decided they'd rather pay a premium so that they wouldn't have to. We all saw Akinola this season, the kid didn't look half bad. But he made the bench 3 times in 23 matches after Mullins joined, playing 19 minutes against Ottawa only.
Ayo has 300 minutes of top flight football under his belt. For a guy with obvious talent, potential and a decent workrate that is nothing. He barely even played for TFC II this season.
What's the message in all of this? If we don't want to deal with the growing pains of the academy guy in front of you, we'll trade him for an unproductive journeyman coming off of knee surgery instead of giving you a shot. Oh, and we'll give up an asset worth decent GAM to do it.
Sure we made the finals, but was playing Mullins over Hamilton/Akinola really the difference? In ~650 minutes Mullins managed 3 goals to Hamilton's 5 for the club this year.
This club turned this vague opportunity to show a commitment to their player pathway into a clear rejection of it.