Cummins is being scapegoated to an extent

[jloome]

...sure, he's got issues. But a) we know nothing about whether there's upstairs influence in some decisions, such as repeatedly playing Garcia, who is Mo's boy.

b) The players, ultimately, have failed on three coaches now. That's an indication that we have players who don't have the character to compete at this level as starters.

Yes, I agree that he hasn't managed subs as well as he could. I'd also say that he should've brought in Fellinga a couple of games ago, if for no other reason than to switch up our formation.

But if all anyone focuses on is that the extremely inexperienced coach didn't get it done, they're missing the bigger picture. This is a failure on four levels:
* Cummins, for (in as much as we can tell) not managing his players and instilling the required confidence or desire to win;
* The players, for chickenshit last 15 minute performances over and over again, along with a general timidity in movement. Several times yesterday, De Guzman was visibly frustrated trying to get someone who'd moved upfield to come back and act as a link. Simple, basic shit like support play, in other words.
* Mo, for giving us starters who are bench players at best. Building half a team and signing JDG isn't good enough for three years of bungling. Anyone think that last shot would've gone over Tyrone Marshall's head?
* MLSE. They've done a whole lot right, but if all they look at is Mo's good points, we're gonna go through this shit time and again.

As a whole, there should be a housecleaning, and I'd particularly include about a third of our starting team with that.

[Beach_Red]

Do we need to clean out most of the supporters, too?

Sorry, but a failure on all four of those levels? The owners, the manager, the coach and the players?

What you're saying is you'd like MLS to give Toronto a new team - if only someone else had stepped up before....

[Cashcleaner]

Good points all around. I would agree to some extent Cummins is getting blamed for issues that are beyond his control. Frankly if I had a choice between him and Mo over who to drop from the club, it would be a fairly even argument against each.

I don't think Mo can cut it and that's all there is to it. I think Cummins could be a good head coach someday, but probably no time soon. I totally agree that he needs to work on motivation and building confidence within the team.

I think most players are not deserving of much of the criticism they receive, though. On paper when you break individual down skills and whatnot, we have a very strong roster. Something obviously isn't working when we fail to make the playoffs with it, though.

[WHITEY]

I don't know about a housecleaning. What must happen is getting a proper coach that can manage his team, change tactics on the fly in game, and this one's for you Flush know when and how to use his freaking subs. If we bring in a new coach and still have these failures then yes a housecleaning is probably in order.

[Cashcleaner]

I don't know about a housecleaning. What must happen is getting a proper coach that can manage his team, change tactics on the fly in game, and this one's for you Flush know when and how to use his freaking subs. If we bring in a new coach and still have these failures then yes a housecleaning is probably in order.

Fuck me, yes!!! Carver was just as bad with timing his substitutions as well, though.

[jloome]

It's notable that we've had three head coaches and not one of them was ever a full-time head coach before here.

Having said that, our GM signs the likes of Garcia and Vitti to address our defence and offense respectively. Garcia was seriously on the wane before we got him -- San Jose fans will tell you he was their weakest link -- and Vitti had a total of two goals in several pro seasons.

And MLSE hasn't recognized this, ergo its inclusion.

As for the players, most people on here will quite willingly cough up a list of who should go, so that's four.

Sorry Beach, can't see why you think this is on one man. You win battles by fixing just a portion of an issue, but you don't win wars. Plus, who said anythign about firing MLSE. Saying they failed isn't the same as saying 'take the team away.'

[ArmenJBX]

We've "housecleaned" every single season. Look at last year. Now look at this year.

--------------Sutton-------------
-Wynne--Velez--Marshall--Brennan
-------Robinson--Guevara--------
Ricketts------------------Smith--
------Dichio---------Barrett------

and now we have

------------Frei-----------------
Wynne--Nana--Serioux--Brennan
--------JDG---Cronin-----------
Vitti-----------------De Rosario-
-------Barrett---Gerba---------

and a plethora of players with the ability to play anywhere (Sanyang, Robbo, OBW, etc)

If we houseclean again, who would we get rid of? Garcia and Barrett? Vitti's already leaving. When we call for players to leave, the team get's messed up. Sure, it's "for the better", but this years line up is completely different from last years, and the year before. We've had three unique Toronto FC's. Now we get rid of a couple players, and reinforce this squad, give us a good coach, and keep that for the next 3 years. We keep disrupting the system. It's time we work with what we have. Because if we continue to change the team, we'll never have a team, we'll have 11 players on the field.

[jloome]

We've "housecleaned" every single season. Look at last year. Now look at this year.

--------------Sutton-------------
-Wynne--Velez--Marshall--Brennan
-------Robinson--Guevara--------
Ricketts------------------Smith--
------Dichio---------Barrett------

and now we have

------------Frei-----------------
Wynne--Nana--Serioux--Brennan
--------JDG---Cronin-----------
Vitti-----------------De Rosario-
-------Barrett---Gerba---------

and a plethora of players with the ability to play anywhere (Sanyang, Robbo, OBW, etc)

If we houseclean again, who would we get rid of? Garcia and Barrett? Vitti's already leaving. When we call for players to leave, the team get's messed up. Sure, it's "for the better", but this years line up is completely different from last years, and the year before. We've had three unique Toronto FC's. Now we get rid of a couple players, and reinforce this squad, give us a good coach, and keep that for the next 3 years. We keep disrupting the system. It's time we work with what we have. Because if we continue to change the team, we'll never have a team, we'll have 11 players on the field.

So we should keep Garcia, we shouldn't replace Brennan, we shouldn't replace Robbo, Vitti's fine with you etc.?

Pointless. This is MLS. You houseclean to some extent every season. But obviously I'm not talking about getting rid of the hwole team. We have a decent core.

But we need a new GM, and a new head coach, or one person to fill both roles.

We're at the point now where a lot of the pieces are in place. But without a gm or coach who can develop a balanced roster, and without our utility players having heart and sense, this'll be a perennial non-playoff team.

[Bobo]

Do we need to clean out most of the supporters, too?

Sorry, but a failure on all four of those levels? The owners, the manager, the coach and the players?

What you're saying is you'd like MLS to give Toronto a new team - if only someone else had stepped up before....

Actually yeah, 113 can be cleaned. Keep the guys in the first and maybe second rows, switch with the people up in the 200s and give them the chance to pretend to be supporters (no offense to RPBs stuck up there). It was so bad there yesterday, I almost allowed myself to feel embarrassed to be chanting. Had to leave at HT.


Anyway, not all CC's fault but looking back over the course of this tragic season, and the players that have cost us down the road, can we say anyone has lost us anywhere near as many points as CC and his ridiculous decisions? My 10 year old house league team played a better brand of footy.

[ArmenJBX]

So we should keep Garcia, we shouldn't replace Brennan, we shouldn't replace Robbo, Vitti's fine with you etc.?

Pointless. This is MLS. You houseclean to some extent every season. But obviously I'm not talking about getting rid of the hwole team. We have a decent core.

But we need a new GM, and a new head coach, or one person to fill both roles.

We're at the point now where a lot of the pieces are in place. But without a gm or coach who can develop a balanced roster, and without our utility players having heart and sense, this'll be a perennial non-playoff team.

That makes sence. But there are people who are calling for the removal of everyone except 5 players. Robbo should retire, Brennan should retire, Garcia needs to go, and yes, so should Vitti. But that doesn't mean we have to get rid of everyone, and start all over. What good would that do?

It didn't happen this year. For whatever reason, I don't know. But we're not out of it yet. If we do manage to make the playoffs, everyone will sing praises for each player. When we don't make playoffs, everyone calls for every player/managers head.

Keep the core of this squad. Just get a good manager who can make the most of them. That's all.

[Beach_Red]

It's notable that we've had three head coaches and not one of them was ever a full-time head coach before here.

Having said that, our GM signs the likes of Garcia and Vitti to address our defence and offense respectively. Garcia was seriously on the wane before we got him -- San Jose fans will tell you he was their weakest link -- and Vitti had a total of two goals in several pro seasons.

And MLSE hasn't recognized this, ergo its inclusion.

As for the players, most people on here will quite willingly cough up a list of who should go, so that's four.

Sorry Beach, can't see why you think this is on one man. You win battles by fixing just a portion of an issue, but you don't win wars. Plus, who said anythign about firing MLSE. Saying they failed isn't the same as saying 'take the team away.'

I don't think it's on one man, but as you said, the team has never had a coach with any head coachig experience. Not addressing that is certainly the biggest problem. The team is moving from its, "take what you can get," to a more proactive stage.

In most cases like we've seen this year, a few game ago the GM fires the coach and takes over himself - like Bob Gainey did last year, like happens all the time on teams with this GM-coach model of divided responsibilities. Probably not very many people here would have liked that to have happened, but why didn't it? Was it discussed at the upper levels of management?

The only thing keeping this inexperienceed coach in the position does is tells the next guy that at least he'll get a full shot - he won't meddled with and he wn't get dumped at the first sign of trouble. Maybe that message is a good one because it means a guy like Sigi wil sign on. Certainly an epxerienced coach would rather that than what's going on in New York.

This team kept bringing in new players (it's still bringing in new players, sheesh) but didn't address the lack of experience at coach. Why not? If the reason is because they thought this guy could do it, then they should have taken away the 'interim' label. If they didn't think he could do it, they should have replaced him - why didn't they?

You're right, the situation shouldn't have been let go as long as it has, but it would be nice to kow why.

And as for the "one guy" thing, see the Indianapolis Colts - before Tony Dungy they couldn't win even the big one even though they had Peyton Manning and Edgerrin James and so on. Coaches can make a big difference.

[Dirk Diggler]

I have to completely agree with jloome on this. After Cummins is replaced this off-season, we will have 4 head coaches in 4 years ... how many coaches need to ride the carousel for MLSE to catch on and figure that the problem is not merely just the coaches but the person who is in charge for bringing them in.

Even though I absolutely want Cummins gone I can understand why he would feel a little hard done here. I'm not defending his seemingly ridiculous comments over the past several weeks but if he is indeed feeling like a deer in headlights, that would explain why he has been so defensive lately. The guy is clearly in over his head ... yes ... but what he has been given to work with is not ideal in the least ... not to mention that he had to take over Carver's mess after he was fired (or "resigned") during the regular season.

[Kaz]

Last season when we had our starters with carver the team preformed very well, we saw it at the beginning of the season, we saw it at the end of the season, we didn't see it in the middle of the season.. with injuries and international duty.

This season we saw the same results with more depth and strong players every where by center back which has seen Nana improve but no strength added beyond that.

Add to that a assistant coach who had a head coaching position thursted upon him before he was ready has lead to poor formations, poor strategies and poor use of the subs.

This needs to changes, the failure of Toronto has been because of two people Mo, and Cummins. Garcia has been a failure on the team and should not be back next year. Cummins does not have the strength for the job, and needs to be replaces as any interm coach should be.

Cummins did his best given the GM we have, and the coaching staff we have, and the training facilities we have... sadly it wasn't enough, and we need new Staff a new GM, and a New Coach... in no particular order.

[rocker]

We've never had a real coach. Obviously the person who hires the coach is to blame for that. But the talent is there and we need a proven MLS coach to make the clock tick.

We have enough talent to be a playoff team in MLS. Does anyone really believe New england has MORE talent than TFC? No, but they have more points.. i wonder why?

[Pachuco]

I couldn't disagree more with this thread. We have not had 3 coaches with THIS team. We've had 3 coaches, but fuck me if you can actually think the first year team and this team are comparable. You can't even compare last year's team to this year's team. All I know is that this team on paper is a playoff team, and it is a team that is very much underperforming. The only inexperienced person here is the coach, and it shows.

[rocker]

the thing that scares me is we'll have another coach next year who has no fucking clue about MLS... who's doing "on the job training" in MLS like Mo, Carver, and Cummins were as head coaches. Enough! It's time to end this revolving door of coaches who have no pedigree, at the very least to ensure one less excuse.

If we had a big time MLS coach who succeeded elsewhere, and he still had problems with the composition of this team, we could point upstairs for the final solution. But right now, there's a great debate about whether it's the composition of the team or the composition of the coaching staff. I feel the latter is the problem, as I see our individual talent as easily as good or better than most teams I watch in this league.

At least if we bring in a proven MLS coach and still don't make the playoffs, we can say "look, it can't be the coach".

[Carts]

the thing that scares me is we'll have another coach next year who has no fucking clue about MLS... who's doing "on the job training" in MLS like Mo, Carver, and Cummins were as head coaches. Enough! It's time to end this revolving door of coaches who have no pedigree, at the very least to ensure one less excuse.

If we had a big time MLS coach who succeeded elsewhere, and he still had problems with the composition of this team, we could point upstairs for the final solution. But right now, there's a great debate about whether it's the composition of the team or the composition of the coaching staff. I feel the latter is the problem, as I see our individual talent as easily as good or better than most teams I watch in this league.

At least if we bring in a proven MLS coach and still don't make the playoffs, we can say "look, it can't be the coach".

+1

Coaches salaries don't go against the cap. MLSE needs to open bank book and send Mo out to bring in a top quality, experienced MLS coach...

LA proved that even if you have big name talent, you need a MLS coach in the MLS...

Nicol, Arena etc - do what needs to be done to bring someone of that caliber in. Buy them out, get them here... Whatever it takes..

Carts...

[ensco]

Sure. They are all to blame.

[Chevy]

I couldn't disagree more with this thread. We have not had 3 coaches with THIS team. We've had 3 coaches, but fuck me if you can actually think the first year team and this team are comparable. You can't even compare last year's team to this year's team. All I know is that this team on paper is a playoff team, and it is a team that is very much underperforming. The only inexperienced person here is the coach, and it shows.

I'm with you 100% on this one. With Sigi or Steve Nicol this team walks into the playoffs.

[Derko]

I am not a Chris Cummins basher by any means but:

From the 75th minute White should have been subbed. If you noticed Cummins was going to sub off Fellinga who was playing a steady game, he did not look tired, but when Barrett went down had to bring in Vitti to replace. Change up a defender and a mid-fielder as well, the fresh legs and fresh heads would have won the game. Yes I do blame Chris Cummins for what might as well have been a loss.

The team played very well, and if it wasn't such a must win game, I would not be as disappointed with the result.

My opinion only.

[Cashcleaner]

I couldn't disagree more with this thread. We have not had 3 coaches with THIS team. We've had 3 coaches, but fuck me if you can actually think the first year team and this team are comparable. You can't even compare last year's team to this year's team. All I know is that this team on paper is a playoff team, and it is a team that is very much underperforming. The only inexperienced person here is the coach, and it shows.

Exact-a-fucking-lutely.

And here's the kicker: There is NO cap on managers and staff. If we can put together a solid roster under the restrictions we have, than why the fuck can't we make that roster work when there are no restrictions for coaches or managers?

Once again, I think it must be mentioned that there really aren't any excuses for us not to have one of the best managers in the league. We're making almost as much revenue as the Galaxy. I know you're all sick of hearing it, but I'm sick of saying it as well. We need the brass to properly re-invest in this club. By that I mean spend up to the cap (right now that's pretty much taken care of), provide the best facilities for our players, and bring in the coaches, managers, and staff we need to build a playoff-contending team.

Personally, I don't think Cummins deserves to shoulder as much blame as some think, but the fact is that he was out of his depth with Toronto and we need someone who can take the talent we have now and put it all to good use.

[ofer]

MLSE - taking this team and managing it the same as the hockey team, we have full house we helping the community so why to win cups

[ofer]

by the way yes CC must go 2gether with few players Garcia Brennan Robo

[Super]

I think it goes without saying that a new coach is needed. We'll have a long winter break to find the right guy. The tricky part, though, is finding a coach willing to come to Toronto - who unlike the other teams have a GM right above the coach. I think other coaches in this league enjoy a bit more power within their clubs than they'd ever have at TFC.

[Beach_Red]

I think it goes without saying that a new coach is needed. We'll have a long winter break to find the right guy. The tricky part, though, is finding a coach willing to come to Toronto - who unlike the other teams have a GM right above the coach. I think other coaches in this league enjoy a bit more power within their clubs than they'd ever have at TFC.

It's tricky, but not impossible. There are a lot of aspects of being a GM in MLS that are not very appealing -- all those weird roster rules, the allocation money, the discovery claims, cap-management - they are specific skills that don't apply to any other league so they aren't much use.

TFC has a decent MLS roster (not top of the league, maybe, but some good young players and some real potential) so it might be a good opportunity for a coach to really prove himself.

[Ossington Mental Youth]

yeah i gotta say as crap as cummins is as a head coach alot of our problems still lie on Mo.

[egoodwin]

it's nothing against Cummins.. It's just that in a league of Kinnear, Arena, Yallop, Nicol, Sigi, etc, Cummins just doesn't shape up...

[ag futbol]

and a plethora of players with the ability to play anywhere (Sanyang, Robbo, OBW, etc)

No, it's more like a plethora of players we are forced to play everywhere because the roster is unbalanced and we sign strikers who bust so we pretend they can play on the wing. Every guy on that list has ONE natural position and should be playing here instead of us hammering a square peg through the round hole.

I heard concern about disruption to our system, but i'd say our system has simply been disruption. I hope for the sake of this team there is no more insane turnover this year ... but we find some way to provide balance.

[Ossington Mental Youth]

i do think Robbo, Guevara and Garcia are going to leave which is fine, we still have a good group of players that know each other, that does not negate that we need some wingers, a striker or two and some CBs

[Cashcleaner]

it's nothing against Cummins.. It's just that in a league of Kinnear, Arena, Yallop, Nicol, Sigi, etc, Cummins just doesn't shape up...

That's probably one of the best ways of putting it.