I agree on both sides. Personally I would not spend on a DP CB, but it will also be interesting to see what the impact one would have, as we have yet to see it.Originally Posted by LFC8
There was a time not to long ago when people though that using a DP slot on a player in Bradley's position was a waste...
In a team with ours with Bradley to link the defence and attack, and Defoe up front, a player like Lescott would be interesting in central defense. If we are committing to a counter attacking style that speed of transition from Lescott to Bradley and onward could be really effective.
Sorry if this has been covered on here but what is the length of Gilberto's deal? 2 years?
It depends on the player.
DeGuzman didn't win balls or distribute all that well. Bradley wins balls and distributes well.
DP forwards win you games, DP defenders get you draws. That's basically what it comes down to.
It wasn't just that - in general people thought that role wasn't worth spending much on. It was the emergence of Alonso and Beckerman that sort changed how people thought
DP defenders only get you draws? Every team in the MLS is averaging atleast 1 goal a game. Why? Because the defense is so poor in this league. The best country in the world in soccer (Spain) has a fantastic defense but no big name striker. Great forwards will win you games but great defenders will win you championships.
Although I hold to some degree a world-class striker is worth more than a world-class defender, in this case I'm strictly speaking about MLS. Spain has the most talent in the world currently and they play a style of soccer that at most 1 or 2 other countries could emulate. So if you can show me an MLS team playing elite-level tiki taka then I'll say DP forwards might not matter as much.
Montreal's defense was worse than ours last year but they made the playoffs because of Di Vaio. We're in very good position at the moment because of Defoe. Do you think we'd have as many points if you swapped out Defoe for Joleon Lescott?
^See that's a tough argument....Defoe is better at his position than Lescott is. Also, we've only given up 13 goals this season....2nd only to the Galaxy. So the numbers would tell us that we just need forwards so i would take Defoe. Now a team like Montreal would benefit more with a DP defender. Last year don't forget they had Nesta at CB and people will say he was past it but he was still top of the league in his position. Now he's gone and they're in last place. That significant drop is not on one player but i think it doesn't matter what position your DP plays in. Now let's say you had you're pick between Defoe, Bradley and Daniel Agger (age aside). Most teams would probably pick Defoe because goalscorers sell tickets....but in terms of value to the team i would say they are all equal and you can't go wrong with any one of them. If i'm Montreal i take Agger but if i'm Toronto i'd take Defoe and if i'm Los Angeles than i'd take Bradley. It's all what you're team need imo. Right now we have Defoe and Bradley...so the next step i think should be a DP defender.
Of the 6 times Montreal conceded 3 or more goals last season, Nesta started and played a full 90 in 5 of those games...Nesta being all great and such, I clearly remember Darren O'Dea of all people blowing right by him to score in his final game in a Toronto shirt
They also had 13 clean sheets last year and Nesta started 10 of those. Let`s be fair....a 37 year old is going to have some real stinkers but the majority of the time a player of his quality is going to get the job done.
It's about maximizing the value of the DP slot. You can defend far easier without a DP defender than you can score without a DP forward. Is the relative impact of a DP defender to the quality of a team's defense more or less than the impact of a DP forward to a team's offense? It's quite clearly less. Clint Dempsey can pick up the ball in midfield, dribble past a couple opponents and score from 30 yards. Lescott (or whoever) can't mark 2 players at once in the box when the rest of his defense lets him down.
The fact we currently have the 2nd best defense in the league speaks to this. There are no all-star defenders on TFC. But Nelsen has us organized at the back, and we're getting the job done. Replace Caldwell with Sergio Ramos if you like. We have a better chance of winning games - in this league - if Defoe was healthy and Ramos was injured, rather than if Defoe was hurt and Ramos was healthy.
Please explain the bolded bit. Not interested in how good Nesta was at Milan (when he was very, very good), but exactly how you think that his performances for Montreal made him a top defender in the league.
Also - Montreal are the poster case for a DP striker. They are a pretty mediocre team. Last year Di Vaio was hot and carried them to the playoffs. This year Di Vaio is not scoring and they bottom feeders. This is the difference with Montreal - not Nesta.
You only need look around the world to see where teams with limited money spend their resources when they can only afford a couple of star players, it is not on defenders. You can substitute individual greatness on defence with team organization, but attacking quality is far harder to engineer when you don't have anything to work with.
And despite your take the MLS defences are "poor" the goals per game are very similar to leagues like England and Germany. I don't see where the evidence is that the defending is bad. It's proportional to the quality of the league, or if anything, slightly further ahead because it's one of the few positions that can consistently be produced domestically.
13 clean sheets and he started 10 of um.
We can agree to disagree but you went too far with Ramos. If i can have any defender in the world right now it would be Ramos. I'm a huge England and Defoe supporter so there's no bias here.
Ramos is terrible at actually defending. He's also been sent off 27 times. There are other defenders who are good at attacking the ball on set-pieces who don't act like they are being controlled by a 12 year-old playing playstation.
^I'll just assume you're joking.
At some point a player is beyond his "best before" date.
Example in point: Nick Garcia was once one of the best defenders in the league and won an MLS Cup and Supporters Shield playing for KC. By the time Mo brought him in, he was totally shot and moved like a man in slow-motion.
So... what do people think of Gilberto?
Last edited by Oldtimer; 06-10-2014 at 02:00 PM.
MLS is a tough, physical league, that emphasizes speed, and features plastic fields, grueling travel, extreme weather, and incompetent refs. - NK Toronto
Gilberto has some new players around him and a 3 week break. With Warner, Oduro and Bradley coming back, the midfield will look the best it's ever been for this club. This brutal 10 game stretch is his time to prove his worth, if he doesn't perform by then I believe management will make other plans for that 3rd DP spot. Two assist and a good shift at full back won't be enough.
I think it was more to do with using our one and only DP slot on JDG at the time. I thought getting a youngish Canadian who had excelled in Europe was a bold move. I gave full credit to TFC at the time for using the slot that way. However, I didn't think JDG was going to make enough of an impact on the team to justify using the spot that way. If you've only got one DP, you're better off to use it either on someone who's going to score bucket loads of goals, someone who is going to make bucket loads of goals for others, or someone who is going to fill seats with their name alone. JDG was never going to do any of those.
^ I was very much for the JDG signing, I was hoping that it would have the same effect as Bradley a solid CDM can have a great effect on the entire team. I think it was a combination of JDG and his team mates, that did not work out, he came in passing just as he would in Spain, but the team was very static at the time, and he would be passing to were should have been going too but they seldon went there. Plus he was not dominant physically as I would like a CDM to be.
But on paper it was a great idea.
For what it's worth, I'm playing a be a pro season in fifa 14 (constrolling OSO), and Gilberto is goalless in 14 appearances. His digital copy even takes time to adjust to the MLS game.
I'm not. same goes for David Luiz actually. Both are fine footballers with great touch and inventiveness. But neither should be playing CB. Full back, maybe. Both would be far better midfielders.
I agree lets take New Zealand at the last world cup, hardly a world class side with Nelson past his prime who organised the defence and they had three draws, only unbeaten side at the world cup. Shows what team organization can achieve in defense without world class players.
So you are saying that Ramos and David Luiz are 'terrible at defending' ?
No personal offense, but in a soccer sense, that is about the dumbest shit I have ever heard. David Luiz is one of the greatest CBs playing today. I am not a huge fan of the EPL but he and Lampard have me backing Chelsea every time I watch them. (Lamps less so now) David Luiz has a higher soccer IQ than most teams do combined, he makes these gorgeous little moves that change the course of play. The man is a freaking genius, he has a great touch of course, but he doesn't even need to touch the ball to be in the play and be a serious difference maker.
WE DID IT!
Well Ramos played RB most of his career....he's just so good that he can play multiple positions. Now Luiz on the other hand is a perfect example of a 12 year old on a playstation lol If you had a camera on Luiz the whole game you would probably laugh your ass off.
He's a good footballer. His rampaging runs forward and nice touches would be very suited to a box-to-box midfielder's role or even as a DM. But he is so fucking clueless positionally it's almost painful to watch when he plays CB. He can tackle, sure. and he can pass. But has absolutely no sense of tracking runs or marking players. He is a big reason Chelsea were horrible at defending set-pieces this year. I'd say he has very little football IQ actually. Him and Phil Jones are very similar players in that respect, whereas people are pretty understanding of where Phil Jones is in his career (he's good at stuff, we just have no idea if it's going to translate to him playing CB), but people so deeply overate David Luiz that he's about to become the world's most expensive CB for a team that already has two 40 million pound CB's. He's really, really stupid at CB. I like him a lot more in midfield, but he's below average as a CB. his skills just don't translate.
That would be three points, aka not enough to qualify for the next stage of the tournament. And what is "undefeated" in this case can also be called winless. If it works so well, why aren't more people doing it?
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We've also played the fewest games in the entire league (11), having as many as five games in hand over a couple of teams right now. LA are tied with Montreal for second fewest games (12).
Our defence is probably middle of the pack, maybe lower, once we catch up a few of those games.
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