He is probably my number one candidate then lol. Like the guy, hate the back loaded contract and his injuries.
He is probably my number one candidate then lol. Like the guy, hate the back loaded contract and his injuries.
Caldwell actually has been injury free for most of his career with TFC. the one this season IIRC is the only long injury absence he has with TFCOriginally Posted by pdubs
“Years have gone by and I’ve finally learned to accept myself for who I am: a beggar for good football.
I go about the world, hand outstretched, and in the stadiums I plead: ‘A pretty move, for the love of God.’
And when good football happens, I give thanks for the miracle and I don’t give a damn which team or country performs it.”
-Eduardo Galeano
True but next season he will be turing 35. Have to weight what he brings with the potential for more injuries. Idk
Caldwell is getting up there in age but I vote we keep him for the simple fact that moving him means we need to acquire not one but two stud CBs. We have a decent chance of being able to land one good CB, good enough such that him and Caldwell paired together are a formidable duo. We know what we've got in Caldwell; with a good partner we'd be solid in the back. I have little faith in management's ability to hit the bullseye on two CBs. There's also value in backline familiarity and we know at least one of our backline players will start next year (Morrow), with others possibly staying with the team and playing a role, so that's a plus for keeping Caldwell too.
It's incredibly disheartening to see a team like Vancouver come back from Costa Rica with a beast like Waston while we're stuck in our 8th season still searching for a rock solid CB. Given our history of failure in the CB position, the thought that we'd need to sign two bona fide starting CBs to have a legitimate backline to begin next season would make me incredibly anxious.
I hear what you're saying about familiarity and all but at that price.No Thanks. There are players out there, you just have to look and scout well. Colombus came up with Gonzalez who they flipped for a profit to an Italian club. Kc found Colin. Sj finds Bernardez. We see Watson and what he is doing. These are all players that were all much cheaper options yet more effective than Caldwell. No cap and it wouldn't really matter, but having Caldwell make as much as he does makes no sense on this team. He isn't horrible but just overpaid IMO and I think we could do better.
The way I see it, a lot of these players should be moved to TFC's USL Pro team when they bring it on line next year. Use the upgraded Salary Cap ($4-5 million) to get better talent for the main team. But that assumes that TFC has the ability to recognize talent. So I think the main priority this off season is to put together the best Scouting Corps in all of MLS.
I asked Larson on Twitter if he thought TFC might use the buyout on Caldwell. He believes Caldwell is part of the plans for next season.
Aurelien Collin's contract is up at the end of the season. He's looking for a huge raise. If TFC is willing to pay (likely approaching small DP money), he might be available. Will be 29 come March.
“Years have gone by and I’ve finally learned to accept myself for who I am: a beggar for good football.
I go about the world, hand outstretched, and in the stadiums I plead: ‘A pretty move, for the love of God.’
And when good football happens, I give thanks for the miracle and I don’t give a damn which team or country performs it.”
-Eduardo Galeano
Yes on scouting but no on moving the bulk of players to the USL.
Why?
Because you can't.
All contracts are held with the league. All of them. TFC can't bury contracts in the minors like the Leafs can. It's simply not a function of MLS.
Now, they can waive them. But the bulk of guys are on guaranteed money meaning TFC's budget (or cap as some call it) still takes the full hit.
MLS teams essentially choose players from the pool of contracts the league has. Which is why replacing Gordon or Plata or Eckersley or others is usually a lateral move.
The real key to improving the roster comes from the Discovery Signing route (Max 6) and the Draft. Scouting is key to doing both of those well.
I would rather have Ernest T Bass as manager than Vanney. If he's not gone next year it doesn't matter what the hell we do.
It doesn't matter for roster spots 21 to 30 that doesn't have a cap hit. LA has been moving players from MLS to USL squad and vice versa pretty much at will, almost like a NHL farm team system, at least when domestic transfer window is open.
“Years have gone by and I’ve finally learned to accept myself for who I am: a beggar for good football.
I go about the world, hand outstretched, and in the stadiums I plead: ‘A pretty move, for the love of God.’
And when good football happens, I give thanks for the miracle and I don’t give a damn which team or country performs it.”
-Eduardo Galeano
The next step after the failed 2 striker DP approach is to build the team around Bradley and add a proven attacking midfielder at least 4 years younger than Defoe. South American, with min 3 years success in a European league sounds like the appropriate target for an MLS team looking to break into the elite clubs of MLS.
If Gilberto doesn't pan out with Bradley and DP AM it will be season 10 where they have to top the bloody big deal with an 'a list' striker and buy another attendance bump in the 2/3 full 30000 seater.
Its probably typical in mls to turnover 8-10 players in a 30 man roster.
The sign of a settled side would be seeing most of the turnover in the 12-30 position with a higher percentage in the 21-30 slots. For good clubs these players would be upgrades and create more competition to get into starting 11 and ensure less impact to the side when starters are injured or rested.
TFC is not a good side but the positive is less turnover required in the starting 11 than last season. Still likely need 5 upgrades and I suppose another building step would be to successfully upgrade 3 starting positions for season 9.
The depth outlined for CB is the blueprint for every area on the pitch. Each key role should have a high paid, experienced player with different levels of quality supporting as depth in that role. That is the type of roster you enhance with DPs through the spine of the team.
Sure and those are good development opportunities for them.
But I don't think he is talking about roster spots 21-30. I believe his comment was directed at your Caldwells, Jacksons, etc.
Moving non budget, non playing players to the USL would have little impact on the 1-20 that comprise the first team.
If Jackson stays below the 180k mark I don't see why we don't keep him. He's at something like 120k IIRC.
Oso is good enough for this level and has played this type of system (4-3-3) before at youth level (u-12 - Nacional) and with SC Toronto. I know this for a fact because his ex-coach at SC Toronto and the guy who got him into Nacional and TFC Academy is my high school soccer coach (he has a UEFA B licence but has settled down because of family). Anyways Oso has a place on this roster at the 11/12 spots.
I'll admit I haven't seen Collin play a ton, but from what I saw last night against NYRB, he is not worth anywhere near small DP money.
Maybe it was just a bad game from him (as it seemed to be for most of KC), but the NYRB attack got through the KC defense at will.
The only reason the score wasn't MUCH worse is that every time NY got anywhere near or even in the box (which was alot), they were looking for BWP no matter what, trying desperately to get him his record breaking goal.
Collin and Caldwell would be a mean muthafuckn set of centre halves!
If you are going to spend almost the equivalent Cap hit of 2 DP's on your CB's, you can do ALOT better than Collin and Caldwell.
In this league, with a hard cap, that would be a disaster on our roster.
I don't think that we could do A LOT better but I do think that a pairing like that screams liability with a guy who seems to give reason for a red card every weekend and a guy hitting 35 next year.
If we're going to throw DP level money at a CB, why not back that truck up for Edgar?
true. Don't forget the academies, as well. a good academy system can really help.
MLS is a tough, physical league, that emphasizes speed, and features plastic fields, grueling travel, extreme weather, and incompetent refs. - NK Toronto
I like Edgar, but no way is he DP caliber. Should be aiming higher.
For defenders we should be looking within the league first, as MLS seems to produce some good ones.
Defoe back in the UK already... couldn't even be accountable and stick around for Wed's postmortem interviews.
Armen Bedakian @ArmenBedakian 17m17 minutes ago Defoe back in the UK? RT "@ExtensionsLeona: Look who I bumped into @IAmJermainDefoe at my local tesco "
Also should look at stockpiling some from this year's draft. The best chance of (quick) draft success usually comes from defenders and we are perpetually low on decent ones. Wouldn't hurt to have a stockpile. Excellent trade bait too.
Lol at Defoe.
Just wanted to point out to anyone that remembers (and to the few people that took me up on it), that I won my bet: Urruti scored more goals than Gilberto (10 to 7). How Gilberto escapes peoples' wrath on here is beyond me. Way over paid for his production. We could have taken Chad Barrett if we wanted that level of production, and still have the DP slot for Laba. He doesn't have the killer instinct in front of goal, and he isn't a leader of the line. He's a second striker at best.
I'm not saying take Collin, just that I wouldn't want to meet that central defense pairing in a dark alley.
Wouldn't be the right combo IMO. It's 2x the same player back there. We'd get abused by small quick forwards who pull into pockets of space. Wouldn't get much in terms of considerate positional play.
Forward play in this league is getting better and MLS cracked down heavily on muggings in the box. Defenders have to evolve from what they were in the past.
Caldwell had some atrociously bad games this year. I'm surprised everyone wants to overlook those so easily. We can do better.
Yes, I was thinking more along the lines of our younger, cheaper players that fit in those slots, like Aparicio, Bloom, Hagglund, Weideman, Hamilton, Roberts, Becker, Lovitz, Morgan, Mannella and whatever draftees or prospects Bez manages to dig up in the off-season. Maybe even add DeRo on that team to provide veteran leadership/mentoring. I'm assuming Henry is gone and Oso is good enough to stay up. The remaining players that are starters (Oduro, Warner, Jackson) will be either traded, released, or shoved down into the 12-20 slots while TFC uses the increased cap space to get quality players from South/Central America and better MLS journeymen that are out of favour with other clubs. Removing Moore, Caldwell, and Defoe should leave about 6 international slots open - those slots should all be top starters, considered almost like DP slots. TB has to make those signings count.
Last edited by Initial B; 10-27-2014 at 12:47 PM.
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