im sure bez is watching youtube right now looking for one.but he will bring in a solid american DM to prop up the d.
im sure bez is watching youtube right now looking for one.but he will bring in a solid american DM to prop up the d.
While I get why we released Perquis, we should have waited until the end of the season to bench him. No one else we have is a significant upgrade, and from everything we've seen, he and Seba were tight.Originally Posted by reggie
Reminds me of the Dero days when he was the only one doing anything, I think this time though its down to some injuries but there is a major imbalance in this squad.
An AM should have been the #1 priority after getting defenders, we needed a playmaker/goal contributor at that spot and that's going to cost us money.
Its nearly impossible to get the star AM and we cant just get another warm body, we need a catalyst that's going to turn these scared kids into something.
All I saw last night was players afraid of taking players on, outside of Gio/Hamilton and excluding the defenders everyone else had no desire to run at defenders, where the fuck is the fire in this young kids.
It's unfortunate but the guys recovering from injuries will not fully address these problems. Neither Braldey or Johnson consistently provide enough attacking impetus from the midfield.
Signing WJ vs. A winger or AM made absolutely no sense. And that's no slight on Will, he's a fine player.
The lack of a firm plan & capability (through cap management) to strengthen when the window opened is a disgrace.
Relying on Endoh & Osario to be the heart of the midfield is disastrous. I know everyone is saying we need an Attacking mid-fielder and that is where I would put my money - but a loan deal now (or after WJ went down) for an experienced central mid-fielder would have been the only change to save this season.
After last night I see a bunch of broken young players & I don't see the coach and organization to fix it.
Forget not just signing an AM, how does this club not at least have one on loan? Has Bez isolated TFC that much? F*ck his American dream feat. Bono and Altidore.
talk about bad management.every team gets 8 import slots,we now 7 because we traded one.of the 4 we are using now one is endoh and the other is simonin,who may not see the field this season.we have become the chivas of Gaudalajara of the MLS,no imports allowed.
Last edited by reggie; 07-17-2016 at 11:29 AM.
This.
When the best runs apart from your strikers are done by Moor and Morrow, you got issues. They are all so freaking afraid (Endoh has run at teams before but this seemed to be the week when he was told not to do that so much and went the opposite).
It's a very good point. Those slots are used to acquire players that are difference makers in this league and we've largely under utilized them. The flip side is we've tied up a lot of salary in domestics so the financial resources you'd normally use to acquire these players is constrained.
So far we've "improved" this team by acquiring proven commodities but have largely struck out in unearthing new talent. You have to question whether that's a sustainable strategy. Outside of the 3 DP slots all MLS clubs essentially have the same financial resources. If you're always paying market (and proven MLS players are the definition of market) it's tough to get ahead of the curve. Guess it's not surprising we're middle of the pack. Heck if anything that's underperformance considering the DP's should give us a slight boost.
i dont think we have improved..the record is about the same has last year,the next 4 games will tell us alot,we need at least 9 pts.
Our DPs have hurt us this year so far though. Either through poor play (first Altidore, now Giovinco) or not playing at all (Altidore and Bradley).
Feels like we're at a huge crossroads right now. 4 straight home games coming up, 3 of them against eastern conference teams that are battling us for the lower playoff spots. If we can win, say, 3 of these 4, it probably sets us up for another playoff berth considering how many home games we have to end the season, and that Bradley and Johnson will be back after this stretch. Altidore will return. If he can get going, and get Giovinco going again, we might actually be able to head into the playoffs with some momentum. But if we drop the ball, it's probably the season right here. And then management will get blown up, so the team will get blown up too.
Absolutely huge stretch of games now. If Bez is bringing anyone in now is the time to do it.
Giovinco has openly reviled Delgado, Endoh, Osorio, and a few other TFC youngsters on the pitch during the run of play.
It's no wonder that they're afraid to make a move.
When the best player in MLS and your revered team mate castigates you for poor open play and offence you might start hesitating and be more conservative in your attacking approach.
I'm all for holding team mates accountable but their is a limit. Giovinco is a god to these players and to TFC fans, he needs to be more moderate in his disdain.
Honestly the team is playing better without Giovinco at the moment and that makes me really fucking frustrated.
playing better without Seba? really? - and how often have we played without Seba to make this determination?
Just once in Columbus last week.
But we had a way better attack.
In your opinion, is this a top 5 team if everyone's healthy? From where I'm sitting that doesn't look to be the case. We are roughly on par with where we were last season.
Sure, getting these guys back will help but I think the way this team has been constructed is illogical and there are enough red flags to say Managment has issues.
I would say our full strength 18 is somewhere around 8-10th best. It should be good enough to make the playoffs in the East and be competitive, though.
The biggest issue in my opinion with the roster as is has been cap management and fit between players. As others have noted, we went with the proven-in-MLS route to reshape the back line, which is smart from a talent evaluation perspective and a welcome change from our usual efforts to fix things back there, but it's a pricey approach. I've never looked it up but I would guess we have (or had when Perquis was here) one of, if not the most expensive back line in the league. And Irwin, who we traded for and is still on his contract from his time in Colorado, is due a raise. Then we have Cheyrou and Johnson on large contracts, and 3 DPs. I don't think we have enough to go around to fill out the squad as well as we could be.
But I also think it wouldn't be such a large issue if some of these players worked better together. There's really no way to have Bradley, Johnson, and Cheyrou on the field all at the same time, so we always have at least a 250k cap hit sitting on the bench - not good. Then Altidore is the odd DP out - if Bradley is going to anchor at DM and Giovinco just needs a target forward to play off of, there's no use in making that target forward a huge money guy. We'd be far better off getting a decent target striker on something like 300k, then using the third DP slot to bring in an attacking midfielder. That would give us two creative options in Giovinco and the DP playmaker, easing the load on Giovinco and making us far more difficult to defend against. I think a lot of our problems go away if this happens. Even ignoring his injury issues and generally disappointing play, I just don't think Altidore is the player we need.
All the international call ups are annoying too - it really sucks losing Bradley and Altidore for a bunch of games every year, and now we're going to miss Johnson a lot too. I would hope we sign a playmaker that doesn't figure in his national team to ease the pain.
So management undoubtedly has issues here. Despite all of this, I'm not going to write them off yet. This probably sounds hopelessly optimistic, but I wouldn't even be that surprised if we go on a run now starting with these home games. Was it the Revolution who lost 10 games in a row a couple years back then ended up making the Cup final or something? Weird things have been known to happen... the main reason I can still see us turning it around is because the defense is solid, and I think it's a lot easier to fix our attack than it would be to fix our defense if we had to. Most of it starts with Giovinco, and the return of Altidore might help a lot there. We'll see.
All I know for sure at this point is the season is ending one of two ways - we make tweaks to the team to fix some issues, or this era is over and we're starting from scratch.
^ Nothing I can disagree with there! Cheers
Agree fully with notthesun. I don't think Jozy is right for this team, and personally, don't even think he's worth a DP spot, let alone $5m.
Im interested to see what happens when Bradley and WJ are back. Is Vanney going to bench Cheyrou, who's been arguably our best player for a month+?
Also, Vanney doesn't work Seba into any sort of system. He makes a defensive game plan, and let's the attackers try to figure it out as the game goes on. Why did he start Seba as right forward on Saturday? When Seba's natural position is LW, you try to keep him as close to that as possible. Play him as a left forward if you have to, but don't stick him wherever, thinking that he'll just "make it work". Late in the game, he became an AM, and kept feeding balls to Endoh on the right wing. SJ had no problems with that and let TFC keep doing the same thing over and over, because Endoh couldn't cross a ball in to save his life - maybe all the booing was getting to his head.
For a team that plays such a defence oriented game, they should be counter attack specialists - but I can't recall a single counter attack goal this year. They break out fast, get past the half way line, and freeze... No idea what to do next.
Cool. Hope he works out. I'm not a huge fan of Ricketts but he does give us speed out wide which we desperately need. Nice to have to have another Canadian as well.
thats a big fat MEHHHH...if he got more then 150 k ..Bez should be fired
Now if only we could get a Kamara.
Seconded
Its some width with speed, which we all talked about needing. Is it the primary need? No. Is he more of a threat out wide then what we had? Yes.
Good thing is he's been training with the team for 2 months.
The season is saved.
Agreed.
Assuming everyone is healthy I wonder if this changes how we line up? Does this put us back to a diamond 4-4-2 with Bradley at the top, TR & WJ on the wings, and BC at the back? Or does it push BC to the bench so MB is at the back and JO plays the top?
Curious to see what happens in late August.
Well Said - this is the dominant issue Endoh, Osorio and Delgado are good solid utility players as late subs, not the heart of midfield
should have jus signed edwards for the min and spend the perquis/gomez/ricketts money on a good AM.
http://www.torontofc.ca/post/2016/07...ontreal-impact
We sent an international roster slot to Montreal (Perquis' slot I guess) for their highest 2nd round pick in the upcoming draft. All righty then.
NOW the season is saved.
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