Not looking good for any defensive reinforcements coming in.
Not looking good for any defensive reinforcements coming in.
Some good points and solid rationale but it relies on them learning from older players who don’t do the right things at the right times; it’s usually not technical ability holding guys that age back, it’s an inability to run the game at speed and take the best options.
If the team was in USL C, I’d at least expect the marginal players to contribute. But the gap between MLS and USL 1 is a chasm. And if a 17 year old striker needs to learn movement for a 25 year old with no goals in 20-odd USL C games, our coaching is in bigger trouble than we all think.
And most of our homegrown on the team are no longer teenagers.(albeit because they’ve been loaned back).
im shocked we didnt even consider trading a player for future draft picks or money for the club, nothing being done is a pure lack of vision to how the current club is, if we arent going to the playoffs we should be looking towards the future of the club, i feel Curtis is still going to be leaving the club before too long because he certainly doesnt have the interest of Toronto FC and its supporters
Meanwhile, Benezet -- the winger we screwed out of a contract renewal clause by sitting him for the one required game -- signs with Seattle today.
Lord knows we don't need a cultured French winger who produced points for us. Insanity.
Wait.... which idiot GM was that again?
Has everyone looked at the trade ticker today? We're one of the few clubs not to make a single move, doubtless because of how well things are going so far.
Jesus Christ, Manning. Fire him before you flee, please?
Also, apparently each club has a guaranteed contract buyout option in each transfer window.
We have not exercised ours.
Minnesota bought Ike Opara out as he's 32 and knees are crocked; he's been out for over a year. Knowing
Curtis, he'll sign him and rave about how he can't wait until he's back to full fitness.
If our front office had any balls, they'd buy out Jozy and recognize he has basically zero market value right now, and that we need an attacking DP who produces. Pay the man; for what he's done for the club, he's earned it in my book.
But we need someone who can produce from the first whistle. Jozy is a 63rd minute wrecker now who doesn't acknowledge his drop in speed and mobility. Against players who've been playing for two-thirds of a game he's probably still really dangerous. But...
At the very least, they should buy out Gallardo so we have cap space fro a u22 DP. There are leagues that have longer transger windows than ours (The UK for example) and we could still find a) serious offensive help b) a player with value down the line.
I fully believe Curtis is a lame duck and has no authority to make any moves.
Manning is searching for his candidate and wants to let the new guy make the moves, I don't believe Manning is blind, he knows the core is 2-3 years past its prime. We're going to see the core of this roster gone at year end.
3 months to line something up, and Curtis does absolutely nothing; neither in and/or out, if anybody still supports Curtis after these shenanigans I ought to call them gullible
Yeah, you might be right. He probably figures any leeway he gives him at this point will just dig the ditch deeper.
Plus, Gallardo's contract expires in December.
Contracts expiring this year:
Zavaleta
Singh
Morrow
Priso
Okello
DeLeon
Nelson
Gallardo
Endoh
Akinola
Peruzza
Gonzalez
It's Omar that will be his undoing. I know he has some fans from his arrival season, but he's been declining since the year LA gave him a DP deal.
He became a positional bombscare as soon as he didn't have AJ Delargarza to tell him where to stand. That's not my opinion, that's LA Galaxy fans, who were overwhelmingly relieved when he signed to Liga MX.
In Mexico, he was in trouble from day one and spent most of his time there on the bench. He averaged 20 appearances a season, mostly after the first year at Pachuca as a sub. They loaned him to Atlas, where he lasted two-thirds of a season before being benched again.
And then, at age 30, we gave him a $1.1M TAM deal -- the combined pay of Chris Mavinga and Jonathan Osorio.
So, after he went into steady decline and generally showed his LA DP deal was overrated MLS chest puffery, we signed him as our backline anchor... and instead got an actual anchor, which was obvious to ANYONE watching him for the four years before he came to us.
Imagine what a reasonably intelligent GM, who did his homework instead of trading on resumes, could do with $1.1M for us in this league.
That was Mark Delgado's salary for us for FIVE YEARS COMBINED.
Total mismanagement of the salary budget. Nothing else describes it.
Going through that list
Zavaleta - only signed to a 1 year contract? Would be very unusual in MLS - worth his price and if we don't do it somebody else will
Singh - he's not making more somewhere else
Morrow - I know some people on here don't rate him but he is a good 60 minute a game option for a couple of more years
Priso - worth signing again for a little bit more
Okello - he's not making more somewhere else
DeLeon - yeh, not worth keeping again
Nelson - he's not making more somewhere else
Gallardo - yeh, no this one is over
Endoh - at the right price, he's a good MLS journeyman
Akinola - injured - nobody is going to grab him until he recovers - he will be a cheap buy
Peruzza - might move on
Gonzalez - done, has to be moved out
im sure some of the young guys can make more overseas,they all had price tags on them in the past,
Agreed with your takes on these. Peruzza is very hungry for minutes and I suspect he nearly bounced last offseason after we heard chatter of overseas interest. Wouldn’t be surprised if he tried again absent some solid playing time through the end of the year. Kid is a little bit raw in some areas but his movement off the ball is very good. I’d play him. Honestly, I think he’s our second most ready prospect after Priso.
Silva, Dunn, Achara, and Fraser should be on that list, since we exercised options on them at the end of 2020 (I'm assuming options are all 1 year). Some of those guys (at least all the young guys), probably have contract options that we can pick up.
Last edited by rydermike; 08-05-2021 at 08:17 PM.
In other news, Rocco Romeo scored yesterday for Valour FC
Check out this tweet at https://twitter.com/CPLsoccer/status/1423107363855273984
Last edited by rydermike; 08-05-2021 at 08:40 PM.
Check out this tweet at https://twitter.com/NeilMDavidson/status/1423398730993217538
That'll boost the confidence a little, excellent.
As for our cap issues and inability to sign anyone, NYRB signed an Ecuador u21 intl defender today... via loan with a buy option if he works out.
Crazy talk, eh? Try now, pay later, fill a roster gap with actual potential.
Part of our problem is that he is currently one of our better defenders, yet he's horribly inconsistent. We need a major upgrade all over the back line. He only looks good when you don't look at some of the teams that are much better defensively. Notably neither Vanney nor Bez made any attempt to pick him up from TFC, that should tell you all that you need to know.
Agreed. He's a bit under-rated, but he's never going to be a key player either.
Last edited by Oldtimer; 08-05-2021 at 09:50 PM.
MLS is a tough, physical league, that emphasizes speed, and features plastic fields, grueling travel, extreme weather, and incompetent refs. - NK Toronto
The biggest thing will be moving omar/ Bradley/Altidore on
That's a dp slot and 2.6 million in salary right there.
Some of the teams who have gotten results off us this year will have fielded XIs with lower salary than these 3 combined.
It's more like $5.3M, I think. Jozy's on $3.6M, Gonzalez on $1.1M, Bradley on 600K. (EDIT: My bad, that's next year for the General, and it's $1.3 M guaranteed, I believe.)
Bradley's here until he retires and likely after that. Frankly I have no problem with that. He gave up $10M in salary so that we could sign Pozuelo. (True, he made $39-million over the first six years of the deal, so it's not like he needs money, ever, really, but that's still a hit to take to stay loyal to a club and city.)
If they want to use him less, which makes sense, I have no problem with that either. But Bradley has earned the right to stay as long as he damn pleases, as far as I'm concerned.
Jozy has earned the right to his last year of an equally lucrative deal. I'd be happier if they just bought it out (I believe it's about $3.6M next year) or played him as a super sub but if he wants to stay and fight to start, and isn't a locker-room problem (an argument I find grossly overstated in his case, given the guy's complexity), he's earned that.
I don't think either is a lock starter anymore if we build the team to true competitiveness, but both still have enough in the tank to be solid role players or rotation players, and we already owe them the money. Just getting rid of them saves the club nothing, financially.
Yeah, we need Jozy's DP slot to sign a producer, but we're already $1.6 M in TAM to the better just by getting rid of Omar and Gallardo. Add in the break we get for an U22 DP and we can not only add a major talent but fix the defense, too.
Getting rid of Omar's deal makes life a lot easier for us.
Last edited by jloome; 08-06-2021 at 12:27 AM.
I'm not sure where you got Bradley's numbers. MLS Player Salaries as of April 15th, 2021 show him as being on $1.5 million Base & Guaranteed, which I find problematic. I also wonder if there's another issue with him: that no coach dares not play him for the full 90. I thought the team looked better last year when Bradley was out for a bit, while Osorio and Delgado operated as a pair to replace him.
That's this year. Next year is the last year of the deal and I believe it's 600K base, $1.3M guaranteed. So it's still a lot of money, but it's a fraction of what he was owed, which was basically $6M a year.
Why is it "problematic." He resigned to a much lower number; whether he's worth $1.3M a year is pretty fucking moot when the guy has given up millions of dollars in equally guaranteed pay to help the club.
And it doesn't change his cap hit. He's a TAM player now, so it doesn't cost us a DP slot, either. MLSE isn't exactly hurting.
You can argue -- successfully, I'm sure, and I'll agree -- that he's not a 1.3M player anymore, but that doesn't change the reality that he ate a huge part of the deal for us.
Agreed on Delgado and Osorio, they looked great together as dual pivots.
Last edited by jloome; 08-06-2021 at 12:32 AM.