We are comprehensively the last place team in MLS with the highest payroll by some distance. And all that with a fresh new transfer to start the year. If this isn’t a full on indictment on Curtis and Manning I don’t know what is. Neither should survive this season.
i felt bad for singh out there, should never have been put in.
just almost comically out of his depth, he's good to basically giftwrap the opposition 2 goals every game he starts him.
why was he handed a long contract again?
another curtis masterclass, send him back to TFCII to develop, but i doubt he ever makes it to mls.
* edit to say i just checked and singh is on a contract for 4 more seasons after this lmao, good god
Last edited by leedsandTFC; 08-21-2021 at 11:42 PM.
I really really hope I’m not reading serious takes about Singh on this board right now. A player with under 10 first team matches played at the age of 20. Get real about your expectations for a kid being played next to a washed up millionaire in the worst defensive set up in the league please.
The fat lady has sung folks. Time to look ahead to next season and play the younglings so they can get some quality minutes.
We can't just capitulate games. That will do more harm than good. They need to play with confidence, late in games we're winning. It's the formula globally for kids who aren't ready and ours, outside Ralph, clearly aren't.
Maybe give JMR a start, as we have no one scoring anyway. But we've seen the rest of them. They're just not ready to be starters. Okello showed that in this last game; he has great passing and ball movement skills, he's quick, he's athletic... and he's behind the game, all the time. We might as well just cede a third of the pitch if we start him.
I'm curious as to why older prospects like Romeo and Dunn aren't even getting a look ahead of Singh. As unready as he clearly is, is that just myopic direction from on high because of his athleticism or are they even worse? People seemed to speak highly of Dunn in the CPL last year and as low a level as that is, his positioning and read couldn't possibly be worse than Singh's, which is non-existent.
The mere fact that he automatically went down low to block a shot from Pizzaro instead of staying tight and using his feet WHILE IN THE BOX suggests there are key elements to his tasks that just haven't stuck or been taught properly. I mean, that was embarrassing for all involved, probably even Pizarro.
You sign Singh to a homegrown contract for 4+ seasons, because that's what you do with young players. He's signed for the minimum and doesn't count against the salary cap. If he does well, you have a bargain and someone you can sell on to Europe if he wants. If he doesn't do well, the contract doesn't matter and you can bury him with TFC2 or waive him.
He should be the fourth or fifth CB on the roster. Seriously, there's enough things you can slander Curtis and Manning for. You don't need to add Singh to the list.
I know what you’re saying. Why make it an indictment of a young player on a minimal salary.
But I think people are fair to ask the question why we can rarely produce a player who is first team ready? And, why give minutes to a player who so far off the pace? Sending youth players out to get slaughtered is not helpful. Requisite needs to be some semblance of keeping pace, even if it’s not a perfect performance by any means.
FWIW, team flew into town last night
Check out this tweet at
https://twitter.com/SportsAviation/status/1429434885064863752?s=19
My dog remains unimpressed
Check out this tweet at
https://twitter.com/OgtheDim/status/1429615426456236033?s=19
The gap between the leagues is wider than CPL fans seem to think. That Cavalry team was probably good enough to compete in USL-C, so beating the Whitecaps one off didn't shock me. It's possible York would be as effective against TFC, but I doubt it. We have a lot of skill, just tired legs and questionable work ethic.
It will still take a minor miracle for York to win.
I dunno... as Stevep pointed out during the game, there have been multiple times this season when it looks like they're playing "to rule", just enough to have an air of trying to do their jobs but conceding that until there's a front office cleanout, the team won't compete.
I've been saying since 2018 that's there's an arrogance in the locker room coupled with the shit mentality of "turning it on" when needed and that everything is under control and will be turned around soon. Those are lines you hear out of Bradley often and it's been seen here and there since 2018. More than ever I think we need to gut as much of the 2017 team as possible and that starts with Bradley (but goes much further). Time for a new voice in the locker room and new ideas on the pitch.
For the first time ever I really don't care if any players remain from the current squad. It would never happen as it's impossible but I would be totally fine with an expansion team level restart. Also the first time ever that I am actively rooting for us to lose as many players as possible in the upcoming expansion draft.
Amongst the brass, I expect Manning stays as he is a high up suit but he better be starting to flash around MLSE money and fancy titles like TFC VP to get some Lagerway level GM to make his way here. This next GM hire is the most important hiring that Manning will have had to make in his time here and it better not just be an internal job search amongst a bunch of his former teammates and buddies.
^ It may be the most important thing this club does ever, if he fucks it up it will take years to resolve. This is no longer fine tuning, the Ali and Armas shitshow could pound this club for years, just as the Leweike gave us some light.
manning probably knows that they can't afford another season even semi resembling this one for him to keep his job.
they made the correct decision to fire armas based on terrible results, only so long til the same logic will apply higher up, especially if a new coach next season can't turn us around.
The problem isn't his platitudes to the media. It's whether he actually believes what he says and I don't see anything in him to think he doesn't. This guy is the heart and soul of the team and you see him and what he says spread through the rest of the roster. Problem is that they believe we can just turn it on and make a surge but by the time they get actually desperate and commit to winning, we're already buried.
Watch, much like 2018 we will play really well this Friday and beat Montreal nicely. We get up for big matches like the Revs away this season or the finale in 2018 to deny Atlanta the Shield/points record and then proceed to dog the rest of the more mundane fixtures by half-assing them and appearing disinterested. This season is like a shitty copy of 2018 but without a great CCL run to provide an excuse for the failings.
I would really like to know what went on in 2018. I think part of it was the Seba renewal but there were clearly other things going on. Something was off. This year, it was Armas but what now? Maybe we just aren’t good enough (because our whole team is midfielders )
I don't think the Seba renewal was a major factor but it was there. I think the team believed they were better than they were since they beat Mexican teams so they could coast during the MLS season and turn it on when they had to and make a playoff push. Obviously that was easier said than done.
This season I think there's some of the same sentiment as 2018 as we've heard similar refrains from our leaders. We all know by now that we aren't good enough to compete for a playoff spot but the problem is that our players are still arrogant and they don't believe it. I think that mindset is one of the reasons why collectively our team doesn't play at 100% or stay focused for 90+ minutes per match. This is why I blame our team leaders because it has to be coming from them as they were all here in 2017/18.
Sometimes to clear out this type of thing you need to rebuild the roster from very deep and I think we should do that now.
This year I am not going to hang it all on Armas either. I did early on but the same exact things are still happening except now we've reverted back to no movement, no pace, no running, and no shots. For me, Armas isn't to blame for anything except having no plan or tactics besides 'run & press'. This whole mess should fall on the player's heads. Sure Curtis didn't get a new CB and he is AWOL but this squad, as shit as it is, is better than a wooden spoon lock and that's on all of them.
Last edited by Ultra & Proud; 08-25-2021 at 09:48 AM.
I don’t agree. Simple long balls over the top are killing us and we’re even when it was Mavinga and Gonzalez. That sucks the life out of a team. It’s not leadership, it’s “here we go again, no matter how hard I work they score an easy goal”. We also aren’t scoring so teams don’t mind attacking as we have no counter attack.
Why? Poor roster construction. Need a strong CB and an elite scorer. We have multiple elite midfielders and just spent millions to acquire another one in Soteldo. Management could have used that money to bring in a striker, a CB, or both. It didn’t and to me the blame lies squarely with them. It’s not like it’s news - people on here were saying similar all last year and even in 2019