TFC 2022-2023 player off-season roster discussion

[Section 223]

I am, will always be, a fan.
Even supported on this board the notion of him playing out one more season, this past one, as a Red.
A bit too much now even for me; this media airing of dirty laundry and past grievances.
Time for him to let go; quietly enter that pitch tunnel one final time.
Otherwise, all he just needs to do is put up or shut up.
Train hard, get on any MLS team and prove 'them' wrong.
Force TFC's hand... in a public relations sense.
IMHO, he is being 'lazy' by suggesting... I am paraphrasing... 'give me, I only need, a month to train and I will be ready, all will be fine'.
Nonsense.
Ridiculous.

Maybe as an AM?
...For a one and done club game day celebration.
[I just can't help myself.]

As I look up and down at the current roster the holes are glaring, minimum 5-6 starters needed. Do I have faith in management to fill these spots soon? Not on your life. Bringing Seba back for a year is as easy a decision this club can make. At over $8000 a year for my 4 seasons I would much rather watch the greatest player that ever played in MLS over a an academy graduate learning on the job and then listening to post match interviews of Bob Bradley tell us nothing except the kid had some “good moments “

[leedsandTFC]

As I look up and down at the current roster the holes are glaring, minimum 5-6 starters needed. Do I have faith in management to fill these spots soon? Not on your life. Bringing Seba back for a year is as easy a decision this club can make. At over $8000 a year for my 4 seasons I would much rather watch the greatest player that ever played in MLS over a an academy graduate learning on the job and then listening to post match interviews of Bob Bradley tell us nothing except the kid had some “good moments “

i'm glad you arent in charge of anything lol, seba has been completely past it for years. wouldn't be surprised if he retired now.

[jloome]

i'm glad you arent in charge of anything lol, seba has been completely past it for years. wouldn't be surprised if he retired now.

He's been past it for at least three years. The guy's second gear was gone in his last season with us. The league's tougher now that it was in 2017 and he's a shadow of that player.

How would a five-foot-four inch striker work with a three-man front set, being fed by two wingers? Never cross the ball? Everything on the ground? Short pass our way through the penalty area?

A striker who relies on speed and dribbling loses much of his value once the speed aspect is gone.

[ensco]

Anybody who was paying attention last spring is not going to believe Seba is telling the whole story about what happened last spring.

I don't believe that BB would renege on a deal the way Seba says (or implies). I remember that BB was publicly steamed when Seba left camp.

I am with those who say it's over now. I might have tried it a year ago, but not now...

[MikeForbes]

The year is 2040 on the boards, the teams backup striker Patrick Mullinho Jr. goes down injured, the first post is "maybe we should try and bring Seba back"

[Section 223]

i'm glad you arent in charge of anything lol, seba has been completely past it for years. wouldn't be surprised if he retired now.

Well management here forced me to watch Michael Bradley for every second this year , so watching Seba “nut meg” a few guys and score a couple of direct free kicks this year would be more entertaining then Bradley being out jumped on a corner or losing his man in the box.

[Ultra & Proud]

Well management here forced me to watch Michael Bradley for every second this year , so watching Seba “nut meg” a few guys and score a couple of direct free kicks this year would be more entertaining then Bradley being out jumped on a corner or losing his man in the box.

When's the last time he managed to nut meg anyone or score on a direct free kick?

[Bobo]

I'm off the Seba train as well but I honestly still would've much preferred watching him this past season than Akinola trudging around the pitch. At reportedly less than half the price too.

[leedsandTFC]

Well management here forced me to watch Michael Bradley for every second this year , so watching Seba “nut meg” a few guys and score a couple of direct free kicks this year would be more entertaining then Bradley being out jumped on a corner or losing his man in the box.

Aka our only midfielder that could keep fit and who led the league in multiple areas.

Seba hasn't done anything of note for over a year, he would be a huge distraction and just bad.

[leedsandTFC]

I'm off the Seba train as well but I honestly still would've much preferred watching him this past season than Akinola trudging around the pitch. At reportedly less than half the price too.

Akinola cap hit v small.

Even though I think we should move him, he looked great in 2020 and the few mins he got in 2021.

Deal seemed like a great deal at the time.

[ag futbol]

Akinola cap hit v small.

Even though I think we should move him, he looked great in 2020 and the few mins he got in 2021.

Deal seemed like a great deal at the time.

Let’s not dress this up: it was a speculative contract the minute the ink was dry. He’s had one good spell of form since hitting the first team and hasn’t built on it since. Cap hit or not, it’s money that could have gone to someone else.

[leedsandTFC]

Let’s not dress this up: it was a speculative contract the minute the ink was dry. He’s had one good spell of form since hitting the first team and hasn’t built on it since. Cap hit or not, it’s money that could have gone to someone else.

he had 13 goals in 21 MLS starts before this season.

we'd have been insane not to give him the deal at that cap hit.

plus i still think there's a chance he comes back.

still v young and clearly hasn't recovered that burst of acceleration and sharpness he had pre injury.

a ton of teams in europe were interested in him pre injury, getting him back to his pre injury levels would be a huge asset to the team.

also, there's a ton of interest in him within MLS. could be used as tradebait.

[ag futbol]

he had 13 goals in 21 MLS starts before this season.

we'd have been insane not to give him the deal at that cap hit.

plus i still think there's a chance he comes back.

still v young and clearly hasn't recovered that burst of acceleration and sharpness he had pre injury.

a ton of teams in europe were interested in him pre injury, getting him back to his pre injury levels would be a huge asset to the team.

also, there's a ton of interest in him within MLS. could be used as tradebait.

Back out those three games and 5 goals at MLS is back and include everything else. Works out to a goal every ~2.5 games. Not horrible but certainly not worth that contract. I think this year just proves that.

If someone else wants him on trade, we should ring the register.

[leedsandTFC]

Back out those three games and 5 goals at MLS is back and include everything else. Works out to a goal every ~2.5 games. Not horrible but certainly not worth that contract. I think this year just proves that.

If someone else wants him on trade, we should ring the register.

yes, if you take out games he scored goals in, he would be worse stats wise.

even a goal every 2.5 games is a great record for a striker.

i do feel like he'll be traded this offseason though, low cap hit and big upside (potential), lots of teams would take that and there was lots of interest in him last trade window.

[Blindside16]

The year is 2040 on the boards, the teams backup striker Patrick Mullinho Jr. goes down injured, the first post is "maybe we should try and bring Seba back"

This post wins the internet today for me

[ensco]

Just reading about who might go to Bahrain to replace Crepeau, the leading candidates are Pantemis, Breza and Hasal. (There are a couple of other candidates overseas, but they caught my eye. Hasal seems to be the likeliest.)

This highlights the kind of shocking lack of development we have had in young GKs ever, or over the last 5 years. It's not just that we over committed to Bono at the senior level.

GK development tales a long time. Hasal has been in the Whitecaps system for many years, and only just got his shot this year.

We absolutely failed to do something that the other Canadian teams are pretty good at doing, and now we will have to spend serious resources to fix something that. This is opportunity cost in bright lights. Montreal and Vancouver don’t have to spend a million dollars on a GK, so they can use it elsewhere.

What is it? It's crazy, the GTA must be oozing young GK talent that could be developed. It can’t just be Conway

Across time and regimes…. We. Have. No. Patience.

[ag futbol]

Just reading about who might go to Bahrain to replace Crepeau, the leading candidates are Pantemis, Breza and Hasal. (There are a couple of other candidates overseas, but they caught my eye. Hasal seems to be the likeliest.)

This highlights the kind of shocking lack of development we have had in young GKs ever, or over the last 5 years. It's not just that we over committed to Bono at the senior level.

GK development tales a long time. Hasal has been in the Whitecaps system for many years, and only just got his shot this year.

We absolutely failed to do something that the other Canadian teams are pretty good at doing, and now we will have to spend serious resources to fix something that. This is opportunity cost in bright lights. Montreal and Vancouver don’t have to spend a million dollars on a GK, so they can use it elsewhere.

What is it? It's crazy, the GTA must be oozing young GK talent that could be developed. It can’t just be Conway

Across time and regimes…. We. Have. No. Patience.

I would sign Marco Carducci from Calvary FC. It would be a 3 year project but I think given the proper platform he could be a very well rounded MLS keeper.

Issue being Conway shows no signs of being able to coach anybody and i have little confidence we’d develop even the most capable players.

Pantemis Is definitely a big step down from the top 3 but he’s not as bad as people sometimes otherwise assume.

[leedsandTFC]

Just reading about who might go to Bahrain to replace Crepeau, the leading candidates are Pantemis, Breza and Hasal. (There are a couple of other candidates overseas, but they caught my eye. Hasal seems to be the likeliest.)

This highlights the kind of shocking lack of development we have had in young GKs ever, or over the last 5 years. It's not just that we over committed to Bono at the senior level.

GK development tales a long time. Hasal has been in the Whitecaps system for many years, and only just got his shot this year.

We absolutely failed to do something that the other Canadian teams are pretty good at doing, and now we will have to spend serious resources to fix something that. This is opportunity cost in bright lights. Montreal and Vancouver don’t have to spend a million dollars on a GK, so they can use it elsewhere.

What is it? It's crazy, the GTA must be oozing young GK talent that could be developed. It can’t just be Conway

Across time and regimes…. We. Have. No. Patience.

Hasal and the Montreal gk are dogshit lmao, two of the worst keepers in mls.

infact, the PSxG stat which indicates largely the quality of goalkeeping shows that Vancouver are literally last in MLS in terms of goalkeeper quality, conceded about 11 more goals than you would expect based on quality of shots faced.

montreal are 4th last, conceding 8 more goals than you would expect.

we aren't good (conceded about 4 more goals than you'd expect, very bad, and we've been awful for any long stretch without Q), but those are two teams who have probably worse gk situations than us.

montreal's gk was at fault for 2 of the goals in the playoff game they lost 3-1 despite dominating btw.

[jloome]

Hasal and the Montreal gk are dogshit lmao, two of the worst keepers in mls.

Bit harsh.

I assume you're talking about Breza, who is horseshit, but is no longer the starter.

PsXG, like XG, is a nebulous fantasy stat based largely on opinion of where the shot was taken from relative to the goalie's body position. Like xG, it bares no statistical relationship to actual outcomes.

If you go by the somewhat more direct save percentage, Pantemis doesn't look bad at all.

He was better than Bono and less than 1% behind Maxime Crepeau in save percentage, both middle of the pack.

He also a percentage point better than Gaga Slonina, the 18-year-old who just went to Chelsea.

And he was two points better than Sean Johnson, mentioned frequently here.

Hasal is 23, very young for a starting keeper. He was pretty poor at about 65% overall, but again, that's only a few points behind the middle of the pack. (I admit, he looks pretty floppy to me.)

But all of the goalies in the league at the bottom end statistically also had terrible defenses in front of them, so that's probably worth taking into account. Goalies don't always have shit seasons in isolation.

EDIT: There was a good column in the Guardian yesterday from the new owner of a lower level club (Exeter? Someone like that) on how they tried to implement the "moneyball" model of using XG and related stats to calculate value, and how it doesn't work in football. There are too many unpredictable variables.

[leedsandTFC]

Bit harsh.

I assume you're talking about Breza, who is horseshit, but is no longer the starter.

PsXG, like XG, is a nebulous fantasy stat based largely on opinion of where the shot was taken from relative to the goalie's body position. Like xG, it bares no statistical relationship to actual outcomes.

If you go by the somewhat more direct save percentage, Pantemis doesn't look bad at all.

He was better than Bono and less than 1% behind Maxime Crepeau in save percentage, both middle of the pack.

He also a percentage point better than Gaga Slonina, the 18-year-old who just went to Chelsea.

And he was two points better than Sean Johnson, mentioned frequently here.

Hasal is 23, very young for a starting keeper. He was pretty poor at about 65% overall, but again, that's only a few points behind the middle of the pack. (I admit, he looks pretty floppy to me.)

But all of the goalies in the league at the bottom end statistically also had terrible defenses in front of them, so that's probably worth taking into account. Goalies don't always have shit seasons in isolation.

EDIT: There was a good column in the Guardian yesterday from the new owner of a lower level club (Exeter? Someone like that) on how they tried to implement the "moneyball" model of using XG and related stats to calculate value, and how it doesn't work in football. There are too many unpredictable variables.

save percentage is incredibly useless, no stat is perfect but PsXG is far clear of save percentage, which doesn't distinguish between a penalty save and catching a pea-roller from 40 yards.

brentford are in the premier league despite being the size of club that should probably be in league one based around a moneyball xg based model.

https://www.one37pm.com/sports/brent...-league-return

anyways my point is that vancouver and mtl are both quite weak in the gk position (we can debate how weak), and the last clubs we should be looking to learn from (and their fans will tell you that, neither fanbase are happy with their gk situations).

in fact i reckon with a decent gk mtl would have beaten nycfc and had a real run at MLS cup this year.

[jloome]

I would sign Marco Carducci from Calvary FC. It would be a 3 year project but I think given the proper platform he could be a very well rounded MLS keeper.

Issue being Conway shows no signs of being able to coach anybody and i have little confidence we’d develop even the most capable players.

Pantemis Is definitely a big step down from the top 3 but he’s not as bad as people sometimes otherwise assume.

Everyone who follows CPL has been saying either "sign Carducci" or "no... sign Ingham, he's better than Carducci." But we had Nathan Ingham at TFC II and he was fucking terrible. Great reaction keeper, but everything else was substandard for two levels below MLS.

Carducci's stats for this year don't suggest anything special. He had the lowest clearance by punch of any of the league stat leaders, faced fewer shots than the others in the top five, made fewer saves.

He made fewer saves than Vaikla, our loanee.

It's hard to say with Carducci. At the USL level for Vancouver and Rio Grande he was pretty poor, averaging about 2 goal a game against. At Pacific he's much better but it's a lower league and he's on a strong team. His complementary stats for save percentage, punches etc, put him out of the league's top five once you take away GA and shutouts. So how much is him and how much the defense ahead of him?

I don't think of the CPL guys look like they're ready to step up. All of them were behind Triston Henry in most stats, and he's an awful keeper.

[leedsandTFC]

Everyone who follows CPL has been saying either "sign Carducci" or "no... sign Ingham, he's better than Carducci." But we had Nathan Ingham at TFC II and he was fucking terrible. Great reaction keeper, but everything else was substandard for two levels below MLS.

Carducci's stats for this year don't suggest anything special. He had the lowest clearance by punch of any of the league stat leaders, faced fewer shots than the others in the top five, made fewer saves.

He made fewer saves than Vaikla, our loanee.

It's hard to say with Carducci. At the USL level for Vancouver and Rio Grande he was pretty poor, averaging about 2 goal a game against. At Pacific he's much better but it's a lower league and he's on a strong team. His complementary stats for save percentage, punches etc, put him out of the league's top five once you take away GA and shutouts. So how much is him and how much the defense ahead of him?

I don't think of the CPL guys look like they're ready to step up. All of them were behind Triston Henry in most stats, and he's an awful keeper.

we should really go all out for sean johnson. very good shot stopper, but equally as important he has excellent distribution and has played in a ball playing side for years.

if not him we should look abroad imo.

also funny thing about ingham: i played on his team when i was about 15/16 for a club in vaughn, and he wasn't even the first choice gk there! funny how things work out.

[jloome]

we should really go all out for sean johnson. very good shot stopper, but equally as important he has excellent distribution and has played in a ball playing side for years.

if not him we should look abroad imo.

also funny thing about ingham: i played on his team when i was about 15/16 for a club in vaughn, and he wasn't even the first choice gk there! funny how things work out.

Yeah, maybe. He's available, at least. His save percentage was worryingly low last year, suggesting he got a lot of defensive help. NYFC has one of the best in the league.

It's hard to just go off stats in isolation though, just as it's hard to take xG and PxG seriously because of how subjective they are.

When you look at goals against per 90, Johnson drops down to seventh, and is not among the elite.

I wonder if age has started to catch up to him a little.

Statistically, the guy who was most impressive for his age this year was Martin Paes, the Dutch keeper at Dallas. But he's young and I think on a young DP deal, so probably off the table.



If you look at the % of games in which they held clean sheets, the top of the table reads like a who's who of the best keepers. 1. Andre Blake. 2. Sean Johnston. 3. Gaby Slonina, (then, outlier 4. Cody Cropper of Vancouver, even though he had the lowest save % in the league) 5 Dorde Petrovic.

But... by the measure Hasal is pretty good, at 23%, way ahead of Dayne St. Clair and Stefan Frei, while Breza and Bono are above only JT Marcinkowski of San Jose... who was one of the top at save % but is worst at holding clean sheets.

So taken in isolation it's very difficult to use this stuff accurately.

[Ultra & Proud]

Statistically, the guy who was most impressive for his age this year was Martin Paes, the Dutch keeper at Dallas. But he's young and I think on a young DP deal, so probably off the table.

Players like this make me think we should use a U22 spot on a GK. Or else have BB mine some fringe league somewhere for some mystery GK.

[leedsandTFC]

Players like this make me think we should use a U22 spot on a GK. Or else have BB mine some fringe league somewhere for some mystery GK.

yep.

also petrovic at new england is unreal and came from the serbian league, only making 225K!

bargains to be had with good scouting

[leedsandTFC]

48 hour trade window opens today at noon!

any predictions?

i could see jiminez or akinola (or both) being traded.

[MikeForbes]

48 hour trade window opens today at noon!

any predictions?

i could see jiminez or akinola (or both) being traded.

I can definitely see Ayo being moved to open up that u-22 slot and get some GAM to use to help sign one of the bigger named defenders entering free agency.

[jloome]

I can definitely see Ayo being moved to open up that u-22 slot and get some GAM to use to help sign one of the bigger named defenders entering free agency.

I can see them moving him, I just don't see meaningful trades happening until after the Cup. Too many variables regarding free agents wanting to wait out their performance there. Oso won't be the only one, which means a lot will be up in the air for anyone already under contract or approaching the end of a deal.

[Section 223]

48 hour trade window opens today at noon!

any predictions?

i could see jiminez or akinola (or both) being traded.

Because of the high wages that we are paying Jimenez and Ayo , I just don’t see any interest in the two , but then again there’s the old reliable TFC paying the majority of their wages while they are playing for someone else.

[Ultra & Proud]

Because of the high wages that we are paying Jimenez and Ayo , I just don’t see any interest in the two , but then again there’s the old reliable TFC paying the majority of their wages while they are playing for someone else.

Vancouver wanted Ayo last season. He is exactly what they look for; a DP type tag but as cheap as possible. That could happen still.

Jiminez not sure. He is better and can do a job but not sure who would want him right now.

Even if both went I wouldn't expect more than a few hundred grand in allocation money or an international roster spot.