The FO/ staff is what it is, so lets concentrate on players here. Needs, for me are at: CB- need another who is dominate in air and positionally strong. Wingers- we need dynamic ones; speed and 1v1 skills. Cummings doesn't seem to be a good fit out wide even though he plays there for Jamaica. Cascio worries me with his utter lack of playing time as season progressed. Forward- I want Casey back but at much reduced salary, can we train to shoot more and make more dangerous runs to space on attack? Castrillon is only a forward in 2013, Hill is not (#8 to me or back up #10) Release- Edu, Marshall, Palguta Don't wait do it today, we don't need them Saturday or ever again. Trade JL, Thomas will be the man going forward. I want 5 attackers on field at home. Against top teams and away, we can go with 2 D mids and use one of our young guys to fill second slot.
They can definitely use more speed, anywhere, but esp. wide and at forward. Cummings is the only one anyone needs to respect, and as we've noted over and over, he's not what he was. Teams only have to respect him so much, just keep someone in front of him and let him dribble around until a 2nd guy can arrive and make the tackle. I'd say the biggest thing is they need the players to actually move together. I guess there were minor improvements but for most of this season this team didn't look any different from years past. Every player worked in isolation; there's no fluidity. Receive ball with back to D. Stop. Look for someone. Stop. Next guy is 20 yards away, no one is moving. Backpass. Etc. Between the lack of speed and everyone working in isolation, their "attack" just unfolds so damn slowly, defenders just sit there updating their twitter feed until the ball comes near and they make a tackle. If the current guys really can't improve on this, then they need someone who can. I hope the FO can spot this type of player.
BTW, how do things like this start? It seems like there's a rash of people on the internet who spell the word this way all of a sudden. It's like the misuse of the phrase "begs the question" to mean "implies the question"/"the obvious question that follows" instead of what the phrase has meant historically. That seemed up crop up in just a couple years, too, and now it's everyone's favorite cliche, albeit with the wrong meaning.
Defense / mental toughness seem like the biggest issue to me. I broke down the Rapids results by margin of victory. Win by 3+: 3 Win by 2: 4 Win by 1: 3 Ties: 4 Lose by 1: 12 Lose by 2: 4 Lose by 3+: 3 Our record is 10 wins, 19 losses, and 4 ties, and we have a goal differential of -8. That's kind of astounding. If a small number of those 1-goal losses were ties, we still wouldn't have made the playoffs, but we would have been a lot closer. Since my work computer is acting up, I can't look into it now, but I think there are a few of those where we either missed a glorious opportunity to tie things up in the end (vs LA, for example) or we gave up the winning goal in the last 10-15 minutes (@VAN).
Ives looks at West teams that missed playoff's. http://www.soccerbyives.net/2012/10/a-look-at-the-west-teams-that-missed-the-mls-playoffs.html
Should the Rapids be interested in trying to acquire Dominic Oduro? He has regularly been on the bench since the Fire got MacDonald. He definitely has speed. Could also finally settle the debate about who is faster, Wynne or him.
trade jl+moor for a strong proved mls center back let's say collins from sporting kc. we need to find a talented box to box midfielder. someone with strength ball skills and passing.. we pretty much got a decent cdm in thomas. we need atleast one pacey winger casey edu akapn omar. all gone imo they will never rekindle the form they had 3 years ago.
I don't know what the team needs to get better. My impression of the team from the season is that it's pretty much faceless, styleless, and generally adrift. When I think of the players who's names get put on the field first (or most often this season) I think of Moor, Wynne, Larentowicz, Mullan, Castrillon, Rivero, and Cummings. I don't see any of them as giving much definition to the team. Casey did when he was healthy, in his absence Cummings doesn't, and the thinking has been to move away from the type of game that suits Casey. Rivero and Castrillon show some talent but there's too many times when I feel like they disappear. When I watch the top teams in the league I don't forget where their top players are. When I watch the Rapids I don't see anyone who asserts themselves on the game. It's all very passive. The teams full of pawns. You can win with pawns if you marshall them correctly, but the team seems to want to eradicate such marshaling from its DNA. Sometimes it's best for the team to be bigger than anyone player, but right now I think the team needs to find one player that's bigger than the team. No idea who that should be...
I'm going to agree with Dismemberment (wow, how often do we get to type those words!) on the box to box midfielder. That was supposed to be Castrillon, but he proved to be something different. After that, I think it's all about shoring up the back line.
My thoughts: Forwards: We need to bring in some talent up front and being moving away from the Casey/Cummings duo. I think we Jaime would be a good option up front, but maybe that's just me. At minimum we should try out the experiment. Agudelo is young and mostly unproven, but I would see if Chivas would be willing to part with him as they are remaking their squad. We need someone with the ability to make runs off-the-ball, in the box. Midfield: Agree that we need some speed and 1v1 dribbling skills on the flanks. Casio shows promise when he's having a good day, but just too inconsistent. Defense: I said it before the year season started, and I'll say it again: We need more speed from out outside backs to cover space behind our flanks. Moor and Wynne took all the blame, but a good chuck of our defensive struggles were caused by shitty marking, and an inability to close down space from our DMs and outside backs. I'd rather see Wynne moved to the RB slot and bring in another starter in the middle. Also not sold on Zapata. I was high on him at the beginning of the season, but he struggled to mark anyone as the season wore on. I may be alone in this, but I think we can make as few as 3-4 acquisitions and totally change the fortunes of this team.
Drop immediately: Edu and Palguta Assuming Pablo retires, that gives them some salary cap to play with. 1. Depth on the backline: a new CB and replace Marshall with someone younger (Colorado native Burling from Chivas?). How many games were lost by one mental lapse? 2. Speed up top, I like the idea of getting Agudelo from Chivas since he hasn't clicked there at all. Maybe it is also the time to trade Omar? 3. Need to address Brian Mullan and Jamie Smith's age, both are on the wrong side of 30 and Smith in particular has too many injury problems.
Personally I want a 3 headed monster with top 2 getting starts. However, Wynne's speed is needed to play high line and push outside backs up. I do not see Wynne every going back to outside back, he doesn't have those skills.
CB is priority #1 for me and there are two guys that I would love to have. The first is Chris Schuler of RSL. Chances are slight RSL would part ways with him given the injuries woes to Olave and Borchers and the fact we are direct rivals. But he's filled in seamlessly for RSL and been a key to their success. Schuler has size (6'4"), decent speed, great in the air, can direct traffic in front of him, and is capable of playing the ball out of the back. Love to see him line up for the Rapids but I doubt RSL would even consider a trade. Next is Ike Opara. He's been squeezed out at SJ due to some injuries and inconsistency but there's no debating his tools. Size, speed, ball skills, and is a threat to score on every single set piece. SJ might be willing to wheel and deal for him.
What is the MLS offseason like? How much time do they have off? How long are they together before the season starts? I'd give them a couple weeks off, but then I'd have them back to practicing immediately. They need more time together in practice.
Off time is dictated by the CBA. They'll still practice for a week or t ow after tonight (I think they can practice all the way up to MLS Cup but most eliminated teams don't) and then they'll be off until mid/late January.
oprara might be good move. wynne can play right back still i think you need more ball skills to play center back then right back. freeman might work at cb too. noticed freeman covers for wynne when he pushes up. tony c could be a striker i mean its his natural position. we should try him there.
Ok but in a salary cap league that is a lot of money to devote to one position. Wynne and Moor are two of our highest paid players in my opinion they need to get the job done or we need to reevaluate. I guess Moor could move outside but I really don't like that as I would want an outside back with speed.