2013-2014 Columbus Crew Offseason Roster Thread

Bliss negotiated all the deals will McCullers sitting on the sidelines or being the relay between Bliss and HSG. McCullers is useless. He's a yes man.

 

McCullers was involved in the negotiations to bring GBS here. He was involved in bringing in Higuain and Mendoza too. He no doubt has contact info for agents in Latin America. I'm sure Bliss had to keep records of his agent contacts (it's basic CRM). So the Crew shouldn't lack for phone numbers to call. The issue is wading through all the players available and finding the ones we want. Mendelsohn hasn't been a personnel guy before and he may not even know what Berhalter wants yet. My concern is that we start off with some holes on the roster because we don't know yet who will step up and who will need to be replaced. We play some of last year's weaker teams early in the season. If we stumble out of the gate, we could be swimming upstream most of the year, even with a good DP in July or August.

 

I am in the middle. I am not saying McCullers is an idiot yes man who didnt pick anything up along the way, but he had nothing to do with initiating the contact on any of our signings that I know of, because that isnt his job. If he gets a call from a contact he made, great, but so far none of the big signings have sourced from that. So he is really a non-starter in the South America pipeline. Bliss did all of the discovery legwork and then McCullers handled interfacing between HSG, the player's rep/team, and the league. Yes he might have a couple of contacts but nothing he can call on unless someone is already heard of to be wanting to leave, and then I bet he is on the receiving end of the call.

 

Well, you may well be right--but the truth is that MM and the Crew have been notoriously closed-lipped about this stuff. It's possible he was deeply involved (but no, I don't think he was scouting players)--or got that way after a while doing the job. At best, we simply don't know. One way or another. We really don't know that much about how the team gets big players. They learned their lesson from the Majik situation.

 

Agreed. They brought in a player who is motivated to make the World Cup roster (which Marshall has absolutely zero chance of doing) for less salary (we are all making educated guesses) but certainly less money than he was making in Europe. I said it before. Give me a a bunch of those guys with that type of motivation. I think it is a rather brilliant move that frees up cash and we get a player that is as good or better with more immediate motivation. What is not to like?

 

Hey remember that one year when we had nothing but positive things to argue about during the offseason?

 

Link or it never happened!!! lol

 

Even there we were arguing about Sigi leaving....

 

Didn't think BigSoccer was around in '95

 

Distinctly. It was back in 2006.

Some posters thought that Seb Rozental would lead the team in goals. Others were certain that he would lead the team in assists. It was swell times for Crew fans on Big Soccer, I tells ya.

 

You would think they would just bring someone in at this point, to show they can bring someone in.

It wouldn't be hard to find a center back improvement in South America, especially in comparison to Williams, Slogic, and Gehrig.

Parkhurst is going to be likely playing left back or right back at the start of the season to improve his chances at the World Cup. So, who exactly are we putting back there with Williams for half the year?

With the money we have, we can't find one free agent that is an improvement? Mise well spend the money then sit on it. Could be out of it by the Summer window.

 

I'd guess we start a backline of Francis-Wahl-Williams-Parkhurst at the beginning of the year with 1 Dmid (Trapp) in front of them. I'm not too worried about whoever wins the GK position and have confidence in Parkhurst and Trapp. No idea about Francis but Wahl-Williams is a worrisome CB pairing. Maybe Gehrig, George, or Barson beats out Wahl.

 

There have been at least three mentions of us "being out of it by the summer transfer window".

Have any of you actually ever watched an MLS season? Teams are rarely out of contention in this league before August.

 

I think Wahl may be a little better at CB than he was outside but who knows.

 

I also think chemistry and complimentary skills are vitally important for 2 centerbacks. Maybe because I played there in college but who was next to me did matter to how I played or felt I could play.

 

At the price each of these players are getting paid?? Be real. The last two are at league minimum (heck Slogic isn't even *signed*). Where are you going to go, Centerbacks-R-Us??

It's too bad we don't have that thing they have in England and Germany (myfootballclub.com, I think it is) where the members get to vote on everything.... Then we'd get to see how y'all do as GMs.

 

While it's always possible for a team to get hot (Chicago did last year after trading for Magee), the Crew start off the season with some of last year's weaker teams. As one of last year's weaker teams ourselves, it will provide a good benchmark for how much we've improved relative to our competition. Montreal looks like they might slide and perhaps NE misses Agudelo a lot. Still the Crew haven't done much to think we'll catch NYRB, SKC, or Houston. Even the Union went out and upgraded. Meanwhile we got cheaper, meaning we're hoping that everyone else is wrong and our low priced guys will outperform. We need Jimenez and Wahl to outplay last year's Gaven and Marshall. Tall order.