Who said anything about sitting Kofi? We have zero depth a fullback. It would be nice to actually be able to give Kofi a rest every now and then and have someone we can count on if he gets injured. Apart from that, fans need to prepare themselves for the very real possibility that this is Kofi's last season in orange. Contract is up after this year, Dynamo wanted to extend it prior to the start of this season. That they were unable to do so suggests he wanted more money than they can afford. We have little budget space and unless we can generate allocation dollars this year, we won't have much to work with. Davis is still going strong. In MLS I reckon he has 2-3 years left. Trying Ownby on the left would not be my preference. He is a natural right sided player. We've seen many times how well playing players well out of their comfort zone works. Driver is terrible on the right. Jason Johnson has been awful on the left. Davis impact declines when he goes middle, etc. You either find a spot where Ownby can contribute on the right or you get ready to lose him in the expansion draft next season (also a very real possibility).
Both Kofi and Will are in contract years and I imagine the Dynamo will push hard to sign at least Kofi, and probably Will. I think we have $200,000 in Retention Funds and both should qualify. Not sure if the RF are a one-time deal or if the league will replenish them at some point.
Pittsburgh games on UTube in HD and excellent quality. Arena played 90, looked pretty good and comfortable alongside Marshall in 4-4-2. A few mix ups but overall not bad for first action together against a strong, pacey attack. JJ looked out of sorts the first half up top but settled a little when he moved wider left and managed a decent shot late in game. Salazar didn't see much action on right mid but had some trouble marking against frenzied attack. Will be interesting to see how they develop.
I still can't believe you can become pro and then within a year come out in worse shape? That would be all the motivation in the world to me to get my crap together. Salazar better pick it up fast or he's gonna be another "what coulda been" story.
Looks like our starting keeper will be out for a while. 451043101931745280 is not a valid tweet id He also was concussed. Maybe we will actually see one of the Dynamo keepers here soon.
Loving this thread. Good way to keep up with Pittsburgh and our players there. Couldn't think of a better way short of finding a Riverhounds forum.
This is the kind of thing that really can help both clubs. Without this partnership, Riverhounds are without a keeper and the Dynamo lose a chance to get their backup keeper some valuable game time.
We still have a keeper with Blum, who was probably going to suplant Gilstrap this season as our #1 anyways (just a lot sooner now). The problem is we don't currently have a 3rd. A local guy named Hulings has been practicing with the team but as far as I know he doesn't have a contract. I think they were going to stick him on the PDL team. Gilstrap can be out anywhere from 3-6 weeks and even then will probably require some sort of face shield. The Hounds have another game this coming Saturday. It'll be interesting to see who's taking shots in practice.
So this may be an ignorant question, as I'm not well versed in the area, but; can the new CBA after this season change our salary situation significantly? Is a substantial increase in cap possible?
That could happen although the current cap is not directly specified in the current CBA. It just has the minimum increases each season. The new CBA could include all kinds of things including a higher cap, more free agency, changes to the DP rules, roster limits changes, new provisions for the reserve teams, etc. All of that has to get worked out. And that could very likely push right up to the start of the 2015 season. It is not likely that the league and players will just say "hey, we got a bunch more TV money, let's just raise the cap." There will probably be at least some structural changes so it is hard to predict the outcome of that on individual contracts.
Yes, retention funds were part of the discussion to re-sign both before the season started. There was a hard push to get both under contract now, neither signed. With Bruin you can guess why; willing to take his chances that his value will be higher by end of 2014 than it is now. With Kofi, I've always had this feeling he has wanted to play elsewhere (can't explain, just a feeling). Caleb Porter made clear his interest in having Kofi a few months back. I hope we retain him but I will not be shocked if we do not.
As was said, probably not significantly. What can have a big impact is allocation dollars. Missing out on CCL qualification this year meant we missed out on allocation dollars, which hurt. A very simplistic and short primer on the budget cap is this: you have on-budget players and off-budget. The on-budget count towards your cap, as do any transfer fees you pay out. Allocation dollars, retention dollars and any new thing MLS comes up with to help LAG, NYRB and Seattle buy more big name players allow you to buy down your budget. Things like DP's, allocation dollars, retention dollars and similar mechanisms are huge; budget cap number can remain the same but these mechanisms limit how much salary (or transfer dollars) count against your budget cap.
Per @PghRiverhounds coach Justin Evans -- the team expects to get Houston GK Michael Lisch on loan with Hunter Gilstrap out at least 2 wks.— Matt Grubba (@Matt_Grubba) April 2, 2014 @_bencole Blum to start Saturday, and I was given the impression there's no set plan beyond that.— Matt Grubba (@Matt_Grubba) April 2, 2014 Hey what do ya know.
As expected, Brian Ownby sent on loan to Pittsburgh (along with the temporary loan of Michael Lisch).
Travel Roster: Blum Vincent Fekete Flunder Johnson Green Motagalvan Ngwenya Marshall Earls Arteaga Angulo Dallman Arena Obodai John Lisch— Pittsburgh Riverhounds SC (@RiverhoundsSC) April 4, 2014 Looks like Salazar and Ownby aren't making the trip this weekend. The Hounds take on Richmond tomorrow @ 5:00 pm eastern. The steam can be found here
Ownby actually trained with the Dynamo today. They announced what everybody already knew yesterday, but Ownby has not yet joined up with Pittsburgh. Probably goes next week.
damn-we're going to start using his name as a verb Felix- a guy with talent we'll never know about because he chickened out Salazar-like Burton's Batman, a lot of hype and no substance Think like Kingpin and Munson.
Yeah I thought the announcement meant he was here. In our meeting with the team last night (about other things) they said he's actually in Richmond this weekend because he's got some family there, but he's not officially with the team until next week.