He does deserve to be paid. Since he's been injured or away they've been losing. Dempsey hasn't produced and is paid 10x what EJ is paid. Frankly, it's more of the unfairness of the MLS DP system than anything but guy's got a point. The whole DP thing and underpaying players in the MLS is a f'n joke. I hope the players strike and soon. Some of their pay is downright shameful.
So EJ gets frustrated at the end of a practice session and that is your version. Here is EJ's and Sigi's version: “It was a one-day thing,” Sounders head coach Sigi Schmid told reporters. “We talked, we resolved and we move forward. It’s like families. In families, sometimes you disagree and you move on.” “You know me being a guy that’s important to this team, being injured, I’ve been really frustrated. I’ve been frustrated with the time they sent me out and I felt like after that training session, with everything that’s been going on, it’s me being frustrated with myself knowing how important I am to the team and how much I want to be out there helping my teammates.” http://www.mlssoccer.com/news/artic...ounders-training-reason-one-day-holdout-still
I think most including Seattle fans and management would agree that the GAM needs to be paid. Since joining Seattle, EJ has been their leading goal scorer with 23 goals in 48 matches (43 starts) and makes $175K. PS, Martins makes 6 times EJ's salary and Deuce makes a whopping 30 times EJ's salary.
Wow, Eddie Johnson needs to get over himself. I want to see him in Europe, he might be humbled a bit, but should get paid more.
True. But did EJ knew he was going to come around like this at the time he signed the contract? probably not! Is sort like the stock market, sometimes you buy duds and sometimes you hit a winner. Now, if you bought a stock low, is the seller going to say, "I need more money because the stock went up even tho, I already sold it to you". Probably not. EJ should try to get a new contract but the club is in no way require to do that. By the same token, Seattle can not ask for money back from Dempsey's contract since he is not producing.
He definitely does deserve more than amount he's making now based off his current form, but I just think he should keep this grievance low key. He will probably get paid at the end of this year, but yelling "pay me" after scoring is immature and will only breed discontent between EJ and the Seattle front office.
They can always play out their contract and move to a Scandinavian league or something, I mean if they are good enough to hack it there, EJ should be good enough for at least some top Division Scandinavian or Bundesliga 2. Germany is very lax with their foreign player restrictions, Belgium even more so I believe.
just stop it with the euro stuff like it's a magic cure all for skills or form. plenty of decent players have played their whole careers in mls or have seen a career revival upon coming back to mls. it's about playing, wherever that may be.
What euro magic. He simply said if EJ wants to be paid and can't find it in the mls then finish his contract and move to a euro league cause they pay better. Good god stop being so defensive.
Someone else to add to the discussion although he is more of an outside AM than a true CF. What do you get when you combine killer pace and supreme ball skills? see 1:10 of the video: http://www.bfv.de/cms/seiten/index.html?player=true&vid=5651
Very impressive there. However I think Green projects more as a LW for us in the future, which is where Pep was playing him with the first team in the preseason.
Sorry that this response is kind of delayed, been caught up with stuff so only recently read your post. First I'll say that I do agree with most of what you are saying (and honestly i threw out Zusi because he was our starter on the wing recently over bedoya, personally i wouldn't really take issue with either starting). Okay now onto your post Versus Jamaica (the match I'm assuming you thought he played "poor" in) his performance was largely masked by the lackluster play of those around him. Jozy, his partner, had one of his worst outings ever, Landon looked like he didn't care (thus the sub at half), and Jones is rusty (as seeing how he was benched at Schalke) and injured - even JK said after the match Jones didn't look normal. I guess, but I don't think that a) it necessarily excuses his performance completely, and b) frankly he looked just as out of sorts as everyone else from what I saw. If you're going to call out those players for poor performances, you should probably not give AJ a free pass seeing as he looked fairly average himself IMO. In general though I'm not even faulting him for that. More just to bring up that he has played a total of 3 games for the NT and he wasn't necessarily dominant in those 3 caps, though fairly good nonetheless. I'm not sure what else you want the guy do to? Versus Panama and Bosnia he was flawless passing, created chances for himself, and hell he even scored a goal. Well for starters probably have more production then the guy some people want him to replace. In those same 3 games Altidore has scored 4 goals and an assist. Beyond that, he's also in the unfortunate spot where the other role has been occupied by both Dempsey and Donovan, both of whom are probably have been two of the more important players on this NT for the last several years. So the short answer would be to keep scoring and keep being dangerous? He's played 3 games, and i'm pretty sure he came off the bench for two of them. He's been promising but given that he's competing with Dempsey and Donovan for that spot I can't say that he's guaranteed himself a starting spot. BTW when I say a "lock" as a starter, I'm talking Michael Bradley kind of lock where it's kind of a no-brainer he starts. AJ has played 3 games and i think only started 1 (pretty sure he came off the bench against Panama). Kinda hard to reach that status in 3 caps, and while AJ has definitely passed the eye test I wouldn't put him there yet. I just think it would take 1 or 2 bad starts for him and/or dempsey returning to form for him being a starter to definitely come into question. They are extremely extremely opposite types of players. Jozy doesn't have nearly the first or second touch of AJ. Jozy also doesn't have nearly the ability to create his own shot like AJ and Jozy also isn't as good of a 'distributor'. AJ also isn't afraid to let it fly from 25+ unlike Jozy even with his opposite foot (rewatch AJ's PSV match and you'll see he almost hit top-left from 30 with his left foot). With that said, Jozy does have some things - like his physical presence, that make him a different player, and an advantage in certain situations. For example, in Jozy's match vs. Arsenal where his goal should have been allowed, I'm not sure AJ out muscles Sagna like that. While I agree with this for the most part, I think it also illustrates my point about JA being underrated pretty well. For starters, the 'distributor' argument. I might be misinterpreting that statement, but I think JA does a great job of this around the box. His hold up play and ability to involve attackers around the box I think is one of his biggest strengths. I mean look at the chip to dempsey or a lot of his performances at AZ. Also "Jozy doesn't have the nearly the ability to create his own shot like AJ" is a bit disingenuous. Jozy is perfectly capable of creating his own shot, especially if we're talking against Eredivisie level of defenses. Frankly I don't think AJ is much better at it if he is even better at all, it's more they have different ways of accomplishing that task (with Jozy relying on a combination of strength and dribbling to beat defenders). AJ possibly could be better at in some respects, but saying it's a night and day difference is a bit silly. Simply put, I think Donovan is best suited at RW for us. Just my two cents but I think AJ at S.S and LD at RW >>>>>> LD at SS and Zusi at RW Well that's why I said almost haha, but I do agree that I'd prefer to see Donovan on the wing and AJ as SS. The only reason I like the LD/Zusi combo is because a) Zusi has had such a good rapport with Altidore, and b) Donovan played so well there at the gold cup. Granted it has it's drawbacks (like you said Zusi's defensive cover/work rate) but in general i think it's worth considering if the world cup were being played today. To clarify on the point of my original post though, let me be clear that I do like AJ. Wasn't saying he's in actuality a mediocre player by any stretch. My post was more geared towards people calling for Jozy to be benched in favor of him going forward; which to me given the limited sample size he has on our NT, along with the way Jozy has played the last 5-6 months (i know his last game or two were a bit rough around the edges) is a little hasty and kind of indicative of the inflated hype new and exciting USMNT players tend to get. I honestly expect AJ to be one of our starting 11 come world cup time, and I expect him to definitely have a big role going forward (granted I can see Agudelo and Boyd making things interesting down the road if they pan out/keep developing).
Personally I think one of zusi or bedoya should start as well depending on what we need from the right side more (attacking or defending). I rate both over Beasley. I'd start one of them on the right. Move donovan to the left. Move Fabian back to left back.
The pay me celebration was awesome. I bet you guys want to ban end zone celebrations in the NFL too. Let the boy cook. He is horribly underpaid. And MLS needs guys like Eddie Johnson. Its boring without him.
He looked like he was trying to pull his shirt up to show a pay me shirt and his teammate tried to stop him. Did he end up doing it?
The shirt said RIP-something/someone. I know that he took the shirt off after the match, and I was expecting to see some sort of pay me thing, but that turned out not to be the case...
Best not to jump to conclusions: http://www.thenewstribune.com/2013/10/30/2864769/seattle-sounders-vs-colorado-rapids.html
Great match for EJ with fantastic work rate over the 90+. As the announcers pointed out he made the runs all night and deserved to be rewarded with that goal at the end. Also led the team with 5 key passes!
Great goal by EJ. This year he has shown so much more skill and soccer-sense than he did earlier in his career when he seemed to rely exclusively on athleticism. As an aside, Oscar Pareja's decision to start German Mera was just disastrous.
That dude is a beast. Lovely play and finishing there. So sick of people dismissing him. Both he and AJ are on the plane already. You don't leave a GAM behind.