i think you positive thinkers are way off in your expectations because we have no new great add-ons, we have key guys recovering from surgery (beta, lenny, gordon) or persistent injuries (chavez) wondo will probably be in another USMNT funk, and jon busch has passed his prime ON the other hand, LA is putting out more dough, jettisoning quite a few players from their championship team, etc. Portland & Seattle are steadily investing. Guys, we're in Silicon Valley, a place that lives by the credo that no one can rest on their laurels. Resting and status quo just don't work in a competitive environment. We can easily go from worst to first and back to worst again.
theyre bringing in bodies. we dont know if theyre bringing in improvements. Portland can really only go up. They look like theyve done good on paper, but they looked good on paper last year too with Nagbe, Zizzo, Jewsbery, Boyd, Mwanga, Al Hassan that team should have been explosive. Thats so many quick athletic guys that are good on the ball. But we know how the backfield went.... Seattles always gonna be tough but theyre losing Montero. They are always a tough match though i expect nothing less this year. The only thing theyve done to fix their soft defense is brought in Eriq Zavaleta, whos a good player, but we will see if he can improve them or not. They fold under high pressure and we saw that last year even with as good as their offense is. Plenty of reason to be optimistic this year, plenty. Maybe we wont win the supporters shield, but i can easily see us getting top 4 in our conference/top 8 in the league. But we could win the supporters shield as well
Yeah, on one hand I'm thinking that sort of thing. OTOH I think about the teams in MLS that have been consistently good are the ones that have a fairly stable roster, like the team that Houston inherited from us, and NE back in the Taylor Twellman era. Yet I think things are a little more competitive now and it's harder to skate by with a stable roster that doesn't get significant additions each year. Houston wouldn't have been very good last year w/o a few key additions like Garcia. One thing for sure, each season is a season unto itself, and you can't predict what will happen based on what happened the previous year.
Jon was distinctly average last year. His value as a leader is not as needed with Mumu on the field. Additionally, with improved speed on the outside, we don't get exposed as much with 1 v 1 which is his strength. However, his weaknesses is the areas which we need him to be better. Set pieces, shots from the top of the box, and balls in the air in the penality area. I'm really hoping for more competition at the GK position this year.
We were awesome last year, and it wasn't luck. We have some additions this season, but no big announcements yet. We have about a month to bring in a significant player, so don't count your disasters before they occur. Will we be as good as last season? Very unlikely. We will be as bad as '11? or '09? No, we won't fall that far either. I expect us to be one of the top teams in the league again. Even with some injuries, we're deeper than most other teams. I have confidence in Garza and maybe Hustedt. I expect Shea and Beta to have better seasons than last year. Wondo will bag at least 15 more goals. Lionheart should be good for 10, and Gordon too. (And we've got some other forwards in reserve if necessary.) Our defense should be better. The Busch has not lost so much that we need to worry about him keeping up, and if we do, Bingham is ready to start. The stars are still aligned for us. GO QUAKES!! - Mark
Must be a sign of the apocalypse that Angry Mark is more optimistic than I am!!! JD deserves some time to make a move... this Dawkins thing was not entirely unexpected but transfers take time to work out especially if you are bringing in a guy from outside the league. We have until April 15th to bring someone in so I will withhold judgment until then. We are objectively weaker though. I see this season as being a real battle just to try to finish 3rd in the west and avoid the play-in 4th/5th game. If everything goes right for us like last year I think we can do it but if we have some bad luck with injuries like '11/'09 then I see us finishing 4th or 5th.
it really is, the tables have turned like about face in many optimist pessimists in here its pretty amusing to see the contrasts. optimists are now pessimists and pessimists are now optimists
The thing about "standing Pat" is that it's just that - neither here nor there, maybe "he", maybe "she", you just don't know .
Im not sure we are "objectively" weaker. We are swapping out Opara for Harden and Muller, which could be an upgrade. Losing Dawkins hurts, but Im not sure that we lose that much if Salinas eats most of those minutes. We wont be as good offensively, but we should be better defensively. And then there is the question of the quality of minutes we get from the guys who are backing him up in Garza and Hustedt. While its going to be hard to match the offense from last year, I do think we have some upside opportunities on the defensive end. I think you have to have met a "pat" to fully appreciate that segment. Its incredibly uncomfortable until you get the issue settled.
First off, I don't believe in no stinking apocalypse! (Even if Julia Stiles is in the movie.) Frank already said that they were looking at a couple of guys just in case the Dawkins deal didn't pan out, so hopefully, they were already in talks with a couple of other players just in case. As long as those guys weren't using us for leverage, we should be able to close one or two of those fairly quickly. We should strive to have a replacement player in out kit by mid-month. Bringing a guy in after the start of the season is awkward and we'll lose a couple of weeks just getting him worked into our system. We'll see, and part of the reason I am optimistic is this: Last year we were great at the start of the season with Shea and Chavez on the wings and Dawkins on the bench. I'm hoping that between Shea, Chavez, and Garza we can bring that sort of heat to the pitch. Secondly, I believe Frank when he said we are looking at other guys, and I also know that JD, Frank, and company do not pre-announce signings. We won't hear any rumors before the guy is physically on our pitch. Thirdly, because it's legal now in Washington State, I sometimes start my day by smoking two joints, know what I'm sayin'? (That's a joke actually, just in case the feds are reading this.) GO QUAKES!! - Mark
Wow. Instant offense. I thought Cooper was a bust in Portland, but in NYJ he was pretty good. Hasli started off well in Wankouver, then faded a bit. We'll see how this works out for FCKD. GO QUAKES!! - Mark
Dallas is looking really unbalanced in their roster, they have a ton of CDs and CFs, pretty thin on outside players.
Cooper was great because of Henry. Cooper had 18 goals - most other years would have won the golden boot with that. But at Dallas? I don't see more chances coming his way.
While I've never rated him very high, he won the golden boot one year at Dallas. With Ferrera (what I consider to the the best attacking mid in MLS) feeding him and the French asshat they picked up, they could be VERY potent on the attack. Dallas came on strong at the end of the year when Ferrera returned from injury and almost beat out Portland for the last spot in the playoffs... no one wanted to play Dallas at that point. This is how I score the +/- for the west: Quakes (-) LA (+) Dallas (++) Seattle (-) Colorado (=) Vancouver (=) Chivas (too hard to call)
Well, I think we can safely say this: either Cooper or Hasli is an upgrade over Seals! Dallas still has that Panamanian dude too, right, Blasé Perez? Dallas was scary because of their speed, but neither of these big white guys who play like small guys are all that fast. But, still a strong forward crew, with Blasé, Cooper, and Hasli.
How do you figure LA as a +? Make fun of Becksie all you want, but the man had 7 goals and 9 assists for the Galaxy last year. A much bigger part of their overall smaller offensive production (involved in 16 of 59 goals) when compared to Dawkins and the Quakes (8 of 72). Cudicini hasnt played much at all in the last 3 years, is 39, and had a major accident during that time. Buddle is gone removing some forward depth. They look more like a = to me at best. And FC Dallas may have added Cooper and Hassli, but they lost a lot of guys too. Hartman, Pertuz, Villar, Shea, De Guzman, Hernandez... all started in their best run of form. I don't know, they could actually be worse this year. Their only dedicated outside mids are Castillo and Jackson, neither of whom are consistent, to play 2 of their 3 "big" forwards they have to move Ferreira into a 2 man central midfield. And with the playoffs on the line they went 1-2-4, choking vs. Chivas USA of all teams. You also missed RSL, who are also probably a (-).
they can attack in multiple ways... fabian castillo burning you on the wings and crossing it to big ol' blas, or ferreira drawing your defense out and feeding it to cooper or hassli's feet. ferreira surprised me last season and got back to that elite level after he returned. if he can stay healthy they could be good. but he is old and a big injury risk. the extratime radio guys were worrying about who will play CDM for them but I think Bobby Warshaw will be great there from what I have seen of him in MLS. only reason he missed so many games last year was injury. he will have to cover a lot of ground though if they have ferreira as a #10 CAM.
Apples to oranges. Completely different kinds of players / styles. Taking a bigger sample size, Dawkins was a much more productive goal scorer than Becks in MLS by about a factor of 2 (per minute production), but Becks raked on the assists and Simon did not get many. Did the Lampard to Gals thing not happen yet, officially, or is it not going to happen period? If it happens, I would guess that Lampard would be an upgrade to Becks, probably a significant one.
Of course its apples to oranges in terms of style. But my point wasnt style, it was how big a part they played in their respective teams attacks. Dawkins was much less a key player for San Jose then Beckham was for LA. You cant make a big deal out of Dawkins loss and then say its no big deal for LA to lose Beckham. And Lampard hasn't happened yet, not clear if it will. And hard to say if it would be an upgrade or not. Beckham was really used to kick start a lot of LA counter attacks, not sure Lampard fits in as well. LA has also been vulnerable to teams with speed up front, they were struggling containing Vancouver in the playoffs until Rennie took Mattocks out for Miller. Point being, if Lampard is less effective in the counter and LA needs to push numbers forward, it does help expose a weakness. Their 2011 playoff run was pretty much all Donovan, Keane and Beckham. So I think losing Beckham is not something to be dismissed. His long passing and set pieces fit in perfectly with what they needed to succeed with Keane and Donovan up front, they need to find someone who is as effective and as good a fit, and the history of DPs is such that its no safe bet. It doesnt mean that LA's season is over, just that they will have to adjust and they may not be as strong coming out of it as a result.
Castillo was very hit and miss, same with Jackson, and Warshaw is a big question mark. We also dont know how Ferreira will do in a 4-4-2 if they actually want to make use of the strikers they acquired. And again last year they managed to draw Chivas USA twice at the end of the season. Thats not exactly pointing to a potential juggernaut . Lot of questions around FCD right now.
Well it's style, and style begets effect, which was my point. Dawkins was a much more productive goal scorer than Becks over the course of their MLS careers. Becks a much more effective assist guy. So again, apples to oranges, but if you take 2 points for a goal and one for an assist, they were about equally productive in terms of their contribution to the offense.