Did I say that? No. I said he's declined in some areas and gotten better in others. The towel non-offer is very witty.
Regardless of how you are trying to couch your words now, your general premise was that his net improvement/decline was something that should negate any criticism that he is declining.
And what areas has he improved on? He's always been good in the air and he started taking penalties. You can't honestly say he's better at finishing now, because his finishing in the run of play with his feet is pretty awful. If you get to it to his head its a completely different story, but he's always been good at that.
I didn't say anything about negating criticism. I'm just making the case why I think he's worth the new deal. I think Joseph had a sub-par season last year, aside from scoring. I'm not yet sure how much he's declined, but there's no doubt his offense has improved. SCORING. It's kind of an important thing in the game. And, even if a fair number are pk's, having a reliable pk taker isn't unimportant (and it's a role he didn't fill earlier in his career). The first 6 years of his career, he only had more than 4 goals in a season once (6 in '05). The last 3, he's had 20 goals. If he was "always good at it", where were the goals? [part of being "good at it" is getting to the right place at the right time to do it].
Shalrie's goal scoring prowess has definitely improved, that can't be argued by the numbers. However, two factors to consider: a) we had reliable goal scoring the first 6 years of his career. Shalrie became a stopgap forward in 2009 and the past couple years, because the Revs had no one else who consistently put the ball in the net. b) Shalrie can score but he doesn't want to be a forward. As KraftOut suggested his defensive skills have declined some, so if he's been re-signed, does not want to be a forward, where else should he play? I like that Shalrie Joseph has been re-signed but think that he shouldn't go back to holding mid given his decline.
being a reliable penalty taker isn't far from enough to offset the decline in other skills. Penalty takers are like closers in baseball, people think they are indispensable...until someone replaces them and does just as good a job. It's not a quality worth paying for or admiring. 9 of which came while playing striker, and a number were from penalties. He sat in the hole as a holding player for the first number of years of his career. This goal scoring nonsense is a red herring. Actually, with Joseph, more of it had to do with where he was deployed by the coach. Before Larentowicz, he sat deep in midfield. Without the penalties, he would probably be right around his 3-4 goal average every year. The recent years stats are inflated by penalties. This whole goal scoring argument is such a waste of time, because Joseph is a guy who should be sitting deep in midfield anyways. It is where he is at his best.
2003: 2 G 2004: 0 G 2005: 6 G, 2/2 PKG/A 2006: 3 G, 1/1 PKG/A 2007: 4 G, 3/4 PKG/A 2008: 1 G, 0/1 PKG/A 2009: 8 G, 1/1 PKG/A (Played as striker) 2010: 4 G, 1/1 PKG/A 2011: 8 G, 4/5 PKG/A Goals from the run of play: 2003: 2 G 2004: 0 G 2005: 4 G 2006: 2 G 2007: 1 G 2008: 1 G 2009: 7 G (Played as striker) 2010: 3 G 2011: 4 G The only outlier is the year that he played primarily as a striker. I can't find statistics on header goals, but I'm assuming that at least half of his 24 career goals from the run of play were scored with his head. For you to say that he has drastically improved his finishing/shooting is a gross overstatement.
No problem. It's essential to make things very clear and easy for rkupp and Soccer Doc to understand. I think Doc is still trying to comprehend the difference between wanting to win and actually committing to it. Baby steps...
--just as you are still struggling to get the difference between content and context which in this situation is critical because of the need to have the context of commitment to win from the perspective of professional sport being a business vs the view from the fans perspective. Fans are very good at wanting to spend other peoples money. A business man on the other hand must balance the realities of their commitment to win against fiscal sanity. Your serve
If a business man venture's into sports, and doesn't have either the resources, understanding or willingness to risk his assets to put a competitive team on the field and at the same time grow his customer base, then he is not living in a world of fiscal sanity. You can act like this is a game all you want, but the fact of the matter is, this franchise is not a sound business model. They have regressed in market footprint over the years. They are falling behind their competitors in terms of market share. Customer satisfaction is at an all time low. Fans don't want to spend other people's money. They want a reason to spend their own.
I'm pretty sure I said his scoring has improved. I didn't say anything about finishing or shooting. He's had 3/4 best scoring seasons in the last 3 years (even in the run of play, as you prefer). And, as I pointed out a couple of times, those were years when the Revs offense was at its most dysfunctional (up until the 2nd half of last season). Thanks for your condescension. Taking disagreement for misunderstanding is a sure sign of arrogance.
Here's your original post: As proven by my earlier post, the majority of his goals did come while he was playing forward. He scored 7 goals from the run of play in 2009, while he has scored 14 goals from the run of play over the past three years. Are you telling me that this bolded selection isn't you saying that his shooting/finishing has improved? That's certainly how it sounds...
As I pointed out earlier, the seaon where he played striker really shouldn't be brought into condsideration. Also, I do agreee that the Revs offense has been at its most dysfunctional over the past three or four seasons; however, I think that you could argue that the dysfunctional nature of the offense has benefited his offensive production. Shalrie was forced not only to take on more leadership responsibilities given the loss of stalwarts like Ralston, Heaps, Twellman, but given the lack of quality attacking players left on the team, he was also responsible for generating more offensive chances than he ever had in the past.
Having a reliable pk taker is nice to have but overall play is MUCH much more important. Your second point is saying the same thing reworded. In those early years he played with Steve Ralston, and he recently hasnt and has stepped up to take the PKs. To your third point, he's a defensive midfielder. His primary job is to win tackles, break up plays, and keep possession. It isn't to storm into the box every single play and constantly try to score on attacking headers. That's what a center forward does more or less. He was always good at it, but in his position he usually uses his aerial ability winning defensive headers, not attacking ones. This is no different now, his goals come from headers off set pieces, PKs, and occasional headers in the run of play if he is able to get forward.
How can you possibly defend Kraft's commitment to winning? How about his refusal to spend to the cap when the team was so close to winning a championhip? All he needed to do was spend another $200k-$300k to add another important piece to the puzzle and increase their probability of winning. $200-$300k is chump chage to Kraft, peanuts to an elephant really.
How is Heaps a bust? His job is to take the players he's given and get the most out of them. If he's given the worst players in the league, and we come in 13th, that's a success for him. That's the thing about having a GM. The coach isn't responsible for the players on the field, he's responsible for the play on the field.