As SoCal Yid says, probably this is no big deal and just a training stint. However, McBean may be different than the normal MLS trainee because I think he may have or be eligible for a UK passport since his parents were born in Scotland. This would make him a cheaper and less complicated signee for a Championship squad. It's not out of the question that this could lead to a trial and that the Galaxy would be willing to sell or loan him out.
Thankfully he's going to Hull and not just Blackburn who are a sh-t show at the moment. They can finish bottom half in the Championship and they have Bowyer in who likely won't be there for long. He's focused on trying to do the best job possible to try and get another gig next year, so I doubt he'll have much time for a young MLS forward. Bruce is in a little better position where he has a little more freedom to give him some coaching.
If you are trying to say Zardes is better than Jack or Villareal and justify it by their scoring and assist stats, I don't think you made the argument very convincing. McBean has 652 regular season minutes with 2 goals and 2 assists. That projects to more than 50% more than Zardes production rate given equal time (4 goals and 4 assists in 2170 regular season minutes). If you add the playoff in (which you may have), McBean has over 75% more production. If you look at Villareal their relative production rates are more similar, but the result is still slightly weighted in Villareal's favor.
It's dumb to right off McBean or Villareal, they are both VERY young. Zardes needs to be a forward as well. If Landon plays in the midfield next season we have ideally room for 4 forwards on our roster (Keane, Villareal, McBean, Zardes). Honestly I'd rather buy another seasoned forward and loan one of the 3 younger guys out for the season, we should be loaning more often, it's best for all parties.
I think that's exactly the intent. The reserve squads don't get enough games and teams usually don't have big enough rosters to field a full reserve squad, meaning there a lot of U18 academy kids who get called in to fill gaps on those squads. With a USL Pro team, the Galaxy can do full season loans for some kids, occasional loans for others, and then fill in with squad players who would be a notch up from the 16 and 17 year-old academy kids. Think of it as a AAA or AA team like in baseball. That would give our young future stars both more games and probably stronger competition overall, although you would lose out the chance for them to play against a reserve squad with a stronger senior player who may have just not gotten off the bench in the regular game the night before. If the loan players can go back and forth without limit (especially to allow the senior squad to use some kids in outside competitions like the US open Cup and the CCL, as well as in int'l friendlies), then it's no lose as long as the USL Pro side can sign enough squad players to cover for the uncertain rosters.
Ding ding ding!! The new USL Reserve teams is another of those small steps that don't get much fanfare but in the long run will do more to improve the level of the play in the league than the DP rules and other big splashy moments...
If no new DP spots are allowed by the league we may look pretty much the same as this season unless we can trade Franklin but, I think he's pretty valuable/versatile even with the high price tag. If we get a full, healthy squad training together, I'd like to see Bruce give this a go... --------Keane-----Zardes----- ----------------LD-------------- --Juni----Sarvas----Rogers-- -Duni----OG---Opare----AJ- -------------Penedo----------- His time at LW gave Zardes a lot of valuable time with the ball at his feet and not having rookie nerves may play big for him moving to forward. I just think LW is holding his potential back. This still also keeps the LD-Keane connection alive. Any opinions(except RR) why this wouldn't work?
The comparison is actually worse when you consider that a quarter of Zardes goals and half of his assists came in that single 5-0 route over a hapless Chivas team. Other than that game and adding in playoffs he has 3 goals and 2 assists in 2310 minutes, so ~ 0.12 goals/90 minutes and 0.08 assists per 90 minutes. Equivalent to a goal every 8 1/2 games and an assist every 13 games. (By comparison Keane has .73 g/90 min and .50 assists/90 min. or almost exactly 6 times as likely to score or assist in a game, while taking fewer shots overall.) Well he's a winger, not a forward you say. Well that argument only goes so far given how often he was able to get into the box with the ball within shooting and/or assisting range; after all he led the team in shots with 83 and I don't remember too many of those shots being 30 yard bombs. The sad part is that's a lot of opportunities to produce so little. His 5.1% conversion rate (goals/shots) is one of the worst in the entire league for players taking more than 20 shots. But it turns out to only be the 2nd worst on our team - Juninho was much worse at a woeful 0.02% (50 shots, 1 goal!). (Again, for comparison, when Keane shoots his 24.6% conversion rate means he is ~5 times as likely to score.) I think it is wishful thinking that he would play better at forward. Finishing is finishing and Zardes has had ample opportunities to show a knack for it. He just doesn't have it - so far. Maybe some day, but not currently.
I'd like to see how many goals Keane would score if he was stranded on the wing and had to dribble past a few defenders each time to get a shot off.
To be fair Keane usually has to collect the ball from deep, beat a man, find an open player, move into space in the attacking 3rd, beat another couple men, then get a shot off. I know that's not the case all the time but that's pretty typical of how he gets his chances. People hammer Keane for his end product at times but they don't consider all he has to do to get himself in those positions. You look at Wondo the previous season and he did like a 3rd of the work to get his goals for SJ. If he was playing more as a forward who can play the shoulder and get his touches closer to goal without the massive responsibility of having to create his own shot, I guarantee his shooting efficiency would increase. I'm happy Keane got an extension, we're very unlikely to find a better option than him.
Completely agree. We aren't getting a better player, and I think Keane is going to be a top 5 striker in this league for 2-3 more years. Also, yes, Keane almost ALWAYS has work to do. Sure he gets some tap-ins, but they usually come after he 1) beat his guy, 2) passed the ball, and 3) made the run to receive the ball back. He may not be the fastest guy on the team, but he routinely beats defenders with craftiness, and he's always looking to use that space to combine for an easy goal.
And when he does that it usually comes with a lot of bitching about him having to drop back after not getting the proper service and also weakens our presence up front, leaving Donovan to fend for himself. I've always liked Keane as a poacher, not when he has his back to the goal almost at the half trying to invent something. I usually look upon it negatively when he does that, taking it as a sign that the team is not being productive in midfield. Meh.. I'm sort of enthusiastic.. I would have like to have been bamboozled during the off-season with transfer talk about international stars like Toronto is doing, but I guess trying to figure out what role-players we can squeeze under the cap to serve Keanovan after Franklin is traded is kinda cool.. http://www.mlssoccer.com/news/artic...o-emerges-designated-player-target-toronto-fc He'd better be, because if he pulls a Juan Pablo Angel on us now we are screwed. And after players like Franklin and Zardes but their ass on the wings trying to get the ball on the inside, because good luck being a winger and getting any assists from crosses with our attack.
Good for Robbie. Love him. Best player in the league for me, followed by Landon. You have the top two players in MLS imo and they each have a few years left playing at their current level. It's that Omar DP contract which severely limits flexibility and adding a new, attacking element next to them of DP quality. And judging by Omar's SI interview this week, he has no plans of leaving anytime soon.
I agree, Keane turned into Van Der Vaart when he came to America which is never the player he was really. I personally think he has good reason to be annoyed, though I feel he can take it a little far. How many times has he put moves together and Zardes or someone else wasted them with a poor finish. A whole season of that and it's not surprise he'd get a little annoyed, I was annoyed and it wasn't even me doing it. Keane plays well off a striker and he plays well on the shoulder. That's how he would prefer to play and advancing in years that's how he'll need to play. He won't have the athleticism to play in the whole for 90 minutes 30 matches a season. His value is closer to goal, we need to find someone who can sit in that space and generate chances. Clearly shown by the amount of time we have on the ball in that area it's an issue because players typically getting touches aren't really midfielders, I remember at the beginning of the season it seemed like Zardes got more touches in that area than any of our midfielders. There's some good players in South America we could try to tempt. Who can fill that role, he's not as mobile as he was but Omar Perez or Victor Figueroa (played a bit on the wing recently but he can play the middle), they don't earn a lot of money. Clubs in South America struggle to even pay these players that would improve us. But you have to try, they aren't going to sign themselves. (I don't mean them specifically just giving examples) I don't think they'll get Eto'o, seems like a bit of P.R. their running up there to try to get folks engaged. I think Toronto will end up with someone from Italy. As I said before I personally feel if they got Gilardino and Quag that would be some very good transfer business, you'd only need decent wingers and a midfield that could retain the ball. The type of striker Gilardino is he can score 15 plus goals in this league and Quag is very similar to Keane in how he creates chances for others. The issue to me is Omar's contract, I don't think there will be much of a market for him after the World Cup. That contract made things significantly more difficult if we want to bring in another attacking player. One of Omar's biggest advantages he had was he was cheap. Now given how much he earns, how much the club would ask for, the fact next year he'll turn 26 and has no experience in a Top 10 let alone Top 4 league, there are several better options. He still has the advantage of being English and Spanish speaking so someone might come in for him based on the fact he wouldn't have as difficult of a time acclimating, but still that's only a small benefit. To me that's the issue, not Keane. Keane would be fine if we had we had another DP slot. It's likely Omar will be here beyond 2014. I like him but I would personally feel better if we could use that spot for another attacking player.
Wait, another attacking DP? We have two already. The attack should be taken care of, lock, stock and barrel. If we need a 3rd attacking DP to supplement our current strike force, it might be time to evaluate what the first two are bringing to the table. Otherwise, how are teams without two attacking DPs beating us?
I think the obsession with finding a DP for central mid-field is becoming a bit pathological. Cienfeugos, Preki, Valderama, Etcheverry I’d take any of those guys right now. You look at player like Valeri, Rosales & Bieler those guys are all DPs but earning sub-$500K; two of them are under max-salary. Take Zelaya, before his ban, he could probably have been signed to a non-DP contract. There’s plenty of talent in South & Central America for whom $250K would be massive. The DP slot just makes it a little easier in terms of paying transfer fees and opening the field a bit. That being said I wouldn’t be surprised to see the DP rule amended. You can’t tell me MLS wouldn’t break every rule they had if a Lampard or Kaka suddenly became available post WC. Of the big three New York is the only team with an open spot and a player like that isn’t going to Toronto.
Then we did a bad, bad thing. I like Omar, but our willingness to spend money on DPs is one of our big advantages in this league and we shouldn't give it away lightly.
Yeah because we know most good teams only have 2 key attacking/creative players. Just in principle I don't think DP money should be used for defenders. Also I think you need to get used to the idea that Keanovan aren't going anywhere. Not only that but Keanovan would be fine if we had a more balanced team. Even when they were performing at a high level to me this was still an issue. If we could rectify the issue without a DP then fine but not having the option makes things more difficult. Also I find it a little poor after one year when they failed to deliver the for the first time people want them sold. Pretty much all our offense and chance creation revolves around two players, that's an issue. Replacing Keane with Eto'o wouldn't fix that. People often criticized Beckham and theorized the team would be stronger without his style of play, but a large part of a chance creation came via him and we never replaced that 3rd attacking option. I agree with what @dashiel said that it's not impossible to find players to make a difference that aren't DP's but it sure does make it harder, especially considering paying a fee for a player is considered to be a DP signing. There are players out there that we could sign that wouldn't demand a salary exceeding $300k but their clubs aren't going to let them go for free.
I'm trying to stay optimistic that our FO learned of a 4th DP rule coming this offseason before giving Omar DP status.
I'd respectfully disagree. While a CB of Omar's quality aren't easy to come by in MLS, above average, very solid CB's are. And by attacking DP's I don't mean it has to be a striker, preferably a mid actually, someone to play through centrally and provide even more service/opportunities for Landon/Keane. After the last game both even came out and said they need help in the attack. That to me means either someone to help keep them more involved/create more opportunities or another threat near their level so the defense can't focus on them as much and can create for himself. Who were the rumored DP's LA were after recently? Kaka, Dos Santos and Lampard. I'd strongly argue if you add one of them or a player of that quality to the attack LA's ceiling would be higher. LA's ceiling imo was higher with Becks as a 3rd DP, providing service than it is now. If we disagree, we disagree. I just believe LA's ceiling is a decent amount lower with a CB occupying the 3rd DP slot. I don't like DP slots being used on defenders in a salary capped league with only 3 DP slots. It's not a question of is Omar worth the money on the international market, I'd say he is, the question is he worth that money and more importantly the DP slot in MLS, in a league with this salary structure. I'd argue no. Doesn't this season tend to support that compared to the last few?