Where's the beef?

This was to be resurrection year, new players, new system and better results. HA! Early yes but we are 19th out of 19, only one goal and no points. IN THE LAST GAME IT LOOKED LIKE OUR OLD KICK AND CHASE SYSTEM WAS BACK.

After five years all the new franchises are above us. After 5 years we can no longer fill the stadium.

MLSE where in heck is the beef?

Aaron winter ..... making us wish Mo Johnson was back. The guys a F***King joke. Total football? Total F**K up more like.

Not entirely sure right now that he can top his last season career high of six wins in MLS this season or next

Seriously? I know that the result wasn't the one we were looking for, and I for one was not happy with the result either. However, we're seeing much better performances than we did in previous seasons. The backline played quite well, minus the only real errors that de Guzman and Emory made all day. The "pointy end" didn't do their job, but the opportunities were certainly there.

Mo was a great player, but a lousy coach/manager, Carver (who I liked) couldn't mentally adjust to being a #1, Preki was unimaginative and Cummins and Dasovic weren't around long enough to form an opinion.

I can see the path forward with Winter.

seriously? we're going into the second leg of the CCL semifinals tied, and this thread is happening??? our lack of results is down to the players constantly having their heads in the next CCL game, and the MLS games are like training games. If when the CCL is done we're still having a lot of bad results, then this thread can start

Let's not be ridiculous. Mo Johnson was and is a clueless buffoon. MLSE should have chosen someone who would build a good foundation, seriously, they (MLSE) just suck at building sports teams.

Meh.......every team that loses always has somebody calling for the manager's head.

Winter himself said this would be the second of three years to rebuild to be a playoff team.

Regardless, anybody who thinks this team is worse then under Mo is blind.

Guys, my 2 favorite teams in mls are the timbers and toronto. I'm in Kentucky and am fascinated with your team. Eckersley is the man. Saw another thread about Dunfield sucking. He's a possession midfielder and isn't as bad as they make him out to be. Why don't they have eckersley shoring up the middle? He's not afraid to play the ball at his feet like Harden and Aceval. Emory had a damn good game in my opinion (except for the gaffe leading to the goal)

Torontos main problem is getting burned with their high D-line and relying too much on off-sides calls thar arent always going to go your way. They also rely too much on Kouvermans and the long ball as a major part of the game plan. I say put eckersley and De Guzman as center backs. (It's not like De Guzman is scoring anyway) Hardin/Emory/Morgan on the D-flanks.

Put plata Up front with Kouvermans and go with a 4-4-2. Having the little man next to the big man, damn that would be an interesting combo.

Eckersley in the middle would be better defensively but the transition to offense is just so much better with him on the wing moving the ball up to midfield or even joining the midfield moving up into the attack. The ability to do this would be limited with him playing in the middle. Everything else you said makes perfect sense.

It is clear what we have to do now. We need to fire the coach, abandon the system that our whole academy is now based around, get rid of most of our players and bring in a whole bunch of new ones. Because that approach has worked so well for tfc in the past.

Actually my original post was a wind up put in with a huge dose of sarcasm, but after the Montreal game shit show I think TFC might be cursed. The "T" apparently stands for Titanic. I'm expecting James Cameron to show up at BMO any day now....

So....do we never get to change system because our current coach/manager/regime has geared it towards this direction? Is there any length of time that we say..."I guess that does not work in MLS let's try something new?"

Just to be clear.....I was never sold on Winter (I think my posts at the time would support that) but am not advocating a change at this time (we gave him a 3 year deal so let's see what he can do with 3 years in the job)...but the signs are not good and I am seeing/hearing more comments like this and it almost appears as if people are saying we should never abandon this current management and the style (although I am not sure what that is) that they have brought with them....and that does not make a ton of sense to me if, ultimately, it does not work in MLS.

Depends what you consider this "system" to be. If it's just a simple answer like make everyone a finesse player who passes the ball and gets run over on defence then no, you're missing the point. If you look at every aspect of what they're trying to do, then you'll see that it is not something you just abandon after three years, five years, ten years, etc.

What are the main problems with this team? Now these might not be just exclusive to TFC, but MLS as a whole:

- centre backs who can't defend
- poor first touch
- poor passing
- keepers aren't confident in distribution...would much rather rely on long goal kick
- similar to the last point, defenders and keeper need to get better at starting build up
- offensive players generate offense through long balls down the wing or crosses into box instead of "knifing" through the other team with short, quick passes (and trickery)...thus a reliance on physicality as opposed to skill

If you look at most of those points, you'll notice things like first touch and defending are things that every successful team does well, even in MLS. What they're doing is teaching all of that at a younger age with hopefully, high quality coaching, providing the facilities for academy players to repeat the stuff that was learned and through tough competition amongst players, every player gets better. Again, almost every successful team does these things well but the best teams in the world do this at the Academy level. Doesn't matter if you're Manchester United, FC Barcelona, Ajax, Atlas, etc.

I get all of that....but the post I responded to seemed (to me...but I could be wrong) as giving the academy/system as a reason for not changing current first team coaches/management. I get the commitment to academy but, at some point (which I have said is probably not now) you have to be able/willing to change the current first team guys if, for some reason, it is not working at that level.

This is true.....just not sure how, after 5+ years of the team and 1+ years of current management, we could end up with a team so dependant on the availibility of one man?

this is exactly our problem. Without a calm, skilled, and commanding leader on the pitch, there's no one to prevent the likes of Harden & Dunfield from doing the "safe & easy" thing and kicking the ball far away. JDG doesn't do that, but he also doesn't prevent others from doing it. Frings provides that sense of security that allows the other players to keep it simple and play football. He also keeps people in line so they don't resort to the way we're playing right now