DCU Slowly Sinking

[MarioKempes]

With a 1 point/game average, that is the 2nd worst in the league. Only Cow-lump-us is worse. DCU has been somewhat anemic in both offense and defense. Does it need a shakeup?

[Sandon Mibut]

Does it need a shakeup?Yes, but it can be tough to shake things up in this league when you don't have much salary cap room - I mean, we have open roster spots and no cap room to sign anyone.

Anything that would bring you would trade is either A) too valuable to the team to move, B) too expensive in terms of salary to get any teams to trade for, or, C) isn't good enough to bring anything of quality in return.

Hell, DC doesn't even have picks in the first three rounds of next year's draft to offer to anyone.

DC's best chance to add an impact player is if Bobby gets sold, creating both cap room and an allocation that could be used on a center forward who is a proven finisher and then trading one of their excess forwards for a solid defender. Till then, don't hold your breath.

The reality is that this team was very poorly constructed. There is too much cap room that isn't producing and the lack of bang-for-the-buck is really hurting this team. Additionally, the team is top heavy in some areas - unproductive and expensive forwards, wide mids - but is thin in others - defense, especially out wide, big forwards, effective playmaking center mids -and doesn't have any means to fix the problem.

I'll give Nowak a free pass on this as this was his first season dealing with the cap and he didn't know enitrely the strenghts, and more importantly, the deficiencies of the team he inherited.

But, I won't give that same free pass to Kevin Payne and his lap dog, Dave Kasper, who have been around for the previous eight and two years, respecitvely, and were in part responsible for building this team. Some of the blame does go to Hudson but he already paid his price. But, some of it has to go to management, as well.

Honestly, I've never understood what it was that Dave Kasper is supposed to do, exactly, but whatever it is, he isn't doing a very good job of it. How he manages to keep his job escapes me, other than to think he's the ultimate yes-man and doesn't mind being Payne's sock puppet so Kevin keeps him around, sort of like Steve Lawrence & Edie Gourmet being tolerated by Sinatra.

Payne: This team looks pretty good going into the season, doesn't it Dave:

Kasper: Right, Chariman!

Payne: We don't need a target forward or better wing backs, do we?

Kasper: No, Chairman. The team looks good. You sure know your soccer.

Payne: Shut the hell up and go drop off my dry cleaning and pick me up a some lunch!

Kasper: OK, Chariman, whatever you say.

Ugh! The reality is that these guys were on board when the team struggled to score goals and they did little to address the fact in the off-season, even though the team dumped - and this was, in fairness, the right move - its two leading scorers from last year in Marco and Hristro. Yet, as always with this team, there's no accountability with management. Rongen and Hudson get canned, but the folks above them get promoted or keep their jobs. They built this team that has obvious shortcomings and little means to turn it around but they manage to escape blame for not doing a very good job of it.

[MarioKempes]

Hudson's fascination with geriatrics has really put the team in a difficult situation. Nowak's goal should be to again make the playoffs. Anything else is just gravy. Players such as Cerritos, Stewart, and Quaranta are trade bait, as far as I'm concerned. Some others may be overpaid as well. God bless Namoff for keeping his low salary.

[JoeW]

I don't agree the team is slowly sinking. I don't think it needs a shakeup to get good results this year. The team works hard, has good possession, attacks, usually plays with a lot of creativity. Finishing sucks. Results aren't what we'd like. But the team is playing significantly better over a sustained period than at anytime since "99 IMO. Doing a "Hankinson" and moving most of our players will do almost no good. The players seem to have bought into Nowak's system, play it well, work hard and we've seen stylish and attacking soccer almost all of the time.

I think the team would benefit from a finisher (and sometimes they come quite cheap--Twellman his first year, Ruiz, the Carribean duo with Metro). And I think they could use one more semi-experienced player on defense to add depth.

The GK situation is a mess. But going into the season people wouldn't have projected that. It needs to be sorted out.

The defense is too dependent on Nelsen and needs one more good depth player there.

There are a ton of bodies on the frontline and most of them are young and need PT. And at this point, none of them is the finisher we need.

So it's reasonable to assume that we'll move a number of players next season. But I think the only reason we move players this season is:
(a) to get cap room to acquire a finisher; (b) if if we have an attitude problem emerge (for instance, if Cerritos demands to be traded); or (c) if an injury on the backline or maybe at D-mid requires we add a player at a specific situation.

I agree with Sandon that Nowak deserves a pass. He really needed to find out who could perform, what they'd bring to the table, etc.

This is a team that has a lot of players making $70K or higher. But not many making MLS Max. You can go that route. But it makes it difficult to create cap room without having to cut 2 or 3 players to get a max salary slot. It also means you can't afford a lot of max salary players.

Hudson's decisions last year created a lot of problems for this year. Think of how much different life on the team would be if the allocation had been used on a finisher/forward rather than on Ivanov. The decision to trade for Cerritos by giving up a #1 pick (and then his cap commitments meant we had to cut Reyes and/or couldn't add another striker). The lack of PT to Stokes, Eskandarian and Carroll. We went into this season not really making any major additions (Moreno wasn't considered that by anyone, Adu was big PR but no-one expected him to be a force) and had to cut Stoichkov, Etcheverry, Reyes and Ivanov in order to be cap compliant.

I think we'll see a lot of roster movement in the off-season. But that's the nature of MLS. To make changes you have to create a lot of cap room and you do that by dumping or selling players. But I don't think we need a remake of this roster in order to have a successful team this year. We need one player--a better finisher. That may not happen (getting a better finisher). But that doesn't mean many of the players need to be moved b/c they're playing poorly.

[TEConnor]

Well, at least the sinking is slow. There's definitely time to turn things around. It seems to me that the majority of the team's problem is mental. The other portion is Earnie Stewart's right foot. If the team can turn a corner and come back from this down spell, the old adage will apply:

"What doesn't kill you can only make you stronger."

Of course, this statement predates the concept of bioaccumulating pollution, but you get my drift.

Tim

[MeridianFC]

W The other portion is Earnie Stewart's right foot. Tim

A-********ing-men. Now I'm not an Earnie basher, but I have stated if he row ZZs any more balls I'm going to lose my nugget. I just can't figure it out, when he shoots it's out of the damned park, when he takes corners he can't get 'em off the ground. What is the deal?

[Ender]

so say you clear some room, who you gonna get? Who fixes the problem?

[onefineesq]

The funny thing about this is that i think that we are in more need of defensive help than we are of offensive help. yes, i know, noone is finishing right now. granted .... but I think that will improve with the return of the big brute Martins. We need that type of player, as we don't have it right now. Freddy will continue to improve, and 20 games from now he will be more dangerous. However, it has become quite apparent that the keeper situation is in total shambles (3 starters in 9 games, sans injury). Also, Nelsens absence has been greeted by 2 poor defensive starts out of all of our defenders. 4 goals in 9 minutes to LA. in a previous game against the Metros, we gave up 3 in about 10. not good. We are basically one injury away on defense from being a total wasteland. to me that is much more pressing than the waiting for Martins/Quaranta/Adu development.

[dcc134]

http://dcunited.mlsnet.com/MLS/dcu/roster/

If you look at the roster something striking stands out.

Only 3 players are listed as defenders, if you add Nelsen and Namoff, who are listed at midfielders that gives you 5 defenders.

There are 7 forwards on the rosters.

You take Nelsen away for a month, add an injury to the backline and who fills in?

Who ever is responsible for putting together this roster should be fired.

Maybe Esky should play right back. He may need to at this rate.

[C. Ronaldo7]

there is nothing to worry about, we are just really missing Convey, Olsen, ad Nelsen right now. If we make the playoffs with a healthy team for the entirety of it then we will win the cup.

[DoctorD]

I don't see us sinking. What we are going through now - albeit forced by injuries - is what many of us have called for: playing the rookies and new(er) guys. I see us gelling by August.

I've always posted that winning comes before style points, but damn are we fun to watch other than finishing.

[vivaelbolivar]

i think the answer to our problems is to get another defender

sell stokes (please) and i dont know maybe cerritos i like him too but we really need a defender out there and i think we have enough firepower in the attack

if only pope was still with us :rolleyes: with someone like him we could stop sinking and start rising up again

[gunner_21]

I don't see us sinking. What we are going through now - albeit forced by injuries - is what many of us have called for: playing the rookies and new(er) guys. I see us gelling by August.

I've always posted that winning comes before style points, but damn are we fun to watch other than finishing.

Hell by August we'll be relegated! Oh wait............
Seriously though I've always seen the defence as the strong point of this team but so far this season it's like swiss cheese.

[GDopplerXT]

I don't see us sinking. What we are going through now - albeit forced by injuries - is what many of us have called for: playing the rookies and new(er) guys. I see us gelling by August.

And this is a very interesting point, especially if you widen the scope a little bit. We've got a few injuries now, a few national team call ups looming, and a few inexperienced guys on the field making things a bit shaky right now.

But one way this could all pan out by August: all of our guys back from injuries, no major national team callups (although I guess this may still be a factor), and our inexperienced guys with enough experience that we can use them when needed. This equals a solid roster, and when you consider the fact that we're not really playing so bad right now, we might be poised for an impressive late season push. We just need to avoid falling far behind early on.

Of course, we could lose 10 of our guys to severe injuries by August, too.

[somebody]

It's hard to start sinking when you haven't been at or near the top since Rongen's second year at the helm.

I think all of the experience being given to the youngsters will pay HUGE dividends toward the end of the season. I think, as much as United has struggled to get results this season, they will get enough to make the playoffs.

When fully healthy I still think they are potentially the best in the league. But we have to cross our fingers and hope we don't see as many injured/unusable players as we have seen the past ten days on the roster.