I refuse to get excited until Curt is gone. An incompetent craftsman with top of the line tools is still an incompetent craftsman.
He's much more mobile than Gio. He's looked good as central midfielder for Mexico. His style of play would work fine with Alessandrini and Zardes I think. But I wish he could replace Gio rather than play alongside him. Problem is we don't have a good defensive mid behind him. Reminds me - we released Larentowicz in addition to AJ in the off-season. Big Red (Medium Red?) wasn't great but he's better defensively than Pedro or Garcia. He's a starter for Atlanta and seems to be playing fine, at least in the games I watched.
Good point. Let me retell a story from country music lore: The great Chet Atkins was fooling around with a guitar in a back stage dressing room. Someone came by and said, "Boy, that guitar sounds great!" Atkins took the guitar off, put it in it's stand and said, "How does it sound now?" i guess the only counter argument is LAG has a history of winning an MLS cup despite an incompetent coach (who cannot be named on this board).
I don't know how I feel about this. Not a position of need really and I worry that we'll get two people pouting rather than one. But at this point I guess I'm less interested in the position that if he is willing to be "the guy" because that's what we need. Too many players who thrive best when they're the third or fourth best player on the team.
I just can't imagine this cheap version of AEG paying a transfer fee like that. I guess if that happened it would be proof that AEG didn't "cheap out" on the season and that it was purely FO incompetence that has led to our current state.
This "cheap AEG" narrative is simplistic. The Galaxy just finished a season where it under-performed and was bounced out of the playoffs early despite having one of the highest paid coaches and a larger and better paid staff than the rest of the league and having several of the highest paid players in MLS on the bench. To make things worse, it hardly played some of its home grown players in whom AEG had invested tons of $ over the years. I could see a year-end meeting where AEG executives insisted that the spending be done in a more value-oriented way, such as getting players who can still contribute on the field (unlike Gerrard), getting a better ROI on the Youth Academy, and focusing the money on the pitch rather than on the bench and in the front office/coaching positions. It may be that Klein and co. made mistakes in executing some or all of those mandates, but I don't think it's fair to label AEG as simply cheap.
Great point. There seems to be consensus that Curt isn't good enough and I interpret that as, he isn't getting enough out of the talent we have. It could also be that we simply do not have enough talent. If Zardes could score as a number 9 and we didn't lose Legett, maybe we would be competitive. I simply still haven't figured out what style Curt is trying to play??
Curt obviously isn't getting the most out of his players. But we also don't have nearly enough talent on the roster. That was clear at the beginning of the season. In the last two seasons we've lost Keane, Omar, Juninho, AJDLG, Rogers, Ishizaki/Magee (had Ishi in 2015, Magee in 2016), Gordon, DeJong and Gerrard (maybe Stevie is a negative, but he did have 14 g+a in 21 games last season). That's a LOT of talented players to replace but we've only added Alessandrini, Pedro and a bunch of GII players who aren't nearly MLS ready. And then Lletget's long term injury exacerbated our talent/depth deficit.
Honestly I think we should go and find a pure destroyer DMid in the vain of a DeJong again instead of Dos Santos part 2. Outside of him we haven't had a pure destroyer since Chris Burchill and Dema Kovalenko. Guys like Jonathan would be more in the vain of Juninho or Sarvas and that is great but we need more defense than offense in the midfield at this point. That being said, I would sign him simply because it means we could get the following really sweet lineup once everyone is healthy. 4-3-3 Zardes-------Gio----Llegett --------------------------------------- Boateng----J2Saints----Alessandrini -------------------------------------- ----------------Back 4 or 4-4-2 diamond -----Zardes------Llegett ---------------Gio Boateng------------Alessandrini ------------J2Saints -------------------------------------- -------------Back 4 Ugh,...I really wish Bruce were here. The tiki taco and defense he would have them playing would have been a sight to behold.
------------------Zardes--------------- --Lletget------Gio---Alesanndrini- -----------JDS-----Pedro------------- That would likely be our starting front players if we sign JDS. Having Boateng, Jones, and Husidic as subs as well.
To me we will never win anything with our current defense. Can't Jones play center back? That would provide some flexibility in the back: Cole -JVD-Jones- Pele(I assume) or JVD (natural position) - Jones - Steres - Pele or Cole (I'm sure he'd survive at RB) The biggest crime of the season was dumping AJ when we clearly didn't have the goods in the back (especially with Rogers' injury)
Yep you are right as this would be the lineup under Curt for sure. He loves the lone striker setup to a fault. I miss Bruce's 4-4-2 to 4-3-3 hybrid with dual strikers. Ugh God I want a new coach badly. Bruce would throw out the 4-5-1/4-2-3-1 only when necessary. Not our current fearless leader though. Ugh!!!
Jonathan dos Santos http://www.goal.com/en-ke/news/4539...-complete-5-million-transfer-for-jonathan-dos
Well, if we still suck now, we'll have to rely on a coaching/FO change to provide any kind of hype vs all lafc's looming activity.
JDS, JJ, Pedro Lletget. Who starts and in what formation. They're making it more complicated for Onalfo. I would love to see him sit Jones for many reasons
---------Zardes---Gio-------- Lletget--Pedro--JDS--Romain Either trade JJ for beans or release him to get a striker. Ema super subs.