Pogba is now official! Depth at center back! Hooray! Nothing against Larentowicz, but he's a midfielder. Pogba is an actual defender.
This one was predictable, especially after the signing of Shea and Pogba. Still sad to see an original 17 go. Best of luck Chris and thank you!
Indeed. According to the MLS players salary guide he pulled down $588K last season. https://mlsplayers.org/resources/salary-guide I'm curious if this was more about an international roster spot than performance. I'm also a little bit surprised they couldn't a home for him via trade As far as Nagbe is concerned it certainly is disappointing that such a great talent has his heart set on being somewhere else. I wouldn't move him on the cheap but what does Columbus have that we'd want? Some basics on Nagbe. He signed a 4 year extension with Portland back in March of 2016. We got him on $1.65M of xAM. Made $620K last year So back to compensation from Columbus. Would you be happy with $1.5 - $1.7M in xAM? Would you want a young player back? Maybe someone like Artur who's a d-mid? They still have Trapp so he may be expendable.
McCann doesn’t take up an international slot, I believe he didn’t start on the team in the inaugural season because he was getting his green card
FWIW, Almiron starts on the bench for his Newcastle debut vs Wolves. Seems a but odd for a team's record signing who's had 10 days with the team, but we shall see.
What are Newcastle wearing? Hopefully they'll bring Almiron on at some point. I want to see "Electric Blue, Miggy Boogaloo!"
Paying down the salary of aDP is just cap stuff. The player makes what he is contracted to make. That is just cap games with Garber bucks. Now, a player can redo his contract, but then you wouldn't need to "buy him down" anymore, because he'd be making less. EDIT: On Nagbe. Beyond xAM I do not know what you'd want from us. Take Pedro Santos or Meram, please? Santos is DP level by a $250k or so. Meram by around 500k in salary. Trapp is 500k but we are not trading him (local product). The only other close salary is Zardes, & that seems unlikely.. Garber bucks & picks? Allocation spot?
I get what Tito takes home doesn't change, I'm just saying that even if United feels like they'd be willing to pay him more, there's really no way to do with the current cap situation. If he wants more money, there's not a whole lot the club can do to make it happen at Atlanta. Atlanta paid around $1 million in allocation money to get Nagbe from Portland. My guess is they do not want to take a loss on that trade after just one season. Is Columbus willing to pay that much? I can't see any players Columbus has that Atlanta would want. An international slot might lower that price some. Columbus have one handy?
Multiple reports have Nagbe staying for the season. Only thing he'll go on record for missing part of camp is it was a "personal matter". So far the coach and his teammates are saying all the right things about wanting him around. Gotta say if he's happy to be here, I'm glad he's staying.
I’m glad he is staying. He is a valuable cog in the midfield because he retains possession so well. We don’t really have anyone else who transitions the ball from defense to attack.
This Nagbe news is strange. If he was dealing with personal issues why not simply say that all long? There must be more to the story, but I'll not speculate. I too am glad he is back in the fold, especially as the team heads to Costa Rica. He actually has CCL experience which could prove valuable on this trip and Frank had a lot of very nice things to say about Darlington.
He may *personally* have wanted a trade/sale. That's a personal issue. I'm not going to be mad at the guy for wanting what he wants and working to get it. Or he could've had a sick family member, or an argument with a coach, or he thought he was going to fail a PED test, or any number of other things. I had a coach in high school take about a month off work for "personal reasons." When he came back, he explained to us that an elephant had crushed a corner of his mom's house in South Africa and he was home helping with the rebuild. If Nagbe was working on a trade deal, probably best to keep that hush-hush until/unless a deal is in place, though. I'm glad he's back in the fold. He's a monster in the midfield.
All speculation, but if a trade was in the works and it fell through it makes sense for both player and team to keep everything on the down low. We get to retain Nagbe's services for the beginning of the year when schedule is packed and hectic (CCL, Open Cup, MLS) and then trade talks can resume leading into the summer transfer window. Again this is complete conjecture on my part and who knows, perhaps an elephant actually crushed his mom's house in Ohio. Again, glad he is still year to start the season and it is good that he is on today's plane to Costa Rica. I cannot wait for tomorrow's kickoff! Hup, Atlanta, Hup!