Alright, Peter recognizes we don't have the scoring threat we need on the current roster and mentions it's going to take resources to get someone who can be a scoring threat. We've met the bare minimum so far. But this is the line I was looking for. Doesn't sound like we're content with doing what we've been doing the last several offseasons and it seems Peter recognizes you actually have to spend money for a good striker. Good. At the very least, I like the mentality we have heading into the off-season. Let's just stick the execution now.
I just really, really want to sit down with Vermes and find out exactly what striker he wants, if he had access to any of them. I would guess Harry Kane? Dunno, would be fascinating to hear.
So, my 2 cents is best broken down by position. And with regards to the PV issues, I agree that he needs to have more squad rotation in the earlier parts of the season, and I hope that by spending the TAM/GAM and keeping the players we have we'll have better depth. I also think as SPR gets further into their existence they'll hopefully raise our "depth" talent as well. GK - Melia and Zendejas and add a cheap option. Zendejas needs to be utilized as a #2 (should have started over Dykstra late in the season) and can still start games for SPR when Melia is healthy. I don't think a great deal of effort/$ needs to be invested in this postion. CB - Besler, Ike, NEW 3rd option, Didic. Not a lot to say about this, but hopefully they bring in someone that's capable. I don't think Besler will be gone for international duty often but Ike has the injury issues. FB - Zusi and ??? I think Seth's issues with pace hurt us. Medranda and Pasher are options but are they starters? We likely need to decide between SAS and Storm (who's played very well for SPR this year) and trade the other for assets (draft picks or whatever) ... Lindsay is the wild card as he needs to start for SPR next year full time and ideally get ready to be the starter when Zusi ages out. We simply shouldn't roster Zusi, SAS, Storm AND Lindsay. MF - Illie, Roger, Benny ... and ideally a starter that would allow you to rotate Benny/Roger and the new high priced starter a bit. Benny and Roger have obviously different styles, but I think both could start between Illie and a high $$ #10. I also like Oliveria as a potential rotation piece that's got more upside than Medranda and Mustivar. I doubt Musa stays on the roster, but who knows. Forwards - This is the place more $$ needs spent. I think it should be at the center forward spot and hopefully Belssing/Salloi/Gerso keep improving. Lobato, Iwasa, Porter, Saad are all likely gone and Belmar is a decent #3 CF option to keep on the cheap IMO. I think our current wings would improve if you had a center forward that pulled defenders attention! I think the draft is only good for depth/SPR even though we have the #13, 18 and 36 picks. It's possible we trade some picks to move up and get the #3 CB possibly. SAS/Storm might be our only tradable assets that I'd expect to ship out.
As for strikers we can bring in, we know like everyone else with a budget, Vermes goes back to the same well. I don't see a Hungarian worth bringing as a sure thing. Chicago has that option. Maybe Roland <ugrai or Varga but both seem to be gambles.
He's 34, and this is all kinds of stupid, but I'd love to see what Klaas Jan Huntelaar could do on our team over a season. And since the Netherlands missed out on the World Cup altogether, it's not like an MLS move would cost him much with the national team at this point.
@Blando13 I think Musa is more likely to be on the team next year than Mustivar simply because of the salary Mustivar takes up to not play.
Disagree. I don’t know what PV sees in Oliveira. He has not looked good in any MLS game he played in and in the SPR game vs OKC, he was very mediocre. Agree. I like his speed, size and passing ability. He reads the game well and would be a good backup for Sanchez.
The question then is, assuming we keep Rubio, Gerso, Salloi, and Blessing, is just adding a great striker going to be all the offense needs? Or should we be hoping for additional experience/strength in a wing position too?
Don't disagree with this at all. I think Musa has more range and it's almost like Mustivar's distribution/passing got a bad case of the "Knoblauch throws wide to 1st base" disease. Really, I don't know that I think Musa is special, but I put him in the "indifferent" group ... along with Dykstra, Ellis, Iwasa, Saad, Iwasa, Porter group ... the only reason they're on the team next year is because they're cheap.
He's coming off a pretty damaging injury. Most of my opinion of him comes from watching him play for SPR in 2016 prior to the injury.
We certainly need to build depth if nothing else. Blessing isn't too big of a problem where he's at because he isn't a big payroll hit, but Gerso needs to do significantly better his sophomore year to earn his keep, IMO. And if Salloi can be the player I hope he can be...
I blame Gerso a lot less than most around here do. I mean, think how cool it would be to see Vermes allow him to save his wheels a bit for attacking again! And unless I'm mistaken, his "keep" is not that significant. I thought it was the transfer fee that really made him a dp.
Well, per the player union reports, his salary is less than Besler and Benny (non DP's) as well as both other DP's (Roger and Zusi). A "buy down" is certainly possible with the GAM/TAM we have.
I loved the way Gerso started the season. He really tailed off after his injury though. His salary is $591,258 guaranteed.
Gerso ended with 8 goals and 2 assists. Players who were better on total (G+A) than Gerso for less money: Ola Kamara 18/3 Ignacio Piatti 17/6 CJ Sapong 16/5 Christian Ramirez 14/3 Justin Meram 13/7 Maxi Urruti 12/5 Daniel Royer 12/3 Cyle Larin 12/3 Lee Nguyen 11/15 Will Bruin 11/2 Jack Harrison 10/6 Mauro Manotas 10/5 Alberth Elis 10/4 Dominique Badji 9/6 Anthony Jackson-Hamel 9/4 Abu Danladi 8/3 Yamil Asad 7/13 Kevin Molino 7/9 Diego Fagundez 7/8 Luis Solignac 7/4 Cristian Techera 6/7 Ilsinho 6/5 Jefferson Savarino 6/5 Julian Gressel 5/9 Michael Barrios 3/14 Michael de Leeuw 3/8 That's probably far enough, in fact I've probably gone too far since Gerso isn't meant to be a big assist man. But I think the point is made. We could definitely be getting more for less.
It's all funny money anyways. I mean, you can see on this list right here, that the difference between 200K and 600K in a player is basically negligible. Because let's be honest, there were many buster busts this year than Gerso. I mean, Nemeth was 10/6 vs. Gerso's 8/2... that's not really a difference enough to complain about, if you ask me. I'd still strongly insist that Gerso's lack of goals and assists has a lot more to do with the struggles the entire offense had. If Benny had brought his 2015 form to 2017, you really think Gerso's numbers are the same? I think his decline in form later in the year (which, if I recall correctly, directly match Nemeth's midseason disappearance) was largely due to the team's decline, not the cause of it. But yeah. The team is just dribbling allocation cash on these guys, so I doubt Gerso's yearly cap hit cost the wage total any more than, say, Soni Mustivar. Put him in a front line with a striker and maybe an opposite winger who are able to play at pace and not have to stop, stare at the ball, and take four touches before they can decide on a course of action? We might see the mad countering mayhem that he brought to the team early on. I like the other young forwards but they in general have really poor senses of how to be involved in the attack and how to attack as part of a team. Anyways, I honestly think a lot of the pieces are close. Rubio is a fairly decent player for 60 or so minutes per game, and I think a funny thing lost in the shuffle here is that that can be okay. He just needs a manager who will balance his minutes so his time on the field is spent with maximum impact. Full 90 game in and out is a waste of what Rubio can do. Keep his mind and his legs sharp, and keep him hungry for minutes, and I think we see a better next year from him. Dwyer had a stronger motor and a more striker-like instinct to shoot whenever he had a small chance. One last thought before I stop this fun ramble of mine. Our midfield really needs to get younger, given the way Vermes wants them to play. Ilie is apparently a machine, and that's cool. But the transition to the next generation or whatever needs to start happening. And I mean, when Roger or Benny are hurt, our options are sad right now. Medranda is a solid enough guy to throw in there, but I'm not convinced he's a great all-game, every-game runner. The team needs its next box to box man, and it needs its next playmaker. Rant over!
Nemeth scored 3 goals and 4 assists over the last half of the season, Gerso was 2/2 over the second half. A difference though it we expect more out of Gerso since he's a DP. The other thing with Gerso is his eight league goals this year was 75% of his output over the rest of his entire career (12 goals before coming to KC). He'd never been a goal scorer before he came here, despite comments Vermes made about him being one. We can hope maybe he's finally found some goal scoring form, but he needs to show it over another season. You and I have differing views on Rubio, if he is regularly getting 60 minutes a game at center forward next season we're going to be having the same scoring conversations we had this year. Keep him as depth, fine, but if we keep him expecting him to put up between 12-16 goals next year (I think that's a minimum requirement for our starting center forward), we're in for a disappointment.[/QUOTE]
I mean, the "ideal" situation is that we replace Rubio/Dwyers production with someone like Nikolic (Chicago Fire) and you see Gerso's assist's go way up and his goals only drop off by a couple ... a Nikolic type of signing/production addition is what this team needs the most. A 2nd signing of another #10 or a goal scoring winger opposite Gerso is also ideal, but with our offseason history would lead me to believe that's asking for too much.
True, Nemeth's 11 goals was only a bit over 25% of all his career goals. And in regards to Rubio, I don't think we disagree. I just mean, if we see him play half the minutes per week that we saw this season, I don't think his production will take a hit. And in those minutes, he'll be better at the holdup and linkup play like he can be when he's not exhausted. And with Pete's pretty unmistakable comments about our forward line this season, I don't think we have to worry that they're going to settle for him as the starter.
We also put Gerso in a marked man position. Our two headed striker combo scored 11 goals. That is pretty pathetic. <The pressure on him to score was enormous. It is also impossible to criticize the impact of a player like Gerson on a team that was fourth overall in MLS in SOG but 18th in goals scored and second in shots taken. Ourattack was quite good, but our finishing sucked. Gerso sucked less than others on the side in that however. What Gerso delivered was the ability to cause chaos in the oppposing defense. He did a good job of that, and we were a better attacking team because of it. He pulled defenses out of shape. It is not entirely or even mostly on him that we were not able to take advantage of that. He did score one of every five goals for us. I thought he looked like a DP. I also thought the rest of our attack looked like it was off from previous years in benny and Dom or young and cheap, in the rest. Gerso lost it by the end of the season but he was worth the money IMO and I hope PV is not soured on him.
A backup forward line of Blessing, Rubio & Salloi should be very adequate ... it just can't be our starting front line. We need a replacement for both. IF (and only if) we choose to upgrade on Benny, then maybe Gerso on one side and Blessing/Salloi on the other side of a new #9 would suffice. The #9 is a MUST, the winger or CAM is an "either or" IMO.
If this year was the player BF has become, I am not so sure we can make a 10 an either or with another wing. Was he just a victim of a crap attack. It is not as if we were not creating chances. but he can not get assists if nobody can put the ball in the net. I admit, watching him this year was confusing. He looked as if he was working hard and we know he has talent, and that his usual issue when he is not playing well is a lack of effort. What are the thoughts on BF? With the Garber bucks we now have, we should be able to pay everyone down under the max, so should be able to sign at least two DPs.
Even so, with the annual league allocation, which is going to be at least 1.2m, and whatever portion of the DD money is available, is it half or a third? and that fact that we do not pay $1m plus we can afford to pay down pretty much everyone over the max and give a couple raises and still be okay. i admit, i do not understand how tam and the cap work. can we use tam or gam to pay down to 0 against thebudget
I love this time of the year. We all fantasize about buying some great attacking players from Europe even though we have 7 or 8 years of PV's record that run counter to that idea. Deep down, we all know that RH's tweet about buying a No.10 and No. 9 is bull $hit. But we'll have fun speculating for the next few months about what 5 players SKC might buy with $500K.....all while watching teams that spent real money on a No. 9 and No.10 (Dempsey/Lodeiro/Morris and Giovinco/Vazquez/Altidore) battle (again) for MLS Cup.