Bourgeois Capitalist or Petite Bourgeois?

Any sense on the quality and potential of the HGP signing Bourgeois? We could use defensive help though the jump from Academy to first team here has typically been difficult. Is he more likely to end up at RGV, eventually?

 

Solid? The incumbents allowed 49 GA, the whole reason we are trying to replace/supplement them. Anibaba used to be a Fire starter (for a team perennially circling the drain of late) but ever since then he's seen three teams in two years playing less than one season's worth of games in that period of time. Was a bench player come playoff time for Seattle and KC. Which sounds more like Horst. Which sounds like we are picking around the clearance bin when we need a "no doubter." I wouldn't necessarily mind the CV for our bench, if we were not returning the incumbents, but if this is a potential starter?

Who knows on the HGP, though I will defer to the opinions on here cuz I've never seen him play. But I don't know you look at a one-dimensional Spaniard, two guys who as their career developed became backups elsewhere, and then a HGP, and say, "solid." It's more like we intend to pretend the goals last season were not the defense's fault, and bring in two backups, which is a dubious argument.

 

I get that is the theory du jour, but it is not what I saw. I know people want to say it's the midfield but we seemed to get overpowered on dead balls and beat over the top by longballs by teams like Vancouver of substantial speed. We spent a lot of time talking earlier about whether RR was up to league physicality and/or lack of foot speed getting beat to headers. And whatever dream land people are in on CB mobility, several times we were beaten for speed. It might not be Boswell slow but it is slow.

I also believe Horst is simply second rate, and Anibaba's amount of games played 2014-2015 suggests similar.

I think we are back in the realm of "two players is all we need again" and how has that ever worked the past two years. Every year people act like it's a sharp veteran team that will prosper by minor changes. No one seems to want to engage with the idea that it's sub-par at every level of the formation in some way. And I think it's ostrich level blindness for people to be like all we need to do is trot out Horst Anibaba and RR. Seriously? Go ask any other team's fans, or their old teams, how wise that sounds. We are, like Montreal once did, clustering a bunch of castoffs around a few decent players. There is usually a reason people are shedding bench players like Horst and Anibaba before they were signed.

People are now drinking Kool Aid the team didn't even have to sip first.

 

Go read the "traffic cone" or "catastrophically bad" comments about Anibaba on SS' threads. My sense of Anibaba is what he offers is going forward. I've already said my piece before about signing people for defense based on perceived offense.

 

Yes that is my assessment of the offseason, slightly younger on Maidana for Davis, wild card on Wenger and Anibaba, mostly the same and one year older with a team that didn't make the playoffs. I am upset we didn't take the opportunity to free up more money and make more changes. People will criticize me for saying so but then they seem to enjoy defending these wilderness years for no reason I can understand other than beating on me rather than expressing frustration more constructively at its object.

 

Hard to say. You look at the title years and in 2007 we had a strong combo of decent GF (43 in 30) and low GA (23). That is your ideal. That is the final we won in regulation.

When the GA went up and we made the finals, in 2011-2012 we had GF and GA in the 40s and we lost both years to LAG in the finals, with LA scoring 4 goals in regulation. In 2009 we had less offense (39 GA) and a fairly stout but lesser defense (29 GA) and were knocked out before the final, with no playoff goals in regulation and the defense finally cracking in OT vs. LA.

That being said, 2006 we were relatively even in GF and GA and got it done, but then every other competitive team in the West had a similar setup, and we met a NE team in the final with even weaker offense and similar GD. We won that on spot kicks. [It appears that some years a team strong on both ends runs away with it, and other years a team of more modest quality wins a crapshoot.]

I grant that playing on the other end is nice to the defense and would itself improve the GA (and GF), but thinking about it like basketball, where the game becomes halfcourt deep in the playoffs, you have to be able to stop the other guy. You might be able to sit on RSL's end, but the Timbers? Crew? Getting the GD back positive might get us back in the playoffs and competitive but to be really competitive you need an airtight defense. 2009 was the last time that happened and I always thought that was a title defense in search of someone to score goals. Ever since then 40+ GA and we never win it. I think we need to move in that direction, tough team defense (and efficient offense), which is not at odds with playing in the heat. Once you have that in place, all you need is two hot strikers for a period of time. You can do one of those in the summer.

The obvious problem with the defense is the CBs. The wingbacks are serviceable when healthy but lack depth, which is itself a problem. I am not sure either has been sufficiently addressed to make a real difference. I am not sold at all on the incumbents or Anibaba, who was part of a similarly mediocre SKC defense. There is hope for Agus and the kids. I am not sure if we got anyone who can spell Beasley or Williams when out, which was sometimes disastrous. We will see.