It's time. 7 losses in a row and no “easy” teams besides Orlando, New England, or DC ahead of us. Do the Fire make it 3 wooden spoons in 4 years? 20. Chicago - 24 played - 23 points 21. Colorado - 22 played - 20 points 22. DC - 19 played - 18 points 23. San Jose - 22 played - 16 points Also, I vote no more game threads this season unless things improve as this thread is where this team’s performances deserve to be discussed.
Nah, this squad doesn't have the reliable Spoon quality of 3 years ago. Missing Yallop's proven Spoon mettle.
Paunovic, while being the opposite of Yallop in so many respects, has an equal ineptitude in coaching. 2015 v. 2018: As for the "squad," it is true that the 2018 Fire do not have players at the "reliable Spoon quality" of Gilberto Adailton and "Mikey" Stephens but they did have: Joevin Jones Harry Shipp Sean Johnson Jon Busch Alec Kann Mike Magee Accam If the 2018 Fire, with the talent it has, can match the sheer ineptitude of the 2015 Fire, then Paunovic will go down as the worst coach in Fire (and, possibly, MLS) history. Hell, if the 2018 Fire can match the complete waste of 8 months that constituted the 2016 Chicago Fire, Paunovic MUST go down as the worst coach in Fire and MLS history. TWO Wooden Spoons in three years of coaching (with ONE playoff game), despite having one of the top-5 payrolls in years 2 and 3. That is some world class suck. 2016 v. 2018 2016 team: Goalkeeping Sean Johnson Son of Lamp Patrick McLain vs 2018 crap Adv. 2016-"bigly" Defense 2016: Vincent Kappelhoff Campbell Harrington Meira Gehrig Ramos Doody vs. 2018 Defense (Vincent, Kappelhoff, Campbell, Lillard, Ellis, Corrales, etc.) Tough, but I give the edge to 2016, which is pretty disgusting. To think that the motley bunch nothing above is better than our current defense is sickening (motto: "If it's broke and sucks, don't fix it." Ellis is better than manbun, but Meira was a loss, forcing Vincent into the middle). Midfield: 2016 Polster Goosens Alvarez Calistri Fernandez Conner Thiam LaBrocca "Mikey" Stephens Morrell Cocis vs. 2018 Verdict: Huge advantage for 2018 (in McCarty, Schweinsteiger and Katai we have three players [and, of course, the 'creative' Brandt Bronico] that would put the entire 2016 midfield to shame. Other than Cocis and Goosens and Alvarez (and none of them are particularly good), that is a sorry ass midfield-no creativity, no grit, no passing, nothing. God, that was a talentless lot of crap. Forwards: 2016 DeLeeuw Solignac (as of August) Arshakyan (as of August) Gilberto (gone in July) Kennedy (gone in July) Accam (who primarily played in the midfield) vs. 2018 Advantage: 2018 by a landslide. Really, DeLeeuw is the only forward who made it through the season. Soft Feet and David the moderately tall are both wastes of space. Of course, there was no Alan f'n Gordon, so that plays in the favor of 2016. Overall verdict: If we had 2016's goalkeeping and if we had kept Meira, the Fire would be much better off this season. The midfield and attack are so much better than the abominations of 2016. If we "achieve" wooden spoon level with this team, it will reach a new level of suck this league has not seen.
@moleman, how could you possibly think that "Raccoons with rubber dicks drunk on Malort" could be "doing something stupid"? That would be quite the sight and would set a record of YouTube views, especially with Chicago Fire BigSoccer posters. It would be the "ultimate" Laughterbation video, I suspect.
I believe that Colorado and DC United WILL pass us, but not sure we will pass San Jose. I predicted San Jose finishing dead last in a preseason pool and I believe that Pauno will be FIRED soon. As in many coach firings the new coach gets a few good results out of the team. But if Pauno isn't FIRED then, yes I could see us finishing dead last and as xtomx said if Pauno stills the rest of the season and we end up with the Wooden Spoon Pauno will be the worst FIRE ever (and that's saying a lot, CDLC, Potato and Hamlett). Yes Hamlett, he had a MLS CUP quality team for TWO years and he FVCKED it up, if he had these NRod run teams he wouldn't have the same winning percentage as CDLC, Potato and Pauno. If Pauno remains the coach I see us only (possibly) winning only TWO of the last 10 games that would = 29 points. San Jose would have to go 4-2-4 (W-T-L) that would give them 30 points. San Jose' remaining schedule @ Colorado vs. Toronto vs. Vancouver vs. FC Dallas @ Vancouver vs. Kansas City vs. Atlanta @ LAFC @ Houston vs. New York vs. Colorado @ Seattle
With the talent the Fire have, the Fire could go on a long winning streak and win 7 or more of the remaining games. I do not think that will happen, though. ...but it could!
Amen! I doubt the Fire will win the Wooden Spoon Derby, but barring a complete turnaround, they'll be in the Derby. The "process" has turned out to be terribly flawed. There's just too much we can wait mentality. Once Joao Mira made it apparent that he wanted to go home, getting defensive help should have been a top priority. The evidence was there in plain sight last season when the Fire struggled defensively when he was out. But the plan became we can muddle through to the summer window to save some dough. Most of the moves for defenders have seemed to have been pointed towards getting LBs or RBs rather than a rock solid CB. What were they thinking? The result has been potatoheadesque.
I liked Cocis. Not more then Dax but he would be a ton better then Bronico. However, if Polster was healthy and playing alongside Dax that would be good enough for me. Losing Meira was the big difference though. To me even Kap looks worse without him beside him.
We may be sh!t, but DC and San Jose are sooooo much worse. We're not in the running for the wooden spoon. Time to start scouting for the annual crapshoot and hope the Fire doesn't screw these young guys out of solid playing careers.
DC has six in hand on us, they just Hamid (sp), I believe they will pass us. You're probably correct about San Jose, unless Pauno finishes the season. If he does anything could happen. As for screwing these young guys. Who exactly is going teach these so called young guys? Have any of our young guys ever progressed under the FIRE organization?
Agree about all of this. Cocis-one of the players I like best from 2014-2016 (always played hard and always tried to be involved). Much better than Bronico (but I just cannot fathom the creativity). Polster being is a loss, but probably time to write him out of the team. Meira was a loss. Kappelhoff has regressed so much this season, and that is largely down to not having a competent and reliable player next to him.
I dunno, I don't think that their biggest issue was in goal. There seems to be holes everywhere, just like the Fire. I guess the six in hand will give them an advantage, but I think it'd be a tight race for second bottom with San Jose winning the spoon. That's kind of my point. When Pauno first came in, he was praised as a youth-centric coach. Now that we're three years in we've only seen promising young players squandered for various reasons. I think the only player who I believe has lived up to what I said he was is Jonathon Campbell, and that's mostly due to tutelage from Meira (yeah, that guy was actually a locker room leader). Everyone else has either underperformed (except maybe Djordje, but I personally didn't rate him that high coming in) or has been thrown away before they'd gotten the chance to develop. To me it's not even to the point of identifying talent because we were able to draft some pretty decent players who could turn into something, but we haven't done crap with them.
...except DC United has six games in hand and JUST picked up the No. 2 all time Premiership (which sucks, of course) and all time England leading goal scorer in Wayne Rooney, who at 32 may have quite a bit of life left in him. Beyond that, their roster is just crap.
No, we really can't. Remember the game against RSL where we were going to set the MLS record for most straight ties and RSL buried one in the last minute of stoppage? The Fire have shown time and time again that we can't even fail right.
Just looking at the table and schedule. The Fire have 10 more games left so 30 more points possible. They currently have 23 points. At best, they can get 53 points. 50 points has been the minimum historically to be guaranteed a spot in the playoffs. Even a situation where they would only need 43 points still requires 2.0 points per game. Last year's dominant TFC had 2.03 points per game. Then you look at the schedule. 7 of their 10 remaining games are against current playoff teams. The remaining games are against a solid massively under-performing Orlando team and much improved DC team that will have a lot of home games. So the playoffs are pretty much out of the picture. Now, the wooden spoon will be a challenge. The Fire will likely be the worst team in the East barring Orlando completely collapsing. The problem is that San Jose has been awful to the point that it may be almost impossible to catch them. Plus Colorado is always a threat for the spoon. The real question is if they can get beyond 32 points which puts them out of historical spoon territory.