Important note #MLS:#NERevs DEF Michael Mancienne is no longer the highest-paid defensive player in the league. His salary dipped down to $881,676 for 2019. However, he's still the highest-paid defender on the team and will get bumped to $1m if Revs pick up his 2020 option.— Julian Cardillo (@JulianCardillo) April 8, 2019
Honestly I still don't understand why, the past 4 offseasons, they haven't brought in 4 USL centerbacks and signed the best two.
That is kinda what they do, whenever they pick up discards from other teams. Look at Anibaba, he was a journeyman at best. While he hasn't been totally horrible, he's not at the level of someone you'd bring in from a foreign league and pay a transfer fee for. They do bring it guys who can be serviceable, but really, we need more than that. The USL/MLS journeymen should be reserves, not starters and certainly not the guys we depend on to win games.
Using the “sign two journeymen” approach would have a very different vibe if the money saved were going toward attacking talent up front. Because if we had a transfer fee striker eating up Mancienne’s salary and scoring goals instead of Teal and Juan headlessly chickening, it might not matter so much that our defenders were serviceable at best.
Ha ha, This quote could be about just about anyone - Mancienne, Dielna, Delemea, Anibaba, Somi... Stepping back to the big picture - there's a part of this whole equation that has to do with the price the Revs (as opposed to other MLS teams) need to pay to get any particular player to join the team. I suspect the Revs are often needing to pay at a level for which other teams are able to obtain greater talent for the same level of spend. So - players for whom there never should have been great expectations are finding themselves saddled with such - solely because they were shrewd enough to negotiate and extract a "big" salary (maximized relative to the player's status) from the Revs; not because they were a rare talent who commanded top dollar. In reality, a number of these players should have been thought of only as fair-to-average MLS players. And, suprisingly(!), they are just that... That's not the only part of it - there is also legit question as to the talent evaluation and decision making process as well, regardless of the "overpaying" question. After all, there have been a few players signed for decent salary who then fell out of favor, some rotting outside the core 18 man roster. They didn't end up on that list because of their salary - they ended up there because the coach didn't see them fitting into system du jour. But because the Revs are ALSO finding themselves needing to overpay, the high-salary-stuck-firmly-on-the-bench optics are exacerbated by the relatively exorbitant amount of salary tied up in unused players. It's the glaring contrast that is the issue for the Revs - their "rotting" or discarded players are in some cases recent high-dollar signings whose signings and salary levels only recently reported by media are still fresh in everyone's minds.
Sadly, this approach actually could work if they just had a coach capable of developing the talent to a level that matched their salary. To be fair, Dielna isn't doing any better in Portland than he did here.
Andy Carroll has undergone ankle surgery. The news of his surgery comes as the injury-plagued striker...
I wouldn’t mind us signing Carroll if he was one of two incoming DPs. But if he’s the only one we’re getting, that’s an awfully big gamble. It puts me in mind of Joe-Max 2.0 or late career TT.
Saying that signing him is a gamble is the same as saying the sky is blue. A guy with an injury history playing on turf is a scary proposition.
I'm usually a wait-and-see kind of guy when it comes to new players, but signing Andy Carroll is an unfathomably horrific idea.
Story now on mlssoccer.com And the comments section is just brutal. He JUST had season ending ankle surgery. JUST.
It is the Patriot Way (comb through the Island of Misfit Toys, find still-useful but no longer loved toys, for free).... ...except that the Revs will pay in a very Revsy way for his services. Despite him being an oft-broken toy.
That being said, he was a "player" in the past. Andy Carroll of 5 years ago would make hay in the box on aerial duels.
I still think the mystery player is Lewis Holtby. Played with Friedel at Tottenham, Hamburg is in a promotion battle, and he’s on the last year of his contract and the team announced recently he is not coming back. Checks all the boxes as Kraft is most likely not paying a big transfer fee.
The Revs say they aren't after Carroll. Frankly, I believe it. Even Burns isn't dumb enough to try to sign a guy who just had ankle surgery to play on astroturf. https://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2019...er-andy-carroll-target-new-england-revolution
Lewis Holtby would be a fantastic signing. Like a Carles Gil clone. Watching the two of them play together would be so fun. And who won't want to see this?
I believe it, too. They are usually so tight lipped on everything, so for them to come out and say something publicly probably is a strong indication that Carroll is not their man.