News: Revs sign a DP, Roster Thread II

We know that Ray Hudson liked to drink all the beer

 

Yeah, as I said, I'm not all that high on Neumann either, but who's to say that the better development couldn't be due to going to a team that was worse, so he has more opportunity to play and develop. This is talked about all the time with young US players, about how they should go to a club where they'll get more playing time, and shouldn't get stars in their eyes, join a big club or big league, and then ride the pine. Perhaps Neumann was cursed by being slightly better, and was kept on a better team, where he wouldn't play as much. Or perhaps the Revs picked the wrong guys to protect, hardly inconceivable. Though the fact that Neumann actually played more last year doesn't help his case, but wanted to make the more general point about the difficulty in judging players who do ok on lesser teams.

 

Do we though, do we? Have you, or anybody here, every seen him actually drink "all" the beer? Sounds like more idle speculation, exaggeration, and rumor mongering, to me at least.

 

Perhaps Neumann was cursed by being slightly better, and was kept on a better team, where he wouldn't play as much. - This may be true, also different positions.

Or perhaps the Revs picked the wrong guys to protect, hardly inconceivable. - This is indisputable in my opinion as I have posted many times back when it was discussed. Alston? That was a bad decision that should have been clear to anybody.

Taylor has much higher quality players in positions on his team to help him look better and to help him develop. David Villa has forgotten more about playing striker than any of our strikers ever knew and will probably ever know. Same can be said about Lampard and Pirlo when compared to our midfield. We have nobody qualified on the Revs to help our midfielders or forwards develop.

NYCFC has a lot of flaws, but they have a lot of guys who, if they care and want to help, could be great for developing forwards and midfielders. The Revs have nothing comparable. Imagine if Nguyen got to play with/learn from Pirlo? Same for Rowe and Fagundez. Similar to the opportunity Caldwell had with Jones. Imagine if Davies and Agudelo had a guy like Villa around?

 

Well, one of his most famous TV calls of a player scoring a goal was "Tha' waas absoluuutely maaah-jeck! He fenneshed thet lake me fannishin a paint a beer!"

Conclusive proof? Perhaps not, but I'll go with what the $500/hr law firms call "reasonable suspicion."

 

Well yeah, obviously, nobody disputes that.

 

I was actually going to add that Zack Thornton ate all the pizza, but then got distracted....

 

Wheres the new DP you said you were in the process of signing, Burnsie ? .

 

Doc, he meant "deep dish pizza" - there are no Designated Players coming.

 

I was going to mention this in the game thread, but it seems more appropriate for the roster thread: I think it's time we trade Agudelo.

I don't know why he wasn't on the game day roster, maybe we'll find out he picked up an injury after the injury report came out, but even when he's healthy, it seems that Heaps simply doesn't like Agudelo's game. Davies goes down, and Heaps prefers a guy who's afraid of the goal at forward over the guy we thought was our other forward. If he was struggling with confidence before, I'd think his confidence could have been crushed after this period of Davies being injured. Even when Agudelo started up front, he seemed to end up spending more of the game out wide. How much of his time on the field last year was at forward compared to in midfield?

We obviously wouldn't be able to get as much for a player who is mostly a sub when he makes the game day roster, he certainly wouldn't bring the impact forward that this team desperately needs, but hopefully his skillful reputation could bring us a player that Heaps appreciates and would use. It seems like this might be best both for the current team, and for the player himself, because I think it's safe to say that his development as a player is getting stunted right now.

 

Couldn't agree more. In fact, I said this last fall too. I admit, I have never been a fan of "putting all the offensive eggs in the Agudelo 2.0 basket" and thought that move was destined to fail from the beginning. He is a known quantity in MLS. Teams know how to shut him down and the revs don't have forwards that put fear into defenses so when they play Agudelo alone, it's easy to shut him down. His game runs on confidence and swagger - take away that and he is average at best. Failing to land in the EPL, no doubt hurt his ego as I think he didn't expect to come back so soon.

I doubt the revs coaching staff provides the right environment to unlock JA's potential. There is no one who has "done it" from a forward's perspective and even if there was, who knows how receptive Agudelo is to feedback? I think there was an attempt to pump him up a bit last week by putting him on the Bootroom Breakdown after the NY game to talk about his assist. I found this interesting since Diego scored the goal, not Agudelo. Then again, I could be over-analyzing it.

In general, a change of scenery would do wonders as he would likely be a much better player coming off the bench for another MLS team, rather than the pressure of startinf. I certainly would have traded him (and Rowe) by now.

Addressing the part in bold (bolding mine) my simple guess using available quotes and sources - Heaps didn't seem happy he played on in the build-up to *that goal* against NY. Heaps hinted in the post game presser that there may be "a talk" about that play with Agudelo. It's possible they had a chat and decided internally that making Juan miss the TFC match could be the coaching staff's punitive measure. Of course, we'll never know since they don't tell us much.

 

heh, perhaps ironic considering where the current head coach was hired from, but there is a guy who certainly "did it" on the field, and may have done it from a coaching perspective as well with the team's best ever forward, currently working in the announcers booth.

Not wholly disagreeing, but I'd think he should have a higher ceiling than just an MLS off the bench player (if that's not totally misreading your meaning).

And not that you were comparing the 2, but on the idea of trading Rowe, which I'm not at all against, I'd also think Agudelo should be seen as more valuable to other teams than Rowe does, but seeing as Rowe plays a lot more and is better liked by the coaches, unless there was a bidding war, it could be hard for the Revs to argue Juan was worth more to potential bidders.

Interesting theory on why Agudelo might have "picked up a minor injury" before the game. I didn't hear Heaps' comments, but that would be interesting if true about why Juan missed the game.

 

And how many MLS teams do you think are clamoring to trade for a $425K striker who can't make the starting lineup of a goal-starved team?

I know, I know, all it takes is one...

 

Heaps said in the press conference that he has a minor leg injury

 

I'm curious who people think would be a reasonable trade target in exchange for Rowe and/or Agudelo, and who would replace Rowe in the starting line-up.

 

And you believe him?

 

Are you serious?

 

Since it's clear Heaps doesn't want to change his system and formation to suit his talent, the revs need a target forward that legitimately strikes fear into opposing defenses. Think Twellman at his peak - ideally with a Ralstonesque winger able to serve in an accurate cross.

I don't know if that guy exists in MLS or if the trade is for allocation money to acquire someone from abroad, but I would consider trading both of them for a quality, proven hold up forward that would thrive in Heaps' system alone up top.

 

i've said this before and i will say it again. There is no reason to trade (i.e. give anything away) when we have open DP spots and open roster spots, unless we need to get cap space. as far as i know there is no reliable data about how much cap space we have until that WaPo data comes out for this season.

 

What if you could fill one of those DP spots by trading away guys that aren't very good? As for the open roster spots, if players on the back end of the roster aren't good enough to make the revs' game day 18, they should go to Rochester rather than rot in Foxboro. I don't understand the hand wringing about that.

Rowe and Agudelo likely yield value in a trade - I don't see many other tradeable assets on the current roster.

 

Agudelo's salary could be a problem in a trade slightly lowering his value..

Teams are going to be very wary of signing a near max cap player, especially if they have a DP slot open where they could get a significantly better player with roughly the same cap hit.

 

1. Let's leave aside the issue of Rowe and Agudelo's salary for the moment. If we assume that the FO's of the other MLS teams have the same low opinion of Rowe and Agudelo as you and others on this board, why would they offer anything of value, let alone Twellman and Ralston-equivalents?
2. Journeyman forwards, most recently Herc Gomez, are offered and picked up fairly regularly for chump change. It shouldn't be necessary to offer anybody for them.
3. We have roster space and cap space in theory to add at least one DP already.

It seems then that the only reason to make the trade is just to get rid of someone you don't like. That's how I felt about Rajko Lekic. To each his own.

 

How can you go wrong with a guy whose nickname is "Psycho?"

 

Jon, you're missing my point I think. I don't want a journeyman forward like Gomez. We have those now in Davies and Agudelo and have had them in the past, like Lekic or Chad Barrett. With respect, none those guys would solve our scoring problem.

I want an Ibra or a Vardy (and believe me I know we won't get either). The revs need a high end hold up forward. Tired of the so-so talent; mediocrity hasn't worked so we need to change the strategy.