The 2012 season was a long time ago. Looking at 2012 and now, Lenny is done. Same with Gordon who even though he is still hanging on is now about to turn 35. Same can be said for Wondo. Four years onward, things have changed. Just looking at the depth on the bench that year you had Sercan Güvenışık, Khari Stephenson and Tressor Moreno who held his own in a reserve role. Those guys all pushed the starters into having career years and this team has no one even close.
True though those guys are all significantly older than Simon, who is 28 now. Age does not seem like a reasonable hypotheses as to why he seems to be a different player.
Getting acclimated here and starting a family could very well have changed him mentally but you still need good players around you. Those guys that year anyway, were awesome and whatever they touched turned to gold. I couldn't believe some of those comebacks and Simon helped out a great deal but he wasn't alone. He isn't getting any help at all this time around.
Yeah that is part of it, but to me it goes beyond what is happening around him. In 2011-12 he made stuff happen himself by taking the initiative and attacking under pressure, and that really helped open up the offense. This time around, he's not doing it much at all.
Ahem... That (Saturday night against RSL) was the quality medium-long shot I was talking about. Dawkins can shoot. He just got into a bad spell earlier in the season with his shorter range shots going over the bar
His baby could potentially make the team at 20 years old, but if someone from the Frank/Dom tree is still coaching the Quakes, he won't get regular minutes until he's 28.
And his new baby has finally been officially announced: http://www.sjearthquakes.com/post/2...dawkins-henok-goitom-each-welcome-first-child
If Dawkins leaves in July or August, will the Quakes give him $400k he is owed? Just like Pirlo sitting on a bench in NYC, I wouldn't leave that money on the table.
They would have to unless they trade him somewhere else (though no team in their right mind would take him. 400k is not very much money in the grand scheme of things to the Quakes. They could eat that salary with absolutely no issue, and they hopefully will.
Considering they've already given Dom $300k of his remaining salary, if they pay out another $400k, +$2 million they gave Innocent, that is quite a lot of money they are forking over for dead weight.
Scaled down to MLS salaries, yes. That is a significant amount of the team's total roster amount. But in the context of Fisher being one of the wealthiest people on earth, it isn't. They regularly eat a lot more money than that in players no longer playing for the A's. Granted, the operations are separate, and there is something to making sure money isn't just thrown away, but for all intents and purposes, that money was already spent. It isn't going to hurt the team in any significant way to cut those players loose, especially if they aren't planning on getting new players to replace them this year. There are plenty of young guys not getting time to fill out the roster, so there isn't a problem with numbers. In short, yes, I think you are right in that they can't do things like this all the time without running into some issues with cash flow, but for Dawkins, I could see them releasing him without hesitation. They might try to trade him, but there will be no takers. Considering he wasn't even on the bench at home, I think Dawkins is not going to see any more games in a San Jose uniform (unless he was on the injury report and I missed it). Prepare to see a lot of young guys like Mfeka sooner rather than later.
I wonder how much money is budgeted for salaries for coaches no longer on the roster. I cannot imagine it is a sizeable annual allocation for Earthquakes LLC.
Fisher isn't going spend the money NYCFC spent regardless of how wealthy he is. On lesser scale , what he has spent on players is nothing when you compare it to Pirlo. Still, I doubt he likes the fact that he spent over $4-5 million on Dom, Dawkins , MPG and Innocent.
I was surprised to see him play against Atlanta, honestly. He didn't look particularly good, though I can't say it's completely his fault as he's barely played. I wonder what the thought was on that, or if it was just a simple "we need a player out there who isn't totally gassed before they even get out there".
He actually didn't look that bad. I guess if the knee is still acting up I suppose that kind of late minutes attacking sub role is one way to use him. But at some point there's going to be a lot of depth for that kind of thing. With Vako on board and the emergence of Hoesen that may be Urena's role and Amarikwa may be back too before the season is over.
I don't think he did anything yesterday that will get his card punched for another year of DP status.
I recall a selfish play that derailed an attack shortly after he came on, but I wasn't paying particularly close attention to him, so I might have just noticed the poor play and not much else. He certainly didn't impose his will on the game in any meaningful way. I'm still a little surprised, and have a feeling his inclusion in the game was simply a numbers game. He was easily the most rested of the available players (unless Francis was also available, didn't check the list), and given the game's circumstances, it was trivial who was put in on that sub, anyway.
Yeah, it's unlikely. The team will hopefully be down to two DP in the offseason. Not sure if they'll try to sign one during the offseason or use it as a midseason reinforcement. Ideally, they could get Wondolowski's salary back under the limit with allocation money or something and have two to work with, but I don't know how feasible that is with his base salary (don't know it off the top of my head, but I suspect it would require a pretty big amount of cash). Sounds like Dawkins' knee issues are permanent, so if he's out of contract, it's unlikely they sign him to a new one, even if he agreed to a significantly reduced salary. Just not reliable enough, and while he would probably do better under Leitch than he did Kinnear (like just about every player to ever walk the face of the earth), there are plenty of other players to choose from who deserve a chance. Dawkins has had his and we've seen enough of what he can do.
Congrats to Simon Dawkins for making the list! Disappointing Designated Players: The 5 who need to justify their price JONATHAN MENSAH, COLUMBUS CREW SC YURA MOVSISYAN, REAL SALT LAKE KEI KAMARA, NEW ENGLAND REVOLUTION GONZALO VERON, NEW YORK RED BULLS SIMON DAWKINS, SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES The fact that Simon Dawkins isn’t living up to a DP standard is certainly not news. Dawkins was seen as a promising playmaker in his first spell with the Earthquakes in 2011 and 2012, but even then he didn’t have the statistics of a star, scoring just 14 goals and adding three assists in 53 appearances. He couldn’t match those numbers as a DP in his first season back in MLS after returning from England. Dawkins scored just five goals and added two assists in 29 appearances last season, and has yet to make any kind of mark on his 2017 season. The Jamaican national teamer endured multiple bouts with injury this season, and has just one single shot on goal in his 12 appearances and six starts thus far. With the same $800,000 contract as timeless poacher and teammate Wondolowski – on pace for another season of double-digit goals – Dawkins will have to become a dominant offensive force in the second half of 2017 to justify his price.