Top Ten Questions for 2016

The irony was there was more optimism from Bilello about the partnership with a club an 8 hour flight away in a different continent than the one a 6 hour drive away.

Eventually, they'll figure out this whole partnership thing. Maybe.

 

No pressure.

 

There is a difference between accepting an answer at face value, and implying that the answer is untruthful, or that the answer "treats us like idiots." You are correct, many teams can and have made multiple changes all at once to varying degrees of success. According the Jay, this team, and this coaching staff decided to wait and implement a change later. That's not treating the fans like idiots, it's just telling the fans that they made a decision and providing some insight into why.

 

So I take it you are satisfied with his answer. That instead of taking a couple of games to see if something was working, and when it clearly wasn't, making a change, he stubbornly stuck with his "system" because, well, um... He didn't want to overwhelm a group of professional players who surely, at different points in their careers, had played in all kinds of systems? Or he was just bereft of ideas?

If you're OK with that explanation, good for you, but I think it is insulting to think that most fans who follow the team closely would. There were clamorings from NNN and KADs alike that this wasn't working and he needed to change things around to better use his players. Finally he did, but it was too late to make a difference. A lot of us are pissed off that the team would likely have not only made the playoffs but at lest had a shot at winning their first round if they had sorted this out earlier and started playing like they did in September, but in late July or early August...

 

On this upcoming festive Thursday, I will be eternally thankful that we even have a team in New England to call our own. I sincerely hope you will share in that sentiment with me. It is all we need.

Thank you,

Kevin

 

Thankful we have a team? I wanna party like it's 1997!

That used to be the counter-argument to the anti-Kraft meme, that we could just as easily be Philadelphia, a big city on the east coast with a long and rich sports history, but no soccer team. Now it seems that Detroit and St. Louis are the only long-time major sports markets without an MLS team.

We've got a team, but at least we're not the Chicago Fire!

 

I don't like using smilies. Particularly the rollie-eye one.

Though without sarcasm: I can totally agree I'm glad we don't have the Hauptmann version of the Fire! Poor bastitches. But I don't feel far behind.

 

They've made a reported 3 year $16m offer to Schweinsteiger. Regardless of your opinion of the player at this point in his career, that alone is far more ambitious than the revs have been this offseason.

 

I understand your basic point, but really; what we need is another central midfielder.

 

I actually think the revs are ok at central midfield for now. With Kouassi anticipated to be an impact player, there's Caldwell, Rowe, Nguyen and Herivaux. The revs need a speedy winger who has a nose for the goal and forces teams to account for him. Sort of like a faster Fagundez.

 

Punctuation, done correctly gets your point across correctly.
What I said - we need another central midfielder. What I meant to say - we need another central midfielder?!?!?
What we really need is a central defender.

 

Bilello addressed the empty roster spots question directly via twitter:

if you carry fewer players on senior roster you have more cap space to use per player so some years we choose to do that

— Brian Bilello (@RevsPrez) November 30, 2016

 

Some years? When was the last time the Revs actually had a full roster?

 

How come other teams can find a way to have a full roster and players who accept their financial compensation (I hesitate to say players who are satisfied with what they are getting paid)?

 

Yes - I was wondering the same thing. Bilello said there were "cap constraints" for 2016 (even with 24 players on the roster). I still don't know how the smallest roster in MLS could have cap constraints if the goal was more cap space per player.

 

The MLS rules are often made in jello, is that still the case?

 

Just to provide some contrast, Real Madrid has been through a spate of injuries this season, particularly at DM (Casemiro and Toni Kroos) and forward (Karim Benzema, Alvaro Morata and Gareth Bale). When the injuries piled up, Zidane looked at his roster and changed his tactics to fit the team he had rather the team he was supposed to have. Wasted no time in making the switch. Didn't keep trotting out a 4-3-3 when he found himself flush with creative midfielders, but short on destroyers and attackers. He even made the change right ahead of El Derbi with Atletico.

And he keeps making tweaks dependent on who's in the game at the moment: 4-2-3-1, 4-4-2, 4-1-4-1. I guess that's why the guy won a Champions League as a rookie manager. Yet it serves as a reminder that good coaching optimizes the talents of the players on the field.

 

The financial acumen of that statement is brilliant. If you take the salary budget and divide it by less players, you get more per player...wow, pure genius! What that means is that you sign players until you reach the league salary budget and then stop there. If you are short a few from a full roster, ah, so be it. It's not about developing a team to win games, it's about developing a team to remain within budget.

With Kraft as owners, Bilello as budget master and Burns as GM; we should remain on top of the budget masters list for years to come.

 

MLS Budget Champs, baby! We got a whole cabinet full of trophies for that!

 

Well, that plus the world's most expensive roster (or close to it)!