Re: Possible Kei Kamara trade Abe did not play until the 61st minute...that was Rauwshan McKenzie he scored over in the 18th minute... http://houston.mlsnet.com/news/team..._id=5701744&vkey=news_hou&fext=.jsp&team=t200
Re: Possible Kei Kamara trade Great, we traded a guy who was at least a reasonable goal scorer in MLS (with our only playoff goal last year i will remind you) with a reasonable contract for some small allocation money and a poor-man's Chris Wondolowski. Wow. I can only figure that he fell down the forward order so far because of Landin and Weaver coming back and his nagging injury that he wasn't going to play much down the stretch and would not be protected for the expansion. I hate this deal. Are we trying to re-create the 2008 FC Dallas reserve squad front line with thompson and oduro? Kamara needed some work but this deal sucks.
About the only other thing I can come up with is that Kei coming off GA next year would be a SI and Thompson is not. But that does not really help this year so I am at a bit of a loss as to the urgency unless there was more to it.
I don't know anything personal about Kei so I don't mean this as a personal attack or anything. But from a team play perspective I think this is addition by subtraction. I think he's been dancing to his own beat for months now and scored goals almost in spite of himself. He wasn't connecting with the other players on the field. If he was gonna be benched with Landin and Weaver in the lineup, this is a no harm, no foul trade and we got some cash. Everyone knows that even a little cash can ultimately make a big difference under MLS salary rules.
As an aside, anyone else think it a little odd that our top 3 options at forward are big, bulky center forwards with little pace (although Weaver is a tad faster than people give him credit for)? In fact thinking back to the forwards we've had on this team, the overwhelming majority of them have been from that mold (Jaqua, Moreno...although I wouldn't describe him as big...even Ngwenya to a degree).
I think we need someone in the midfield more than a forward. Sounds like we needed to get rid of Kamara for someone who is of lesser value and came to the deadline and took our best offer... which wasnt much.
Which is not to much of a problem when the big, bulky center forwards are receiving proper service. Since that is something we seem to be struggling with pretty consistently I would think that a mix of big, bulky center forward and smaller, speedy forward would be more beneficial but even that is not guaranteed to get us out of the current funk we are in. And maybe that was another idea behind this move, to shake things up a bit.
Here is my take for what its worth. I believe Oduro is a failure at forward.No touch ,poor finisher etc...I believe we could not move him so we moved Kei instead to get a player who is better than Oduro and probably close to as fast as Oduro. The rotation should be Ching with Landin and Weaver replaces Ching when the NT calls.If Ching and Landin are together up top then Weaver is the late game sub and Abe is the fourth choice. I believe Oduro will be waived or traded and will be replaced by a DM or a winger.JMO
It has been a rather normal sight in the still evolving U.S. footballing culture to see many coaches use the British based 4-4-2 with wing play as its core trait. Up top there is the target forward that can play with his back to the goal and hold the ball combined with a small forward who is a speedster/face to goal attacker that looks to unlock an opponents back line by getting behind them. Ching and Donovan, Razov and Wolff J. Moreno and Eskanderian and for the U.S. NT for many years it was McBride and Wolff/Donovan. Dom appears to follow this but partners Ching with a more heavy set type of forward. Moreno was here in '06 and we know his style. Then the Black Panther in '07 which was a tremendous striker partnership looking back. I guess this is why I thought Kei was the best of both worlds in that he had the pace of a smaller man but as well had an ariel game to his resume. With our 4-4-2 wing play that a Scottish heritage man like Dom prefers I can see why he looks to have larger strikers. Perhaps all ends well since Weaver will now see more playing time and he has done nothing but flick on flighted balls to Stuie and banged home multiple goals versus Dallas and just recently now against Columbus. Last night on the Latino sports radio talk, they were talking to Lester about Landin and then had Landin on and he spoke about the team and winning and specifically didn't want to call out the officiating crew. The dudes that run the show then went on to talk directly to Lester about a player of the caliber of Landin having to "earn his plata" by scoring and scoring often.
I thought Kei was not a hit against the cap while GA - coming into this season, we wondered if he'd still be GA, w/the playing time he had last season. So whatever Thompson's salary is is a net hit on the cap for Hou, you wonder if the allocation $ is to cover that hit...
DUDE! That's what I thought! But get this - wikipedia has his full name as Abraham Broman Thompson! Abe Broman! No nickname necessary. Will need to set up a prize fight between Broman and Mr. Candelari for the "sausage king of houston" title!
lol. Dom and Spence probably think they can put Abe to work in our lineup. Abe is a fast little F**r and can cross a good ball when he tries. let's not be to hasty to pre-judge this guy. Dom always tinkers with the line up and will have had a good reason for acquiring Abe. ***says so trying to convince self
Are you serious? Holy crap. Hearing this news is by far the biggest plus of the trade yet. All hail Abe Broman Thompson...the Sausage King of Houston.
1. Kamara looks like he wasn't close to coming to terms regarding a new deal according to Bernardo's article. Which means he has two options: Pull a Joseph Ngwenya and try to find another league to play in or find an MLS team willing to pay a little more. So 50-50 chance he might leave after this year. 2. No longer GA next year so more roster implications. 3. Kamara has always been a little moody (see Garcia incident and his response, etc.). So my guess is after reading Bernardo's article that he had discussions with Dom re: playing time and wasn't happy with how much he was going to get. 4. Thompson is ok, but I agree with Celt that I think we had other holes that might have filled better than forward. D-mid, right back (with Mulrooney out or if Mulrooney moves to d-mid next year).
if you do this you give up on advancing out of the CCL group stages. Landin is cup-tied and Ching needs rest. so if you get rid of Oduro, you would would start Abe Thompson & Cam Weaver with Mullan your 3rd option in CCL. Panamanian and Salvodorean teams are not Europa League quality, but they ain't crap either.
great catch bro. for first time listeners, there's a chat room in the <1560tv> tab. alessiob monitors it during the show in case you're to shy to call in and ask a question.
I don't envision Abe Thompson playing for us much if at all. This had to be a lockerroom/FO issue. Kei has not been outstanding, but certainly proved his worth up top during his PT. Despite this the Dynamo had chances to acquire better players to strengthen a lagging offense and did so. One has to imagine that Kei disagreed with this. His past few appearances have seen him pushed to the midfield where he found few sparks. All in all the team moves on and is bigger than any one player.
MyDynamo has been acting strange today, I don't know if it's our server here at school or the website, but it's format is screwed up. Anyhow there is a short message that says there will be an official announcement at 3:30. That's all it says. And it's signed RH, whoever that is.
We need a forward who is a threat to get behind defenses on the dribble and on the run on through ball. No other forward we have (including Thompson now) could do this as Kei could do. Kei was good at holding the ball up top then passing onto runners as well as dribbling out of pressure. He scored some nice goals too. He was more athletic and creative than al the other forwards and had more control than Oduro. If you ask me Ching has played more poorly than Kei when paired together. Kei's lack of form lately may have been related to emotional / psychological problems or injury but I think he truly wanted to help the team. He moved back into midfield when we needed help and scored in some games when we really, really needed him too. I would have rather traded Landin for Thompson than Kei. I think this was a bad move and the Dynamo will regret it immediately. Bogus