Re: OMG - Dykstra Sucks ratdog is correct. I think they gambled and lost. They gambled that there wouldn't be as many gaping holes in this experiment, figured Dykstra would be just as good as Busch; unfortunately the backline isn't helping matters, and upfield isn't any better. I'm optimistic of the future ... it's just that "future" is getting pushed further ahead.
Re: OMG - Dykstra Sucks Didn't anyone bother to remember Brad Guzan? Or Chris Seitz? Or maybe some other example of your choice (Tim Howard)? I think Dykstra has the potential to be a very good keeper. As good as the examples above? Maybe/maybe not. I would guess "not"...but that's all it would be for now. I also think he is slowly beginning to show signs of it. The thing is, you would have to expect an experiment like this to not begin to really show, until sometime in the late 1st or early 2nd year. (Which leads me to doubt some of the statements made at the beginning of this one.) You should expect to have to suffer through it at first.
Re: OMG - Dykstra Sucks The question there is "Is <insert noobie name here> just a bad player or a decent/good player on a bad team?" Sometimes that's a very tricky question and while stats can help, they're merely a starting point and not the final answer. If a guy's defense is constantly hanging him out to dry, for example, his stats are gonna suck no matter how good he is. So you have to look for things like unforced errors and how much of the basic skill set for his position he demonstrates - in this case how he communicates with his back line, how he reacts to crosses/corners, if he can hang onto the ball when he goes to catch it, etc. You also look for improvement (or lack thereof) over time. Guzan was a good young keeper on a very bad team. Seitz has also looked very much improved since the beginning of the season. One reason this thread exists is that Dykstra was sold to us by Frankie and DLC as a bona fide #1 starting MLS keeper and it turns out that this was patently not the case. As you've pointed out, that doesn't automatically mean he'll never turn into one but now that we've seen him for half a season nobody outside Birdie is going to claim he's a starting keeper anywhere in MLS except here. Well, maybe in DC... So, that leaves us at "Is he improving like, say, Seitz has this year?". I'd say yes, to a certain extent. I no longer cringe when the ball is coming right at him and he can get his whole body in front of it. Unlike at the start of the season, he almost always hangs onto those. When the ball is coming in from an angle, though, my heart still goes into my throat. I've seen him getting a little more vocal with his back line. We haven't seen as many bad back passes or incredibly bad short distributions in a while. There's still lots of work to be done, though. He needs to command his box more and do a better job of decision-making on crosses/corners. His reading of attacks coming at him needs to improve, which will help straighten out his positioning. Now that everyone except Frankie and DLC are willing to admit that this is a rebuilding year, we can put Dykstra's performance expectations where they belong: untested and frankly unready rookie keeper learning his trade by being thrown to the sharks. When you look at it that way, his performance isn't all that bad.
Re: OMG - Dykstra Sucks On October 27, 2008, Busch was named Fire MVP for the 2008 season. Busch was the only Fire player to start and play 90 minutes in every MLS match during the regular season (2700 minutes). Busch posted the best saves percentage in the league (78.2) after making 122 saves on 156 shots faced. Busch tied for most shutouts in the league (10), while also tying a Fire single season shutout record shared with Matt Pickens for his 10 shutouts in 2007. Doesn't matter who was in front of him playing every minute and have the highest save percentage is solely Busch's efforts.
Re: OMG - Dykstra Sucks Statements like this show how ignorant you are. No one believes this, including Jon Busch.
Re: OMG - Dykstra Sucks replies like yours show what a kissass you are for Klopas and the Front office. Having the highest save percentage shows he was a great keeper that year regardless of how good the defense was.
Re: OMG - Dykstra Sucks SuperSting's argument is just more proof of why stats are a starting point for analysis and not the ending point.
Re: OMG - Dykstra Sucks No they are not, but two things here: 1) Over the course of an entire MLS season, there is some natural evening out between routine shots/saves and difficult ones. Will it be the same for every keeper? Of course not but the volume involved in an entire season smooths out most differences; and 2) Great keepers are great because of their positioning and will make a ton of very routine saves because they put themselves in the right place. So, a lesser keeper can be a human highlight reel and not be as good as a guy calmly collecting balls hit right to him. Joe is right. I don't put a lot of stock in statistics in soccer generally, but they can serve as a starting point. Why are we doing this exactly? Busch had a great year in 2008 and a good but lesser year last year. Some of us think we would be better THIS YEAR with Busch in the net, but it really doesn't matter at this point. We should be focusing on Dykstra. He is showing the inconsistency I expected at the beginning of the year. Nothing surprising there. The big question is whether he learns and grows as the year goes along or if the bad moments consume him. We should all be hoping for the former. Frankly, (pun intended) I have less confidence in the people who need to make that evaluation as the year goes along than I do in Nails.
Re: OMG - Dykstra Sucks You realize this is completely false and are just trolling right? It's plainly obvious that if you give a keeper worse defenders, his save percentage will change drastically as the quality of the shots he faces increases.
Re: OMG - Dykstra Sucks Busch looked horrible last night. Worse than Dykstra. He served us well, and I salute him, but it probably was the right decision to let him go.
Re: OMG - Dykstra Sucks Dude, you base this on one mistake in one game. In almost every Fire game I've seen, Dykstra has sucked. Jon Busch still has some classy games. Why didn't you post this last week after his great game against the union?
Re: OMG - Dykstra Sucks First of all, who the f*** asked for your opinion? Second, he's not basing this off one game. This has been Busch's MO for a while now. Sheer brilliance marked by lapses of suck. I liked Jon Busch and think it was a mistake to cut him, but it was getting to the time to start looking to the future.
Re: OMG - Dykstra Sucks as opposed to just sucking from Dykstra? lol, it had to be a salary dump, and there's nothing wrong with that
Re: OMG - Dykstra Sucks Classy don't with motherfucking trophies. He looked pretty shaky in the first half, compared to the 2nd. If it hadn't been against Philly, the result probably wouldn't have been as good.
Re: OMG - Dykstra Sucks Haha, I like this. The next time I screw something up, I'll just say, "I didn't fail. I just wasn't ready to succeed!"
Re: OMG - Dykstra Sucks Well at least the guy who started this thread and most of the other Fire fans agree with me