was thinking today about Chris Wondolowski and other players that used to be here and it led me to ask what are the best and worst moves the team has made since arriving from San Jose. we can point to failed signings, trades that have not panned out, players who were allowed to leave that have done really well elsewhere etc...etc...... in no way looking to bash ,just curious what you guys think. for me ,with hindsight being perfect. It looks as if letting Chris to was a massive mistake. if ,we let him go because of our loyalty to Ching,it will be understandable, but this guy is proving to be a prolific MLS goal scorer. Not last yr,not the yr before,but every year since he left. Now the record of 27 goals by Roy Lassiter is in danger and Wondo is the man who could break it. as for the best move, i would have to say drafting Geoff Cameron ,who was an unknown at the time. Has to be one of the best moves we have made. interested to see what you all come up with peace
Best decisions: There have actually been quite a few from adding Daglish, to Kamara and all the role players that took us to titles. Trading up to draft Bruin and drafting Cameron are up there as well. Worst: Gotta say Landin only because of the cost of the transfer versus production and he was supposed to be a starter. I don't see the Wondo trade up there because he hadn't done much when he appeared with our first team. I mean he appeared in 37 league games and only netted four goals. Not like he didn't get a chance.
Worst: 1) Wondo 2) Landin 3) Oduro (based on what we had at the time and what he brought to the squad) 4) Caraccio Best: 1) Cameron 2) Boniek 3) Bruin 4) Mulrooney
i mention Wondo as one of our worst not because I saw him doing what he is DOING. But because he was pretty much at the top of the Reserve League scoring leaders for two yrs I think and I just cant see any way that our staff would NOT notice his potential. For that reason I still think it was one of our worst. but to be honest, i was always thinking he wasnt good enuff. When we traded him I thought it was a good. So i have to eat crow on that one. caraccio. landin,koke, adi, wow. we missed on a few but it seems we have hit one out of the park with Boniek. and btw. i am a HUGE fan of the formation change. I see us as much much more dangerous now with Kandji and Boniek. Great MOve Coach Dom. and lastly , when all is said and done we may all be calling the signing of Taylor one of our best moves. This guy is really impressing. one thing that i wonder about is Cameron. With the way he played as a DMid I am asking myself why we didnt use him there all this time. He was able to showcase his skills the other day and was very impressive. we are on the right trak now. Oh yes. And Calen Carr. Wow I love this kids game.
You guys are killing me on the Wondo thing. Has he turned into a beast . . sure. Was anyone decrying his trade at the time . .no. Was anyone shouting for him to start . . . no. It was not a bad trade because AT THE TIME he was not performing at the senior level I mean the king of the reserves certainly got his chances, more than most that sit on the reserves before having to move on. God bless his for finding his groove and a system that works for him, but it still was not a bad trade. hind sight is not a good indicator for "worst decision." The decision was sound at the time.
Worse decision is easy.... in their first year here, inviting STHs for a 4th of July "BBQ with all the trimmings" at Robertson. Turned out to be hamburgers and hotdogs and potato chips. Seems that's what they mean by "BBQ" in San Jose....
well, i cant argue with your statement. You are correct. And I was definitlely not complaining when we traded him. As I stated earlier,I didnt think he was good enough. I guess he would fit into another category. However, given that Frank Yallop and Dom run the same system for the most part, I was simply stating that maybe our coaches and staff SHOULD have recognized.But in the end,and after reading your comments,SHOULD have recognized is probably a bit unfair to them. as ive said before,your username is appropriate,Thanx TRUTH.
Worst: 1) Wondo 2) Every other personnel move from May 2009 thru August 2010 (Kamara trade, Landin, Oduro, Ade Akinbiyi, bringing Cochrane back, waiting on Holden . . . the list goes on) 3) Tony Caig Best: 1) Dynamo finding quality starters in later rounds of draft (Cameron, Ashe) 2) Late season pickups that worked (most years) 3) Holden falling into our laps The Wondo thing did not look inappropriate at the time and even in 2009 he didn't light it up. I'll buy into the notion of a "system change" helping him some (although as much as he scored, it ain't only the system) and that going to a team where he no longer had to defer to veterans on the field helped (I sensed in the 2006-2009 years that some newcomers or youngsters seemed a bit intimidated on the field with the veterans). But ultimately he probably didn't get enough of a consistent 1st team look here in Houston. He got a handful of starts and some sub appearances. They probably saw him as the King of the Reserves and maybe what they call in baseball, a AAAA player (too good for Triple A minors but not good enough to stick in majors). Did he actually ever play the full 90 for the first team in Houston? I think he got a very limited and inconsistent run spread over so long a period that it wasn't really an indicative sample, although it was large enough that everyone would draw a conclusion from it.
37 appearances and 8 starts in league play. Played CCL and started USOC. A Total of 53 appearances in non-reserve league play. Eight goals, 3 of them penalties. People can argue a lot about players not getting a chance, umm . . . I can't say that about Wondo.
Who's to say that Wondo would be getting the goals he gets here in Houston if he did stay? Sometimes all the pieces of the puzzle have to be there to get the stats. I think he's good at what he does, which is poach goals in the goal mouth, but maybe that wouldn't work here.
Go look at his minutes per appearance, it is not very high. As an organization we missed something in evaluation, which maybe explains why we give guys like Calen Carr extended runs of play without scoring.
if we are going to constantly blast dom and the FO for letting wondo go, where is the equal praise for dumping donkey and getting carr? we also let jaqua, ngwneya, kyle brown, jason garey, and kamara go. where is the praise for dumping these guys? guys who went on to do nothing (kei has done more than nothing, but average at best). so out of all the guys we cut loose, one manages to turn into something. i could understand it if there was a preponderance of evidense showing forwards leaving here and becoming all stars. but just the opposite is true. if your expectation is for Dom and the FO to be perfect on letting players leave, and not even allowing a sub 5% margin of mistake, then you are the one with the problem. congrats wondo. you are the dog's ass and the sun is shining on it.
Send me the link to minutes. Because I don't believe he was subbed out of his starts. Listen he turned out to be a great player. He was not here outside of reserves. Count it as unlucky. If you think 53 appearances is not enough time for a player to shine . . ok. He didn't work here and he wasn't going to supplant Ching and Kamara and Jaqua at the time.
RE: Wondolowski I think his stats are misleading at SJ. Sure he scores goals, but how much silverware has SJ won since he came there? Zero. Their whole offense works around him being a goal-poacher, of course he is going to get goals. It's like Steve Francis with the Rockets. At one point he was our leading in scoring and assists, and he was an 'all-star', but he was our best player at the time when the Rockets were the worst. As soon as he moved he left the Rockets he faded into the shadows and then tried to come back only to be exposed as a subpar player.
what i saw: back in the Robertson Stadium days i stayed for a lot of the post-game reserve games and can tell you without a doubt that "that Wondo" and "this current Wondo" is not the same guy. sure he was king of the reserves, but you should of seen what teams were lining up as reserves. heck Steve Wondolowski was even on our reserve squad for awhile. what i have heard and believe to be true: Wondo always killed it in practice when it came to finishing drills from all angles. he obviously belonged on a MLS roster with regular playing time which he was given by Dom Kinnear. the problem is: if you go back at look at the 'Wondo as starter days' you can see a serious lack of confidence in what he was doing on the field. he would be hesitant to shoot and when he shot he seemd to rush the situation when he didn't have to and/or not rush and be displaced off the ball. my conclusion: Wondo revisionists are full of sht. J/K. the guy had his chances but coudn't displace what were at that time good players in Ching, Jacqua, Ngwenya. he was able to finish in practice and against inferior competition but not against MLS starting-XI quality my guess is due to confidence. sometime from the time he left us he discovered that he could play and that he should have the confidence to shoot the damn ball and not worry about committing a mistake. this situation reminds a lot of the saga of Luis 'el matador' Hernandez. this dude was traded around a bit before he landed with Necaxa and started to blossom when partnered with C. Blanco and coached by Manuel la Puente around age 25ish. 2-3 years later he's scoring goals galore in the 98 World Cup and several Copa Americas. if you would of seen the 22 year old Luis Hernandez you wouldn't paid 2 pesos for him but 4 years later he's on his way to 3rd all-time on the Mexico National team list. sht like that happens all over the world, so i don't understand why we should beat ourselves up over Wondo.
Agree with Rey. My point per this conversation is whatever the reason Wondo has turned into who he is today (confidence, late bloomer, different coach, support staff, system, etc) there was never a reason back then to believe he would be what he is today based on 53 appearances. That is more time on the field than any reservist I can find across any team. In terms of a discussion around worse decision, based on the time it was a non event and I don't know how you classify it as a bad decision based on information at the time. The list of our forwards at the time, while not all all stars, was impressive in their production ahead of Wondo. Not too mention we were in the midst of 4 playoff runs and two titles. He just wasn't going to break into the lineup in the future as he wasn't producing when he did get chances.
troutseth and rey: do you see this as a coaching issue? this lack of confidence? How do you explain guys like Wondo and Oduro not scoring in Houston, and then all of the sudden have deadly finishing in SJ and Chicago?
I don't think any of us are in a position to come to a definitive answer. To me it is a few things, one of which is that BOTH of those guys moved to teams where they were the centerpiece of the attack. Wondo has a great strike rate in that role, Oduro has scored more but as of a few weeks ago still had the most blown chances - so his success is due more to increased opportunity (especially last year). Wondo especially was never going to be the centerpiece based on the team we had in 2006-2009. And I just don't think Dom's system really looks at having one centerpiece on the attack in a poacher (Wondo) role. We tried to make Oduro a target over the top but he blew too many chances.
I laugh at all of this "what has he won" stuff. How much hardware do we have since 2007? Does Eastern Conference playoff winner count as hardware? If we had a striker who had 18-20 goal potential year-in year-out, you adjust your offensive system to accomodate that. I could argue he's scored goals with a less impressive supporting cast than we have here in Houston. I agree with *rey* that he was a less aggressive player in Houston but with most of our other bad deals (like Kamara), we knew what we had when we were dealing them for better or worse. We missed some sort of evaluation on this one. 2009 we made all sorts of personnel moves that year because I think (and I agreed) that the window was closing on that group of players so the thought was probably who cares about Wondo 2011 when we wanted a big body up front in Weaver. For the record, Wondo appearances in Houston (MLS play): Games Minutes Goals Minutes Per Appearance 2006 6 198 1 33 2007 16 307 1 19 2008 8 125 0 16 2009 7 287 2 41 HOUSTON Totals 37 917 4 25
How much hardware do we have since 2007? What does that matter? We've won more hardware than San Jose has since 2006. Do you lift a trophy after the Eastern Conference final? yes you do. SJ has only come good these past two years. I would take our performance in the last six years over the new Quakes any day.
It matters because you raised it as a reason to devalue Wondo's performance about 3 posts above. Using that same logic Ryan Cochrane is one of the best central defenders in MLS history.
And based on those minutes, he would have been the FOURTH forward on the team in goals per minute over the same period (based on time with Dynamo over same period). Not too mention they were bringing in Landin at the time. I just love the revisionist history that there was some missed evaluation or mistake when based on the amount of time played, appearances, goals scored per minute, and evaluation time over four seasons . .. . he was not even a top three option on the team he was traded from. Where was the outcry from media and fans in 2009? No, based on the time of the decision it was not a terrible choice. (and by the way, Weaver scored a goal every 99 minutes in limited action the rest of that season). Wondo every 229 minutes. Ching every 176 minutes. Kamara every 122 minutes. Jacqua approx. every 200 minutes * I would love to compare goals per minute in the first half of 2009, but cannot get that breakdown on players.