Neagle is a perfect example of a player in decline. He had an excellent 2016, but couldn't come close to equaling it this year.
Steven GoffVerified account @SoccerInsider Getting word D.C. United is about to acquie American DMF @RussellCanouse. Age: 22. Club: Hoffenheim (loan to Bochum). #dcu
Looking like Sebastien Le Toux is also on the move. Stand by ... #dcu #mls— Steven Goff (@SoccerInsider) August 8, 2017
I wrote a blog post on 10 players that DC United could potentially afford, for around the same budget as the $4.5 million transfer fee and $10 million over two years that they were reportedly willing to spend on Gary Medel. Obviously not realistic given tomorrow's deadline, but long story short...every other MLS club has 1 or 2 difference-makers on offense, DC United haven't had one of those players in years. Would welcome feedback http://www.dmvsoccer.com/2017/08/08/dc-united-potential-transfers/
The post is interesting, but except for Weiss, you are channeling your inner Dave Kasper. Those guys, except Weiss, are too old. Been there done that.
If I look reteoactively at what other good teams have scouted for the d-mid position, I see Carlos Gruezo as a template for success. Half the price of Medel. Maybe even someone like Ilie Sanchez with a GAM/TAM salary. Younger players too. These guys are out there. You just need to look a bit below the surface.
1. I'm not that excited about Miranda. He's a forward that, at his current level of development, can't get any significant time with a national team that's ~40 places worse than the USMNT. Yes, he's young, and he might develop. But putting aside that players don't develop at DC, I'm looking for someone who'll look good for us in the remainder of this year and next year. Right now I don't see any reason to assume that Miranda is there at this point. 2. I'm not that excited about Stieber. I don't expect a 2 Bundesliga guy to have a big impact on this team. Particularly one that nobody has wanted to hang onto for more than a year or, at most, two. He's pretty much the textbook definition of a lower-division journeyman. And @fatbastard tells me that he has a reputation as having an attitude problem, and that we paid a transfer fee 4 times what the last team who picked him up paid. Jeebus. 3. OTOH, the potential move that excited me was Medel. So of course that didn't work out. Oh well.
I'm a bit more sanguine. Miranda is a prospect, but he's young, the Tahuichi connection is positive and I don't believe he's expensive. Consider him Alhaji Kamara with a better ticker and a few years younger. As for Stieber, he is a Hungarian NT regular call-up. I also believe that the 2 Bundesliga is better than MLS. He will improve the soccer IQ of DCU immediately. As for @fatbastard's account of his attitude, I don't know and we'll see. I think the one thing Olsen probably is good at is stifling that shit quickly. Now, I actually didn't want the Medel transfer to take place. Spending $5M in salary and an almost equal amount in transfer monies (according to Goff) is reckless in the extreme and reeks of desperation far more than "overpaying" for Stieber. In MLS, you don't pay $5M for a DM/Defender -- ever.
For those discrediting B2, just remember the last 3 B2 players signed by the league ... Florian Jungwirth, Alexander Ring and Ilie Sanchez. All 3 walked into MLS starter roles seamlessly. Stieber by German standards is a yoyo player. He was b2 player of the year in 2011. He's the guy that looks great in b2, which lands him a transfer to a bigger b1 club where he never quite takes off. He's still a solid notch above the average player we have now. My expectation is a '14-15 version of Chris Rolfe. Assuming he's healthy and assuming Ben has a plan on how to use him.
Bradley is on $6 million, no? Goes without saying DP money doesn't count against the cap, and when a team can have 3 DPs and we've got none . . . .
Right, I'm not saying he's a bad pickup. I'm saying he doesn't excite me. I don't look at him and think "NOW WE'RE TALKING!" The Hungarian NT is generally considered to be not very good. He'd probably get regular call-ups from Burkina Faso too . . .although maybe not, since most systems rate them higher than the Hungarians. It probably is better. But nonetheless, no team there seems to want him around for more than a season or two. I think Olsen wouldn't get overrun by it; Danny Szetela saw the door right quick, for instance. But that's different from taking someone with an attitude problem and turning them into someone who *doesn't* have an attitude problem. I have no reason to think of Olsen as particularly good at *that*. A defender, I agree. A good DM, I emphatically do not agree. Especially at the level of Medel. DMs in MLS historically tend to be one-dimensional: destroyers / DMs who thrive on their smart positioning / etc. But DMs at Medel's level are usually not so one-dimensional. Given what I've seen of Medel with Chile, I'd rather have him as my attacking midfielder than any midfielder on our team except Acosta. Having him as a DM would not only make our defense much better -- it'd make our attack much better too. But it's not going to happen, so it doesn't matter.
Le Toux is probably on the block now, and I can understand why, as he hasn't really produced. But I'm not sure the blame lies totally with him. During his career elsewhere, he stood out to me as a player who combined well with others; playing off a front runner and making that final pass. Here, he was stifled, IMO, because no one was making incisive runs, and he had to play more like a striker, which was not his strength. If we had better forwards, and if Acosta was a better distributor, I think Le Toux would have done much better.
He was Marco Sanchez level bad in that Christos game, he's done and will surely retire after this season.
First, I'm like ********ing EF Hutton (except for the being dead since before I was alive part) so you should listen to me .... but in fairness, the only place I've heard he was an attitude problem was in some comments section from a fan of his most current team. He could have been a fan like in this forum and just hates every player on his team Definitely doesn't seem like anyone to get too excited about but we always need to keep trying to upgrade at wing - a tweet from practice said he was a good left winger who liked to cut in on his left foot (whatever that means exactly). If we can get back to having wing guys joining at forward and making the attack look more dynamic I'm all for it. Nyarko does it well, but he's always throwing his head into things and missing time and has had trouble getting into the swing of things this season.
So a mini poll here. What time today do the rest of the moves come. I say 1 hour before the cut off time. I think it is 5 pm but I might be wrong.
I predict that we will get a waiver on the deadline because "a move was already in the works" I'm not willing to predict if that move actually happens.