Balancing Kinda and Thommy only makes sense to me if Vermes either starts drifting away from wing use or starts pushing one of those two out onto a wing. The latter seems more likely. I could see a 4-2-3-1 with reduced attacking responsibilities, assuming Salloi is gone after the season. Get Pulido up front, put Johnny on a wing and Thommy or Kinda on the other, leave the remainder in the central attacking position. Behind them, put two defensively-solid mids (Walter for sure, and (((offseason mystery))) alongside), and run that out. More midfield, less forward. I think I've just come along to the idea that Vermes will just never prioritize the 6 to the extent that is required in this system, so the sooner we divide those responsibilities between a pair of responsible players, the sooner this team will stop being banana pudding in the middle of the park.
We know SKC doesn't have the horses to pull off a 4-3-3, so why does PV continue to make the team and the fans suffer with it? Doing the same things over and over again expecting a different result..... you know the rest. PV is not going to get into the USOC final, much less win it with the 4-3-3. PV is not going to get out of the cellar of the conference with a 4-3-3. PV says that he's trying everything (except putting a formation on the field that best suites his available players). To me this is professional suicide.
In fairness, two thoughts: Vermes does work to use other formations sometimes. But I do think he feels the 4-3-3 is "home" and all other formations are temporary digressions from playing the way he's hoping to enable the team to do. I don't actually mind that from a manager, as tactical consistency can be a big boon to roster construction and players' ability to work within the system. But the latter points should be on a consistent upward trend and they're not. I don't think the 4-3-3 is actually a bad idea for SKC in general. But he's running a dream version of it, sometimes. Most successful teams in that formation build a solid, gritty team and stack a devastating trio on top. But Vermes likes control too much. Trying to build a possession-based squad from this formation is the problem, not the problem itself. As much fun as it's been to watch over the years, I think my opinion is that this team needs to stop being so arrogant on the pitch and start realizing that pragmatic defense as an intentional roster-build strategy is how teams with little access to superstars continue to challenge for cups. Roster parity is diminishing, and that's really okay. I still think the mechanisms in play mean that no teams are going to just consistently run away with everything forever, but the days of every team having equal access to roster tools are gone. So maybe that's my thinking. I'm mostly just rambling. Apparently I feel like arguing about soccer today, sorry.
In July, SKC has 5 more league games and 5 that look like solid losses (Montreal, Minnesota, RSL, LAFC, and ATX). Also, they have to fit in the USOC game. If PV has any thought of dragging SKC out of the bottom of the table this year, he needs to do something other than a wounded 4-3-3 which just hasn’t worked. Who knows, maybe even Shelton would perform better with a 4-2-3-1, 4-1-4-1 or 4-4-2. At this point why not try anything else when what you are doing is obviously not working.
You are advocating for SKC to become a provincial squad. No thanks. I don't want to go watch SKC vs LAFC where my team is Celta Vigo and LAFC is Barcelona. How about we examine the real problem. The sporting director position and the impact that years of incompetent roster building has had on this version of SKC. The roster is not bad because they have not spent money. The roster is bad because they have spent money poorly, the transition to the academy has been a disaster, and apparently the medical staff don't know how to properly diagnose knee injuries. Look at the transfers that NE Revolution have made. That is how you run an MLS squad that isn't funded by big $$$$. Not sell Busio and bringing in two players that are so bad they sit behind Shelton. Or picking Fontas over Opara, and giving Fontas a long term and very expensive deal that might be the single most damaging roster move made in the last decade. Before throwing in the towel and saying SKC should just accept their fate as a provincial cow town, how about we examine management and the awful job they have done in building a roster?
This is what maddens me. We know very well how important the 6 is to our success. We have not made a move to get the sort of player on our roster who could make that work, and this summer (when it is blindingly obvious) we bring in another 8. There are players, right now, available on a free who could fill the 6 role. I mean, no I don't expect Pogba to roll up at CMP. But we could bring in players who actually play that role and at least try. The reality, as wedded to the the single pivot and 4-3-3 setup and PV does continue to be (yes, he tries other things, but this is our basic formation), I don't understand what he can be thinking
No. I said the opposite. I don't believe provincial squads can exist in MLS. I'm just saying this team needs to start building more pragmatically. Particularly if we want to ever see cup success in the CCL. The brilliance of NE's roster moves remain to be seen, as they went from the most successful regular season club in history to barely in a playoff spot in July. Now, I think they'll bear out okay and stay in the playoffs by the end of the year, but I'm not sure why they're a shining example here.
PV absolutely doesn't deserve a pass, but I'd also point to 2016 and the signing of Brian Bliss as the Director of Player Personnel and has since become the TD and VP of Player Personnel. Obviously PV has final say, but Bliss in season at least handles a lot of the day-to-day sporting director side of things. A failure at both Columbus and Chicago.
The only quibble I'd have with this, is that there was nothing stopping us from continuing in a vein of pragmatism when we added Russell, Kinda and Pulido. The problem, I do believe PV could sense immortality in front of him. If we could just add a couple ballers on the attack end, which we did, and then if we could tie them all perfectly together with a classic maestro at center back? And a true It's a classic Icarus story, isn't it? PV flew too close to the Sun and his Fontas melted, very, very slowly. I think we all get his reasoning. He thought if he could just reach a little bit higher we'd be Barcelona, circa 2012. It all went pear-shaped on him, but I get the thought. Seriously, if Fontas was even medium paced and Besler hadn't fizzeled? If his shiny new Pirlo hadn't moved to Venice? I believe we are in the spot we're in because PV dreamed too big, and you are correct, pragmatism would have been better. For that, if Pulido and Kinda were healthy this season and playing as well as they can, we'd be mid-table because we'd be picking up the points we're dropping this year. I will say this, our competitive advantage was in having better defenders than other clubs, a full focus on the unit. Unless we completely abandon the single pivot, we will continue to suck until we level way up at the 6. As i hope we learned with fontas, the players PV really wants at CB and Dmid are out of our price range, and when we go for the silkly skilled ones we can afford, they are deeply flawed. It's time to return to smash and grab sporting style
If there were any thoughts of a coaching change... https://www.kansascity.com/sports/s...ueanthem&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter
Illig denies social media rumors he's going to sack PV. "Ain't gonna happen." Per Illig - PV is thoughtful, organized, and planful with both 1st team and player pipeline. Illig is not panicked and believes SKC will come through this a stronger club.
If you can't get by their pay wall, this is the article: Late Sunday night, Sporting Kansas City coach Peter Vermes walked onto the field at Children’s Mercy Park, and the club acknowledged a milestone none of his peers have reached: 500 matches in charge. It’s a signature of a franchise’s stability, but only 24 hours later, not enough time to even appreciate the accomplishment, the club fell into a more unbalanced present. As in, last place. Sporting is uncharacteristically bad this season, worse than any other team in its league at the moment, for reasons we’ll explore. But off the top, we don’t want to lose the headline because that’s probably why you’re here: This dud of a season will not affect Vermes’ long-term standing with the organization. That’s not just my opinion. From the owner: “You know, I don’t read much of it, but people tell me how the social media stuff says I’m getting rid of Peter,” Sporting KC principal owner Cliff Illig told me recently, and then he chopped his hand through the air. “Ain’t gonna happen.” Before being asked for his reasoning, Illig continued: “Peter is very thoughtful. He’s very well organized. He has a long-term plan — not only for what we do with the senior team, but what we do with the supply chain for younger players. “So I’m not panicked or anything. We need to get through it. And I think we’ll come through a lot stronger than we were before.” That initial social media reference came without prompt, by the way, because that’s where these kinds of reactionary calls for change have become most commonplace. It’s a bridge too far in this case, though it’s not the worst thing in the world to have a fan base so invested in a franchise once left for dead that they are angry about what they’re watching in 2022. After all, there’s reason for some frustration. Sporting has obtained all of 16 points in 19 matches. The team has a losing record at home with the schedule more than half exhausted and, for the first time in eight seasons, it’s lost three straight home matches. Even if losing striker Alan Pulido and midfielder Gadi Kinda to season-ending injuries contributed to the last-place standing, it would be oversimplification to deem those breaks the sole sources of these results. The issues stretch across all three lines, each of them too vacant of the sort of elite talent that has poured into the league in recent seasons. Vermes, in his role as both manager and sporting director, owns the responsibility of the roster he constructed, as well as the preparation for those times — like right now — when not every member of that roster is available. At times this season, Sporting KC has appeared to go through the motions. It was obvious enough that captain Johnny Russell earlier this year termed one half of play a disgrace, pathetic, unacceptable, embarrassing and a capitulation, and he hardly needed more than one breath to do it. After defining their 2021 season with comebacks, Sporting has yet to gain a point when conceding the first goal this year. That’s the reason we’re having this state-of-the-union conversation now, in other words. “Obviously, from an on-the-field standpoint, it’s disappointing,” Illig said. “We just got whipsawed between the two (designated players) out for the year. Not making excuses. This is sports. Stuff happens. ... You just have to make the adjustments, and we feel pretty good about how things are going to shape up (in the long term) with Peter in charge.” Vermes’ handprints are woven into the fabric of an organization that transformed itself from an afterthought (and that’s being kind) when he arrived more than a decade ago, to one the city has embraced. Ironically, in that way, he’s created the passion that sparks some of the backlash he’s experiencing now. But in the fuller tabulation, Sporting Kansas City has made the playoffs in 11 of the past 12 seasons, though it is heading toward its second miss in four. Since Vermes took over on a full-time basis his dual roles, Sporting has won four trophies. Yes, three of those are U.S. Open Cup titles, one the more coveted MLS Cup. The team is 4-for-4 in finals. Since his first full season in 2010, Sporting KC has finished with a negative goal differential only once (again, that will be twice after this season concludes). There are few professional franchises that have achieved this kind of consistency in any sport, and that’s not a lesson I should need to share with anyone in this town, even as you’d certainly like to see some of the same continuity spread into the postseason more often. Those are the kinds of resumes you seek when looking to fill vacancies, not create them. Moving forward with the full body of work — and that’s the phrase Illig used in highlighting Vermes — isn’t about rewarding the past success. It’s about studying past success and deeming that, guess what, it just might be an indicator of future success. It’s also about what should be an obvious admission — this season isn’t the norm. The big picture has to account for something — for more than anything, really — even as we can all agree this group whiffed on 2022. Rather than change at the top, that type of admission will be the important piece in keeping 2022 an outlier to an otherwise consistent force. Sure, the Pulido and Kinda injuries, coming before the season even began, were curveballs. They just happen to occupy the goal-scoring and play-making positions Sporting needs most. I’ve heard that point, understand that point and won’t argue that point. But this too is true: Sporting is often a model of getting the most out of what it has, and that is far from an accurate descriptor this year. And if two players can so significantly alter the course of the season, that’s an indictment of the surrounding pieces on the roster. Sporting brought in seven players this offseason — Ben Sweat, Uri Rosell, Logan Ndenbe, Kortne Ford, Robert Voloder, Marinos Tzionis and Nikola Vujnovic — and none has been a game-changing piece. On a team that is last in MLS in scoring, that group of newcomers has combined for one goal. On a team that is third-to-last in goals allowed, five of those seven play on the defensive half of the field. One offseason cannot comprise that kind of track record on the whole. When it does, this is what you’re left with. Two more additions — 22-year-old forward William Agada and 27-year-old midfielder Erik Thommy — are on the way this month. It’s looking more and more as though those arrivals will be too late, but the intention is to keep them around. Sporting will welcome back its two designated players next season, at the latest. As a coach, Vermes has never missed the playoffs in back-to-back seasons, and the list of those more irked than he is by this year’s results is blank. Vermes has actually never finished in the bottom half of the league in back to back seasons. You see, these are the kind of facts that spin an absurd element into any conversation about a potential change.
that sounds … not wrong. I’d say even consistent with what some level headed people have said recently.
So, on Bliss's transfermarkt page, it states untilt he Until category with SKC, "expected" It also notes that he joined in Jan. 2016, and this is the longest he's held a position, almost a year longer than he held the position with the Crew. Given the fact that Illig feels the need to defend Vermes, pre-emptively, in an interview, it's clear there is pressure. Now, i am not sure this roster is on Bliss as much as it's on Vermes, but Vermes has some very good ju-ju in the bank with SKC. Bliss, otoh? we won a US Open Cup in his first year here, and have declined since that point. Doyle's comment is kind of aimed at him. there has to be talk around the league about the state of our roster, esp the well of meh that is 7-28. I don't like to root for removing someone from their job, but it's tough to argue that he hasn't been given a fair chance to build SKC's roster, and that he hasn't had the resources of every other DPF in MLS. Will he remain in that post until 2023? I can't imagine the odds are in his favor.
I think it's also hard to see exactly what Bliss does and is able to do. I can't imagine worrying between owners who'd rather not pay and a manager with very specific demands is the greatest gig... We've made some really big (and I'd argue really good) signings during his tenure. I still hold that Kinda and Pulido were very smart, even excellent, signings. While yeah, both have seen pretty striking rises in injury since arriving compared to their careers elsewhere, but that was something that really couldn't be accounted for. Does Bliss get credit for their quality?
I'm stuck on the word pre-emptively. Were Illig's comments defending PV pre-emptive? I mean at least locally there have been a number of fans calling for PV to be fired. More than the "regular" amount we see on a year-to-year basis so a comment from Illig is honestly probably about right timing wise.
I'm just going by the "before being asked" bit of the piece. Seems pretty clear from that this was an interview Illig agreed to in order to say exactly what he said. while your argument that there was social media buzz about PV that pre-existed his statements, there was not a question, apparently. Maybe it's different reporting on sports, which I've very rarely done. but if someone from the upper echelons of power here, there, whereever, called me in to chat, and arrived with answers already printed out, I would have seen that as an attempt to pre-empt the interview. They aren't there to shed light on a topic, they're there to try to control the discussion.
See I read that comment from Sam (included below) as the fact that Illig has seen/heard the calls for PV to lose his job and has thought about why he's not going to fire him. Not that he needs to defend him before people call for his job.
I guess I assume Illig is lying when he comes out with a pre-planned statement, which is one offered without a question. That makes me wonder what's actually going on behind closed doors. Is Vermes on the edge of being canned? Have they decided on a sacrifice to appease fans? there has to be a slight of hand going on... As I said, I didn't do much sports reporting and it's probably not fair to look at a sports interview through my very, very jaded prism. Sport is a much kinder world than the one I covered.
This presumably means more Shelton unless the third move comes to pass and brings in another center forward.
I'm seeing Vujnovic is gone. I really have lost track this year, but was that a necessary release to bring in Thommy and Agada, or is this freeing us up for another potential international signing?
MLS midseason grades. Again, looks like Matt Doyle has been reading my posts. How this assessment is anything but a condemnation of PV and his ability as technical director is beyond me. https://www.mlssoccer.com/news/midseason-grades-progress-report-for-western-conference-teams-so-far