Cant decide where this belongs so I'm just tossing it here; it's an interview with Peter Vermes wherein he is complaining that other teams can get foreign players into the country and on the field rather quickly while his team can't seem to get it done. He hilariously claims that a) The league shows favoritism by helping out the "bigger markets" and b) the "coastal" sides have more pull. But since the interviewer begins by specifically mentioning Cucho Hernandez, he only ends up sounding like an idiot. Steven Banks, the sports lawyer, had the right response; it isn't your location or your size but rather a) the skills and knowledge of your executive team and b) the caliber and profile of the law firm you hire to handle it. The best of both are very expensive. The Haslams are willing to pay. His people aren't. You'll love this typical Vermes whining:
And reportedly the two guys they can't seem to get into the country are Erik Thommy from Stuttgart via Dusseldorf on loan and William Agade from Hapoel Jerusalem I have no idea who either of them are.
I wouldn't say Berry was undeserving. He scored 8 goals in 840' last season compared to Gyasi's 9 goals in 1,563'. He also scored 3 goals in our last 4 games to end last season. Our offense really finished last season strong and Berry was the one starting up top during that time. It seems like Porter wanted to go with the guy who had been most productive last season, which seems reasonable. Porter also may have been seeing better performances in training by Berry than Gyasi. I'm not so sure starting Gyasi would have saved us points. He's been hot garbage this year. I'm not sure how you think we could have brought Cucho in and kept Gyasi as a backup. He would be an extremely expensive backup, would have been taking up a DP spot to sit on the bench behind another DP, and would have been pissed off the whole time because he needs playing time to have a prayer at making the WC. Porter is not a delicate speaker. He shouldn't have said what he said, but that doesn't change the fact that, in my opinion, they managed the situation the best way possible from a roster building standpoint.
It doesn’t help that Vermes basically does everything. He’s old school, he and his squad have finally aged out. Delegate some authority dude.
Zardes: 5 goals in 1,225 minutes. Berry: 2 goals in 982 minutes. If Zardes has been “hot garbage”, then what is Miguelol?
needs to happen C) We need a starting LB type who can allow Pedro to rotate and or contribute at winger. Also pushing Sands to the 3rd option seeming as we are pretty reluctant to play him in a congested schedule with a 34yr old converted winger. D) this would be a alternative option but this player has to be better than our current options of Sands or one of the guys we play a right back. not likely: A) Unless we make a miraculous move to dump Molino on someone or Yeboah or extend/restructure Nagbe at a discount (not sure that’s possible by rule) B) Not likely right now we need a healthy Degenek if not Josh is our 3CB , now if we could upgrade a younger back up better then Anibaba I’m all for it never going to happen : E) we have a solid starter and plenty of back options
Berry is a poacher he does not posses the quality that Zardes has. Berry had a good season as a back up. Now there is no way you can convince me Berry out performed Zardes. It was a economical decision and we all knew something was fishy from the start. We speculated Zardes wasn’t for because nothing really made sense for Berry to start. Now we were winning to start the season and Berry wasn’t playing well but scored what 2 goals. Their approach to this matter was a bad one. They can talk to Zardes and maybe it is best to sell him but he should of been starting and we definitely could of gotten more. Instead we kept putting Berry out there which hurt the team & Zardes confidence. I never got the feel that the players believed in Berry and thought he was better. They knew he earned a opportunity and I’m sure they wanted him to succeed but once you have bad performances and Zardes is siting it sends the wrong message. I understand sometimes you don’t want a injury to a guy your shopping but this is a win now business. We absolutely can afford Cucho & Zardes . We were selling Cucho on being the #9 . Zardes don’t have to like it but had he played chances are we get better offers for him. Maybe Zardes would embrace splitting time with Cucho if it means winning a championship. We didn’t put the best team on the field and we let Zardes value depreciate and sold him far too cheap where he would be a much better back up than Hurtado. Didn’t take long and we all knew Porter was full of shit about Zardes so the club would have done better to say nothing and instead Porter doubled down and kicked Zardes on his way out. Idk if it was all Porter but either way I didn’t like it and I think we dropped points because of it
Also hot garbage. Zardes was hot garbage until the last games. Two of his five goals came in the last two games, and two of the goals were penalties, one of which came in an Open Cup game. Neither player has produced at an acceptable level, and Zardes certainly hasn't produced at a level worthy of being paid a DP salary to sit on the bench and cheer for Cucho like you suggested he should be.
LA just got Bale and Chelini on TAM deals. It is European off-season. Lots of things are possible below DP level. For goodness sake, use some inagination. Matan could be loaned out for the season somewhere, back to Romania, to open a spot. We'd likely have to incentivize a Molino deal somehow (Garber bucks, draft pick), but I think it worth the risk. If he isn't on an expiring contract, it will be tougher, however. We oikely won't get a long term solution back, but a short term contributor would be an improvement. A vet from a team out of contention in MLS who want to look at younger guys, or out of contract guy Europe would be my guesses. I have no idea how much funny money we have. But we got $225k from Berry and $300k for Zardes. I don't think we've made a big outlay of Garberbucks since. Cucho is a young DP, so we don't need to buy down his salary charge. It is only a guess, but I think we have some flexibility and an open roster spot. I know the FO badly wants to host a PO game. We have two weeks (3 matches) until this window closes. If we are sitting on an 11 march unbeaten run and knocking on the door of top 4 (or already there), and Citeh loses their best player, I thing we have to take a swing. And we will. Though it could be an MLS move rather than INT.
We could have bought Zardes down with Garbetbucks to under DP threshold. Bez said before the season it was an option. We all thought it meant DP winger incoming. But we sold Zardes and brought Cucho in instead. With Yeboah as the winger.
Who do you think the backup RBs are? Hairston (is he even fit?) and Etienne? But I agree LB is the most pressing need.
We also have to think more more strategic than one transfer window at a time. Every offseason we here about how hard it is to get guys since they are in the middle of their season. Slim pickings some might say compared to the summer. We also know not every player can step in right away without some transition time getting use to the travel, league, etc. Do we really think Pedro is the starter next season? If not, we should 100% looking to add someone this summer on a pro-rated salary. Only Bez really know knows how tight our salary cap space is so assuming we have some room then we certainly should be shopping.
Hairston was listed on the bench not sure how fit he is. Etienne is a definite option although it requires our Other wingers to start.Farsi is the Crew2 RB correct ? I think the order would be RB: Starter : Moreira Back up : Hairston Next up/3rd Etienne Last resort/4 Farsi
See, to me, that is thin. Moreira is darn good, don't get me wrong. But sometimes you need to rotate. Hairston has played 73 minutes all year. He was not on the bench last game, but was the game prior. Sands was the only FB available on the subs bench. He has played 130 min all year. The game Moreira did not start, Etienne was back there. Taking your most productive winger and moving him to FB is not a sign the coach thinks much of our FB depth, IMHO. Heck, I think a 352 is more likely than starting Sands or Hairston. Option #2: always hurt and more of a MF. Option #3: team's most productive winger (by a lot). Option #4: Not actually on the team.
I see your POV but Farsi is pretty good at his level and yes Hariston having issues makes you wonder how long will we go with Etienne as the back up at some point we need to either play Farsi and send Hariston packing and bring in another guy . definitely think we need more rotation for the fullbacks before we injury one and then we really get in a bind. Pedro was exhausted and i think thst was why he played so bad
We only have 2 more midweek games . I think the new schedules help alleviate the lack of depth mls has compared to some better leagues. But in honesty i don’t follow any one club so i have no idea how congested their schedules are
Your last point is, I think, the one that we all need to focus on: Does the FO - and the corporate overlords in Cleveland - believe that Cucho makes enough of a difference that the team is now.positioned to make a Cup run? If so, and assuming they have roster and cap space - which you seem to believe that they do - then conventional wisdom says that you go all in right now. Unexpectedly, the Zardes/Cucho move turned them from a plodding, old, slow, build from the back, highly predictable and easily defended side into a five alarm fire, balls to the wall, kick out the jams and go for broke outfit that must surely strike real terror in defenses league wide. It has been nothing short of delightful to watch defenders furiously backpeddling as Zelarayan in the middle with five yards worth of space has multiple options all flying goalwards like the proverbial bats out of hell. What's more, the prime movers are young enough that you have a solid basis moving forward. The back end is a little long in the tooth, but that can be dealt with. So suddenly it would seem like they have a decision to make, and the left side appears to be where, if they make a move, that's the place. Do they really think this team can go all the way? We may be about to find out.
This is why I'm interested to see how Yeboah will fit in going forward. He doesn't have blazing speed like Diaz, but he's creative and good with the ball at his feet. If he can figure out how to start combining with Lucas and Cucho, it's going to create an incredibly dangerous triangle on the right side, especially with Moreira providing an overlapping option with the ability to also cut inside and cause problems. I think we'll start to see much better performances out of Yeboah now that we have a more dynamic player up top. It's a bit long in the tooth, but Moreira is only 27 and Degenek is only 28. It will be interesting to see if we can hold on to the both of them, because they could both give us another 5 solid years barring any serious injuries. Mensah probably has another 2 good years left in him, if not more considering he's barely dealt with any injuries at all while he's been here.
Wasn't sure whether to put this in here or the Crew 2 thread but we have almost instantly seen the value of having Crew 2 as a place to bring in players who then can make it into the first team. Obviously JRR is the best example of this. Brought him in (didn't we pay Toronto like 50k for him) and he is lighting up the MLS Pro league. Earns a 1st team contract and is battling for minutes as the 2/3rd striker. This allows us to move Zardes/Berry which totally redefines our cap space. In a world where JRR does not exist, we keep Berry but instead we trade him for 250k. Get a younger and likely better backup. He can get reps as then 2/3rd stringer and displace Hurtado in the offseason. Farsi seems like another one in the making for next season that could end up with a 1st team contract. Not even a full season into having a full fledge 2nd team and we are already seeing the benefits.
I think going forward we will need to make sure we balance developing the academy guys while still having a few "AAAA" players that can be called up in a pinch.