Roster 2023

we actually are still in the primary window until april.

so they see what i see. and however that game worked out we handed them plenty of first half chances, though to be real, a lot was schmitt.

this target has a pretty solid CV but he's a little old to be much more than a "patch" and the question is why bother "patching" this if it's not good enough. he's almost HH's age. again, you sign people like that, it's "win now." at which point your LB is junk, your RB was steres, and they could use some more offense. get cracking.

 

it suggested to me dissatisfaction with someone in the first 3 CBs, but not so much hadebe. hadebe, whether i am on his team or not, whether he allowed that goal to wood or not, they haven't spoken a cross word or even one hand other handed. he's started and played 270'. the obvious failure to me is steres, who sat the first 2 games then was played out of slot at RB where he wasn't exactly dominant.

i thought steres was a silly unforced error of an extension. despite just being extended the coach thinks so little of him bartlow was already playing in the preseason, and that's followed into the regular season. and i don't even think he's any good.

also re my "patch" comments, i think if it was hadebe i am pretty sure his replacement is either an absolute stud or 20-25. this move is like the GM or HC thinks it would work if he could just give teenage a running buddy, and can just pick up some 31 year old to do it, which are they already broken or how much gas could you have left. so short term at best. which to me is like you're pairing hadebe for now as opposed to you're the new foundation and we'll find your compliment.

side point, how many slots have we used? he's another international. i'd forgotten we were still in the window, yes, but we also feel like we have a ton of foreign players. and steres isn't foreign. so would we have to move 2 or make a trade? surely we're full up. haven't done the math but surely. maybe it's steres for a slot. which, again, a slot for a season, that's "patch" behavior, improvised punt it down the road an offseason, not intricate pre thought construction work.

i still think the GMs cripple the teams, how many of these do we have, how many LBs, how many CBs, do we sign, redundant. you sign an ACL guy. his backup leaves. you sign two more including some career USL/sub who after day 1 looks bad. you extend a CB, he doesn't play CB. you sign a new one. measure twice, cut once, if you follow. and i want them to respond to how it looks, like kinnear did, but i don't think he made this many mistakes or kidded himself as much. at a point of spotting your mistakes it's less awareness and more incompetence. an akinibiyi occasionally is ok. this is more like first 2 years jordan bringing in a ton of backs and not a darned one fixes the problems. it took 2017 to get a functioning defense for even 1 season, which i am convinced was in some significant percentage cabrera. and even that, speaking to my "patch" complaint, if you sign O-30s their shelf life may already be nil and best case isn't much going forward. how many good seasons did we milk from figueroa? senderos? machado? etc. it's really how playoff teams act.

 

I just hope he understands how hot it gets here. I'll never understand how the players perform in the summer. I'm sweating buckets just drinking beer and watching.

It does beg the question of what we are doing defensively. Personally, I thought Steres did a great job at RB. But Bartlow did great too. By all accounts, and his pedigree, this guy can play, so who moves out? You could be on to something with Hadebe.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...-retirement-to-rejoin-national-league-wrexham

this is the kind of "will" i am looking for. they want their ticket to league football. they are almost there. their keeper gets a season ending injury. they don't mope and make excuses. they don't limp through the finish line and begin talking about next season. they do something dramatic. and they do it now.

i am sick of excuses. i am sick of "manana."

if you've been watching the backline this season you know that it's "several" and not just "one." bluntly i don't know how anyone had confidence in a CB slot when it's all holdovers from a team that got drubbed give or take a HD2 promotion who hasn't played this year and had an emergency appearance last year. who is still internal. this should have happened last winter -- maybe 2 CBs -- and steres should have been gone. i mean you trade parker to keep steres and extend him out? how did this ever make sense. so, yes, we have started working on it. good. look around the line and honestly tell me how many others should have a job too.

steres is out wide because this new guy coming in is taking his job and presumably his route to continued employment is prove himself useful in some other way. which says more about our tendency to perseverate than him. he's not some lean boca or pope looking guy, like richards these days, who could play anywhere. he's a stick figure. he should play where stick figures go. if not, skedaddle. courage of your convictions.

same thing on sebas. he should have been gone in winter if they were this meh about him. we got rid of cubo coming off a big year when we didn't like his speed level or how he fit. why can't we act. guy that expensive should be starting (and make you happy) or gone. period. no 12th man crap. no let's try him elsewhere. he was signed to be The Guy. he is either sufficient for that or not. if not, answer is obvious.

 

in terms of your analysis on steres, we gave up crosses from our right early on they (a) bang off the upper corner of the bars at 11' and (b) head right at the keeper far post at about 31' -- the first is more his fault. (c) AFC's attacker also threads our whole right side badly at about 20' including steres, shot saved by clark when the player wide open far post kind of gets the ball stuck under his feet and then panics as the defense closes. AFC did not punish these chances and the game shifted our way but they are like what went on in the two losses and previous years, as opposed to a fix for them.

also, just "type" wise, he's a slow stick figure guy marginal at defense when what we need is a speedy shut down wingback who can close down players on these crosses, and not allow teams around the flank.

last, at his paygrade ($500k?) he either works for purpose or not. cuz what seems to come across as "try him another spot" to me comes across like sunk costs fallacy, that we are loathe to pull the plug on our most expensive acquisitions. maybe next time be less flip when you extend 1/4 of one of the worst defenses in team history. try that. i don't get why we do what we do in november only to start undoing it in february and march. it speaks ill of GMs left to their own devices. HC takes one look, elevates bartlow, benches the guy twice, plays him out of position third game as a RB which the GM hasn't fixed either.

i see it the opposite. we should be cold blooded about whether the core expensive guys do their job because they will do a lot of the defining of if this is successful. if it tears people up inside to send players away, (a) don't do pro sports or (b) realize that these expensive players likely find another perch. if you wanna pout about their futures it's the kids, i mean, do nico lemoine or ian hoffmann even have teams? and that's where we seem wiling to enthusiastically swing the axe. this is not what steres, HH, hadebe, sebas etc. face. they have transfer or trade value and will find their next spot.

 

last point, we need to end the cycles of sviatechnko replaces bartlow replaces steres replaces parker replaces figueroa.

or steres replaces dorsey replaces zeca replaces dorsey replaces valentin. setting aside escobar was supposed to be in there someplace.

or someone else replaces schmitt replaces lundy while we have two other signings at LB who can't play for one reason or another.

and the signings of smith and escobar followed by what has happened makes me wonder if we do our due diligence. it's almost april, when is our LB signing off knee rehab?

get it together.

and that's not getting into we have one run of play goal so far this season. others being a PK and a corner. which to be fair more of the latter than before -- the one thing i thought HH could add was kick service -- which paolo oddly didn't use. but either the GA needs to go down or the run of play GF needs to go up.

 

last last, yair to HD2.

¡Bienvenido, Yair!

We've signed Argentine midfielder Yair González on loan from @AAAJoficial for the remainder of 2023.

Read more >> https://t.co/V4V4Ww7WbJ#HoldItDown pic.twitter.com/Rrplq8qDXO

— Houston Dynamo 2 (@houstondynamo2) March 22, 2023

i still think they either misevaluated him or are moralizing it. to me he looks like twice the player as quinones or avila.

 

Kowba rates him as a player with solid 1 v 1 skill set and is an attacking midfielder.
This is specifically what type of player we need in our midfield. Too often our guys have possession but just are listless in ideas of how to unlock the opposition.

 

https://www.mlssoccer.com/news/nycfc-sign-midfielder-richy-ledezma-on-loan-from-psv-eindhoven

 

https://www.houstondynamofc.com/new...er-back-erik-sviatchenko-using-targeted-alloc

 

i think yair could play wide or as an aggressively positioned AM. to me he's quinones with some skill and final third composure. we have missed an outright burner who could bring it back under control at the end. quinones to me is wildly out of control and while gaining green space in a hurry hands the ball right back over at the end. so what. we should let that loan expire or he should be the one on HD2 trying to figure it out.

it becomes fairly indefensible when one realizes we have attackingn people hogging roster spots like auguste, avila, and quinones. why is he down and they're up. that's where i get into moralizing and/or scouting eyes. do they have him assessed wrong or is he being made to serve out some period because he misbehaved as a teenager at his previous team.

 

subtle detail but achara hasn't dressed for either the first or reserve team and doesn't show up on the website roster. i think game 1 he was listed as one of the immigration problems but they haven't mentioned him since. there was some discussion of how did we make the compliance/slot number......

or am i missing something.

 

re signing people, the international count is 8
coco
sebas
hadebe
HH
sviatchenko
micael
van der kust
thor

 

but, repeating myself, he's not dressing for anyone. one is perhaps an oversight. whoops left him off the website. though that's amateur hour. but a couple items suggests an explanation. as in, not listed and not being dressed. auguste and avila have been dressed more days than him, ie, zero.

also, and to be a bit more punchy, taking at face value what you think you see, on the official roster i count 4 guys listed as supplemental 21-24. schmitt, thor, van der kust, bartlow. count how many slots there are 21-24. do you see the issue?

additionally, in response to your newest post, he would be the "9th international." on a team that has 7 without trading.

i don't doubt he had an individual page created. i think we created a page for him anticipating his involvement and it obviously didn't go to plan. we had the passport issues game 1. we may also have had a compliance problem. the actual working facts point to something went wrong. listed immigration problem week 1 but no more. not on roster. not being dressed. connect the dots. he got beat to the roster or he isn't legal to play. something. even if they got him legal what i am looking at says our remaining opening is a 25-28 slot which is minimum salary, GA, or HGP, under 24, cannot be senior minimum or above. he misses several of those including age.

when was it you saw him practicing?

setting aside channeling The Count, our "Sharp As A Tack" GM shouldn't be woken until January. artur (meh), tarbell (bench), achara (?), auguste (dressed once didn't play), then his first january signing is smith who is rehabbing. as well as extending steres.

last year it was all the pointless options.

 

i could see a "tyler boyd" scenario where we have a contract, player doesn't make the roster but contract is worded or roster rules say we cannot literally end their contract, but have no room to register within league rules. so we pay them a paycheck but we can't actually use them. maybe we keep them training as we work on a transfer, trade, loan, or something.

boyd spent like a half year or a year in turkey sitting around while the team that owned his contract would not register him under tight international limits.

or we also have a pattern of either belated or no announcement when back of the roster decisions are made. sometimes the USL team announces something and what we hear is when, say, player is nominally returned off loan then cut. to me we seem to announce people like pasher or better.

 

Maybe Gasper will challenge for headballs in the 6 yard box when the ball comes to his mark's head.

 

Ben Olsen is tired of getting asked why @HoustonDynamo DP striker Sebastian Ferreira is not getting meaningful minutes. #HoldItDown

📹 @MLS @NewYorkRedBulls pic.twitter.com/XIyFxoUtE4

— Victor Araiza (@victoraraiza) April 16, 2023