Obviously not. He scored one, count 'em, one goal this year and it wasn't assisted by Elliott. Scored 4 goals - Not a single one came off of FK or corner. Scored 3 goals -- Guess what? Not a single one came off of a Elliott FK or corner. Scored 9 goals in '05 -- and 2 of those came from an Elliott corner kick. Best pay better attention next time you watch the games on television.
For what it is worth, I definitely see in my line of work that getting to be the person who makes these types of decisions and being a person with the facilities to make these types of decisions require totally different skills. In fact, some of the bigger clubs that bought many players through the first half of this decade seemed to have missed the mark and caused the decline of their club. Real Madrid would be the famous example as they stockpiled talent (Figo and Owen as subs?!) while not putting together a coherent team. Manchester United similarly seems to have spent on some excellent players (Ronaldo, Rooney), but at the same time have not made the right decisions to maintain their standard (the current squad is just much weaker than the squad from 5-6 years ago). And one thing to consider is that certain players have the ability to step up to the next level while not dominating their current level while other players can dominate their current level while not having the ability to step up. US fans can probably look at players like Hejduk or McBride to see players that are not and were not dominating players in MLS yet they are able to be effective internationally (and for McBride in the EPL). On the other hand players like Twellman, Noonan, Ralston, Kreis, and Cunningham have looked like world beaters at times in MLS, but can't seem to make that translate to the international game. Here is where we have differences of opinions amongst soccernistas. Wynalda has long called for Twellman to be the answer up top for the US. Chris Sullivan campaigned long and hard for Kirovski to be a starter for Japorea. I think these guys are both simply wrong. Wynalda and/or Sullivan could both be in an Alexi Lalas style GM position or even a coach position in MLS due to their background. They will obviously make some good and bad decisions there. They both, like Lalas, have been paid to be announcers and they are both reasonably good announcers. I think there are probably 50 posters on Big Soccer that would make better personel decisions if given the chance. /shrug You also have to remember that Big Soccer has many people who do or have made their living off this game. These college coaches, former players, and such are not that different from the people actually making some of these decisions. /shrug In fact, I can definitely say that I understand more about the game now because of Big Soccer discussions than when I was in coaching for a career. Of course I also appreciate players and styles that are not necessarily popular on these forums. 8)
My impression of C'bus was that they were solid in the back, solid in the middle, but nothing... nothing up front. I even went on the Crew boards and made that observation, and everybody was like... duh.
Blah ... typical Foosinho. Elliot's 1st assist was to Buddle vs. DCU off the corner. Elliot's 2nd assist was to Hejduk, off a short corner vs. RSL. In the same game, he crossed off a direct kick, Marshall headed it against the bar, Countess couldn't control the rebound and Hejduk toe-poked it in. It went unassisted on the official score books. All of the above were from set-pieces and, btw, rather nice crosses by Simon Elliot.
I'm not sure whether to be flattered or insulted by this quote. Fid's a quality guy (and I agree with his post), but I got backhanded here! Elliott was a reasonably decent free-kick taker, and should be expected to get a few nice plays out of those kicks. The contention that he got all of his assists because of Columbus' set piece prowess combined with MLS's lax policy on awarding assists is simply not true. Personally, I think Marshall has McBride-itis (a rare condition where you negate your own aerial advantage by consistently trying to pick out the corners and put your headers just wide of the post - just power the damn thing on frame!).
I'm pretty sure it's been said in this thread already, and you can debate the merits of MLS assist tally's all you want, but... The Crew was an abysmal offensive team this year. For Simon to be involved in nearly 1/3 of the teams goals, from primarily a holding midfield role, with one of the most incompetent strike forces in MLS history in front of him....well, he was doing something right. Whether or not people here want to accept that is their problem.
It's good to see you don't pay attention to BigSoccer either. You specfically pointed out 4 of the Crew's strikers and the preseence they provide in the box -- I was plainly pointing out in my post that those four are not the "powers" in the air you claimed them to be and especially not with the help of Simon Elliott on corner kicks and set pieces. It's okay to be wrong. I know it's hard for you to admit but it's okay.
Oops.. sorry... 'twas too early for me .. or too late .. or something ... The contention was that a designated free kick and corner kick taker will have inflated assist totals visavis any other player much like a designated PK taker would have an inflated number of goals. In that, I don't see how I'd been proven wrong, since watching clips and following stats from the early portion of the season has me at 100% accuracy. Uh ... you conveniently ignore that if Marshall and Cameron go into the box, they take two of the biggest defenders with them to a specific spot while the FK taker can aim to another. In any case, I had said that Buddle and Marshall were aerial threats and, lo and behold, in the first few clips selected on a calendar basis, they were. How this makes me wrong, I've no idea.
A single goal on a CK from Marshall and two headed goals from Buddle make them arial threats? Jesus, than that must make an arial threat too. Oh yea, add in Woly and Knox's (who you also mentioned) 7 goals -- none of which were scored on a CK and I'm still baffled you consider them arial threats if hardly of their goals come from FK and CK situations.
to anyone complaining of off target shooting or past his prime play take a long walk... This is a great signing for them and a loss for myself and Columbus fans LA misjudged when they let him go. I watched almost every game and win or lose his play from accurate long balls, to clean and sharp perceptive passes to gritty clean defense work (not to mentio being an obvious great TEAM Player) he was one of the things you could count on . I will miss him as he was one of my favorites this year. I think it will be a tough spot for Ziggy and Robert to fill. Best wishes to him, hes a good guy and deserves to do well (Hopefully we can catch a few Fulham games on Fox Soccer Channel )
Fulham began their season with something like seven consecutive matches shown on FSC. There's not been a run like that since then, but clearly they're on the channel's radar. Hope you get to see Elliott and the team.
So have they signed the guy or what? He is out of contract so they don't have to wait until Jan. right?
Ummm, no we didn't. I watched a ton of games in 2003, live and on t.v. Smelliot stunk that year. We now have 3 d-mids that are better than him, 2 completely so (Nagamura and Saragosa) and one that works better for us (Vagenas). There's no way in hell I would trade Elliot for Nagamura, who single-handedly marked De Rosario out of the playoff series vs. SJ as well as the Open Cup victory. How many other d-mids in MLS can say that? None. I do feel that Elliot was much more effective this year than last, not even looking at stats just from the play that I saw. And like I said earlier, C'bus not making the playoffs was more a function of lack of firepower. I agree that it will be a loss for the franchise, and that's why we should work out a trade where y'all can take Vagenas and get us, somehow, someway... a left winger.
When Everton signed Joe-Max Moore, they paid MLS a nominal fee of $5000 or so to get Moore out of the last three weeks of his contract, so they could field him in December instead of waiting. Not sure if that's doable any more, with the transfer windows.
When healthy I think Elliot is a pretty good player as he showed us in a couple of years with the Gals. Injuries cost him badly in LA, and he appeared in better form at Columbus last year IMO. It will be interesting to see how he fares in the EPL, should he get any serious minutes.
You know, you're right. I really can't think of anyone else who marked De Rosario out of a playoff series with SJ this year. Oh yeah, that's right, only LA played them. That explains it.
And hell just froze over ..... "After weeks of speculation the 31-year-old All Whites midfielder has joined the west London club on a free transfer from United States franchise Columbus Crew. However, the official announcement of Elliott's move has been delayed as he is still awaiting his international clearance from Columbus via US Soccer after Fulham's transfer request was wrongly sent to New Zealand Soccer last week." Yep ,the Crew is so massive.... Fulham didn't know were to send the papers, nice!
Fulham just got confused and sent the papers to the Crew's recently opened New Zealand offices, instead of the home office at Black an Gold boulevard. It's not an unforgivable mistake. There was a great deal of excitement about that office.
If they had known he played for MLS side Columbus Crew they may not have been interested. I mistakenly thought he was a star player for FC Columbus Coffee of Auckland, New Zealand. http://www.columbuscoffee.co.nz/ http://www.columbuscoffee.co.nz/store_locations.html ------------------ The best connection between Columbus and NZ I could find.
It's a good thing for Simon that Fulham didn't send it to the Crew's office in Nepal. You have to fly into Kathmandu, then it's a 5 day donkey ride over the Himalayas. They had to move the office from the capital because of riots when the Crew choose Spain for offseason training instead Nepal.