I don't understand the Durkin hate on this board. I've never really thought of him as a wide player, and if he wasn't in central midfield I would have thought his next position was somewhere across the backline, but I've been impressed by his ability to whip in a cross.
He is slow. He doesn’t stretch the field. A wide player needs to do that. He’s filling in. That’s fine.
Asad isn't really a right midfielder. Durkin is also a Rooney favorite. Asad isn't being brought in to replace Durkin in the lineup.
Rooney likes Durkin because there is no quit in him. He was one of the few players last season that Rooney felt stepped up when we were losing and Rooney was doing his quiet abandonment and letting the team fend for itself.
Let's be honest, this roster is a mess. We've got too many DMs for a team playing a 442 that looked more like a 433 much of the game. We're probably shy a CB or two and I am not sure there's a starting grade winger on the roster that is healthy, let alone 2 or the 3-4 we should have.
I think the roster's actually constructed with some thought this year. I'd argue Palsson is the only true DM on the team. Canouse is really an 8, but he does a decent impression of a 6. Durkin was a playmaking DM, until we sent him overseas and they turned him into a "more complete" player. Now I'm not sure what he is, but he's never had the defensive chops to be a true 6. Garay is a 6, but he's not in the picture right now. We have six CBs on the roster, it's just our first and third best CBs are injured and Birnbaum was recovering from injury. The only reason Palsson played there was as a steadying presence next to Akinmboni (better than Pines or Sargis). I don't look at it as lacking wingers so much as crossers. We've got Hopkins on the right and Jehaze on the left (and maybe Santos, but he's better with a through ball). Najar and the rest of the mids tend to play inverted, and Durkin can shape a ball, but he's a central player. Maybe Ruan will bring something to the table. It's a hole for us, but I think it's one of the few. I don't see us trying to get in behind in wide areas too often with this roster, so I look at it as a strategic choice. We're more likely to see short crosses as part of penetration play, like the two that lead to the goals, and there are lots of players on the team that can do that, including Ku-D, apparently. Asad, at his best for us, was an inverted LW. If you remember him as being bad, you're probably mostly remembering us trying to shoehorn him into a central midfield role. Hopefully we don't do that again!
I know last season is a small sample size and the team otherwise was shit, but that is exactly how Rodriguez was playing LW.
“Yamil loves this club and has been steadfast in his desire to return,” Dave Kasper, United’s president of soccer operations, said in a statement. “I’ve always been impressed with how Yamil leaves it all on the field and bleeds for the shirt. We look forward to getting him back on the field.” LOL
Better for morale than saying "look, we are short able bodied players and need someone that is ok. We know him and he is willing to work for us."
Dave saying what head of operations is supposed to say. Is Yamil one of Wayne’s guys? Most likely not a big yes. At least not yet. Just please be competent, and always work hard.
Did I miss the discussion about Garber’s comments to the Athletic regarding a “club performance group” aimed at helping legacy markets? Crappy legacy teams like…… DC United.
No, we haven't really had it. I don't think anyone really believes it's anything more than window dressing. There are ways to coerce poorer performing teams to do better, but a committee that's going to tell someone to do X not Y isn't going to get very far IMO. Every sport has its laggards, Look at the Lions/Browns/Raiders in the NFL, the Ducks/Devils/Flyers in the NHL, Pirates/Tigers/Reds in MLB, Wizards/Pistons/Clippers before Balmer bought them in the NBA. All teams that you could count on being only a few games off the bottom if not the bottom. Someone has to be the poorest or least incompetent entity in the league and that's DCU, Montreal, SJ, and RSL in MLS. If MLS really wanted to fix DC United there would be real serious pressure on them to sell the team rather than reform their bad ways. Maybe even some regulations on spending. Hell MLS is single entity, just give them a deadline to sell by. What is this committee going to do, tell them to fire Kasper, we've been saying that for years now. It isn't news that he's not an MLS3.0 and beyond GM. Will they tell us to build some kind of sustainable model like developing youth players or buying young DPs that appreciate in value? There's an old saying, you can't polish a turd and DCU is that turd. Jason Levien might be good at making money, but he sucks ebola infested monkey ass at putting a winner on the field. They had Rooney dropped in their laps yet the club wouldn't make the investments to put/maintain a team around him. They should have locked Luch down midway through the second half of the 2018 season when the magic was obvious. He's been bellyaching about his salary for a year at that point. Maybe PSG was inevitable, but who knows if he'd gotten his money if his head would have been turned. They're a bunch of millionaires playing a billionaire's game. Scared money never wins over the long haul. Even selling the team has its challenges, not that it should dissuade anyone from investing a billion dollars in an all but guaranteed to appreciate asset. For better or worse, MLS & United are married to this stadium for the next 20-30 years with its bad TV setup, narrow concourses, accessibility issues (especially if metro continues to decline), its poorly spaced concessions. For someone to come in and decide the training facility should be closer to the city or just plain better than some class C office space, that's a few million, but there is no fixing the shortcomings of the stadium which is probably leveraged to the hilt. This ownership is following an asset appreciation playbook, not a winning sports team playbook, and probably have no F's to give for Garber or the other owners. Run this club as close to revenue neutral and wait for the strike price to hit.
Can anyone remind me of any details regarding keeping training/headquarters in Leesburg? How much of that is/was contingent on a team playing games out there? Do we know what happens to ownership of facilities out there in the next couple of years?
I wish I had 3 hands to give this post more than 2 thumbs up. Levien and Kaplan are some damn vultures and if MLS were a big boy league, they'd get the boot or at least strong incentive to cash out and leave. DC United sits on a huge potential goldmine with its market but MLS can't take advantage, mostly because of the garbage owners who repeatedly prove penny wise and pound foolish, constantly making decisions to grab that extra dollar or two when it's there for the taking.
Curious--why the LOL? I always got the feeling Asad liked being here and playing for DCU. I'm far from a Kasper fan, but I honestly don't see this as spin.