2024 in-season Revs roster moves

Arreaga is officially in, in exchange for a 2025 international slot (plus potentially another 75k in gam). I’m semi-OK with this if we don’t lose Romney.

 

Signing this guy says either Ravas is not the guy or the other two guys suck. Either way Signing a keeper really wasn't priority but then again there are not too many good out of work strikers right now.

 

It more says that the club is done with Jackson and Edwards than anything else.

We have Weinstein with R2 as our premier prospect. And his timeline puts him as the revs backup in 1-2 years. Jackson doesn't have a higher ceiling, and didn't impress enough in his chance last year to upset the timeliness.

Ivacic was among the 5 best shot stoppers in MLS when he actually played, but he got in a fight with the timbers FO and they have sent him packing. I think he better than Ravas, but I also don't know if we have an Intl slot for him after sending yet another one out to bring in Arreaga

 

We may be disappointed that he is being traded but why on earth would Romney be anything other than expectantly happy?

 

It is odd to me that Romney has gone from locked-in started to being shopped so quickly. My opinion is his effectiveness has not been quite at last years level but he is still better than Farrell and a calming presence paired with Kessler.

No inside info, but wonder if he did something to piss Porter off?

 

At first glance, it's definitely odd to prioritize a CB and a GK when you're scoring .5 goals a game. But if I were generous and wanted to give the brain trust the benefit of the doubt, I'd say that Porter recognized our inability to play out of the back as a main issue and decided to address it.

I would also hazard a guess that Porter sees Romney as incapable of playing out of the back the way he wants, and he thinks Arreaga will be better at it.

(One wrinkle in this line of analysis: Porter's previous CB signing was Mensah, who, IMO, has been the worst of the CBs with the ball. So slow, so casual - his "keep possession at a walking pace" style was a big reason we started on the back foot against Charlotte.)

And these signings are hardly exciting - and serve as reminders of what a rut we're in. The Ivacic move basically says, "We can't trust the GK we signed to be our #1," and the Arreaga move says, "We're picking up guys that other teams don't want in a desperate attempt to get at least a little bit less awful."

But hey - I'd take "less awful" at the moment!

 

Build from the back, I guess? But it's not encouraging on the whole. It's going to be a long, tortuous season.

 

My guess is that he and coach are not seeing eye to eye on things and Porter is not going to be challenged by anyone

 

“We expect to have much more flexibility in the summer window,” Porter said. “We expect to make another three to four to five moves in that window as well. We have targeted positions and players for that window.”
The Cavalry is coming! well thank God we only have to put up with this humiliating season 3 or 4 more months!

 

Yeah, that's what some of the Crew fans were saying about Porter. He can be strongly opinionated, stubborn, or bull-headed, which can work for a while until it doesn't. That can work in certain situations for the short term, and he has had some success, so I was OK if that happened here, even if he wore out the welcome mat after a couple of years.

Who knew it would be a couple of months, not years?

Yeah, but is the chef the one who's buying the groceries? Onalfo is the one with the shopping cart, and while I don't trust him, at least the Baba signing fell through for the right reasons, not because the Revs realized what they were offering for a year was what the player thought he was getting per month!

 

I think it says that they want and need real competition at the position and no one on the roster was able to provide that.

Ravas has some strong skills but needs to clean up other parts of his game.

 

I think it’s more of a style and skill-set thing. He’s good defensively and reliable (though maybe not as much as last year) but I think Porter is looking for better passing out of the back.

 

I don’t think this was their priority, but as Porter basically said, these were easy cheap moves they were able to make without much cap flexibility.

They should get some offensive bounce with Borrero coming back, but I expect they’ll be looking at dmid and striker in the next window.

 

They keep saying they dont have cap flexibility, and maybe the mlspu salary data will bear that out, but even with the bad deals on the books they should have had room for a TAM max player to fill the empty roster spot

 

3 or 4 or 5 moves in the summer window?!?!

For non-Arena run Revs teams, 3 true moves in a window sounds highly ambitious. 4 sounds far-fetched and 5 sounds outlandish. Is this owner going to support 5 true moves?

We can debate “true” moves and what that means. I’m thinking along the lines of “will strongly compete for or immediately take over a starting position.”. Even that seems like a low bar based on how they are playing right now.

 

Or promoting a player from Revs II would be a "move." What I would consider an actual move is to bring in a player who is an immediate first-team starter. None of this "added depth" additions in an area where we already have depth.

 

I was referring to the spot they eventually filled with Arreaga as empty.

The point was that, although MLS finances are opaque, they had room to do something reasonably significant in terms of player quality

 

Incorrect.

Before the window closed yesterday the revs could have added any player from anywhere. Soccer transfers are limited by whether the buying team is in window. The selling team has no restrictions

 

I have a hard time seeing how that's the problem. They move the ball down the field just fine, it's when they're in front of the goal that's the problem.

 

If the measuring stick is Andrew Farrell, Romney is at least adequate.