Tossing away Shavar Thomas for non-imapct players will be a mistake the Burn will regret for years to come. Good luck to Shavar and his great future. I really wanted to see this guy develop with the Burn at Frisco, but it seems he'll have to realize all his future success elsewhere.
Re: Re: Burn throw away a stud And when Gbandi continues to disappoint, and Thomas continues to develop, who will be the "stiff" then? He wasn't given the necessary time to develop, and Gbandi will. But only time will tell - but please, make a note to check on Thomas' progress every time Gbandi gets burned on the counter.
Maybe you're right about the supporting cast he played with in your comments in the other thread. Still, he'll be an SI after this season. Do you think he will be better than Bonseau after one more year? If not, we can't really have an SI on the backline anyway given our shortage of impact American players. That's our real problem IMO, our lack of impact American players.
I think Jambon makes a very good point. The Burn has for the most part always done relatively well with foreign players. More hits than misses anyway, which is something most MLS teams can't say. Where the Burn has really struggled is in the development of good, young american players. Jason Kreis has been the top one. After that, it has been marginal. No real contribution to the US national team program. Even Kreis doesn't fit that bill. Perhaps Suarez, but he was in and out of the National team faster than a nat on a warm lousiana day.
And now we've got Brad Davis, Eddie Johnson, & DJ Countess all fighting for spots on the most talented Olympic team this country has ever fielded. But, we're at least one real difference-maker in the center of midfield (possibly two), and another strong starting defender, from being a good team. If we can somehow upgrade the contributions of our wingbacks, we might be very good. We may have thrown away a stud in Thomas. In exchange, we got cheap depth at defender and defensive midfield, and more depth on the left side of the field. Plus another SI slot to play with. And I would have been satisfied with Goodson at the #4 pick. Even though he played like a punk against St. Johns in the college cup. The true 'loss of a stud' occurred last year in that awful LA trade. If we had Suarez and Broome on the roster right now, I'd feel MUCH better.
That brings to light the problems we had starting with the bad trade with L.A.. We got Ezra, who has been caught upfield while Gbandi pushes at the same time (shortest route to defensive suicide), and we also had Dunseth, one of the worst man-markers in MLS. Now, granted, Suarez wasn't going to be happy playing central defense, and Broome was not the best defensive player for his position. But, I would take Broome over Gbandi in a heartbeat. Lots of assists, and, at least, he was putting the ball out of play instead of getting beat 1v1 in his last year as Burn. But to ask Jolley to shore up a cast of Gbandi, Dunseth, Ezra and Talley - is too much to ask. Expect Steve to be even more frustrated than he was with the Metros (his fit of rage in Heaps' face will pale in comparison to what he's going to see with the Burn). In short, I'm shocked that Thomas was not given a solid outside right defender for one more year to see if he's worth an SI spot. Many experts have seen him as the ultimate central defender in three years time (when he joined the Burn), and now we've lost that option. He would've been a superior defender, while, in my opinion, Gbandi will be a bust. More bad defensive choices for the Burn. Now I REALLY feel sorry for our goaltenders.
With Thomas the Burn were stuck between a rock and a hard place. Unless Thomas has a breakout year next year he would be untradeable because nobody will designate a SI slot for a question mark player. Furthermore, our SI slots are designated for players we expect to be around awhile - a young O'Brien, a young Nhleko and an allocation you would hope will be around 3-4 years. Therefore, even if Thomas breaks out, which I think is possible, the Burn will be in a position of needing to unload a player next offseason. Everybody can smell desperation and the return wouldn't be good value. So, by trading him now you still get a bit of leverage and there is still a question mark to Thomas's game which worked to our advantage in this case. For it should be known, this trade was in effect Thomas plus a 2nd Round Draft pick for Talley and Quill. The swap of 1st Round draft picks appears completely irrelevant because KC took a player neither SJ or Dallas appeared to want. Not a bad day at the office when you look at it that way.
I consider today's trade even. Dallas aquired experience in the back, and a good utility left sided player. KC unloaded cap, got a guy with a lot of upside, and a future pick in 2005. When it's all said and done, it was a minor move on both parts and just a small part of what both teams need to do to improve next season.
I don't see that at all. Thomas is getting such low compensation, that the Burn could eat the rest of his salary and release him if worst came to worst. Instead, the Burn bring in another questionable defender (Talley has a history of ankle problems and is NOT a good defender) AND KEEP Dunseth and Ezra - who are making good money. The Burn should've let both Dunseth and Ezra go, went for a better trade for a strong defensive right back, and maybe even brought Suarez back. This was a big mistake and it will show at the end of the 2004 season.
I don't remember Ezra or Dunseth being on that list of players under contract. If they come back it will be at a rate Elliot thinks is reasonable. Quill is the new late game sub with speed. He is one of the fastest guys in the league.
The Burn won on this trade. Talley can be a starter. He was for KC for most of last year, and they were a much, much better team than the Burn. He is a more than capable center back or defensive midifielder. Quill also has starter ability on the left flank or even at forward. He is a good player to run opposite of Ronnie O'Brien. He also has a workrate to allow Gbandi to make runs forward. Getting Quill may be an indication that the Burn would like to move Brad Davis inside? Nunez is the player of the future there, but I don't know if he will be ready to start right away. Very small frame. Vaca, but with more ball skill and speed. Shavar Thomas is not worth an international slot. DO NOT run Gbandi out of town just yet. The guy has a ton of talent and it takes a while to come back from major knee surgery, especially while playing on turf. Gbandi will be in the running for the US national team at left back and has much more potential than Suarez.
Releasing him would be throwing him away. The Burn in its current position cannot afford to gamble on a player who most likely won't be on the squad in 2005. I think they got good value for him.
Thomas was a liability all year on defense. He's too old for MLS BECAUSE he's not a domestic. If he was a USian, he would have survived and Gbandi would have been traded instead. But since he was a year away from an SI slot, better to take Quill.
No, I meant that they could release him, if absolutely necessary, at the END of next season in order to avoid the taking up of the SI slot. But, I believe, given the right addition to Gbandi/Jolley/Thomas, the solid defender that the Burn should have traded for - would give the necessary room for Shavar to develop. This was approached completely wrong with the Suarez/Broome trade, and it's been mishandled again with this trade. You don't take "average players" like Quill and Talley BEFORE you procure impact players that make a difference at critical and lacking positions - like the Burn's defense. Jolley was a half-decent move, but getting another solid defender would've been the FIRST move that should've been made. The Burn's "nucleus" on defense is unknown, and they traded for "average" players... a mistake.
Re: Re: Re: Burn throw away a stud Your post was about Thomas not Gbandi. Besides, they play different positions so it's apples and oranges. Thomas was sleep walking sometimes last year. One time Deering needed to pass back to him and he kept his head down for 15 yards. Finally Deering passed to him hard to wake him up and the ball Bounced off him. Call them like I see them. Last year he ran stiff-like and didn't keep his head in the game. Had some fair games. He kept his game simple which was probably a good idea. What's weird to me is that he plays for his National Team but loses concentration during games.
Unfortunately, Thomas was a part of the hole in the middle last year (Chad, Thomas, T-Bone, DJ). Like DJ, Thomas suffered because Chad was a turnstile and T-Bone isn't vocal. Note that this year, you will have a real d-mid (I think it is safe to say we will probably end up with a Euro guy who is pretty darn good there), two defenders who have significant chops in MLS (Jolley and Talley - although neither are really vocal or have had "spectatular" careers, both are solid) and probably a very experienced keeper. I think if you have Carey and Steve in the middle, you will in all likelihood see Garlick in goal. If we find/trade-for or otherwise acquire a defender who can organize the back, then I think DJ gets the start. Either way, we gave up a guy who probably would not have been able to do what Carey can do for this team over the next two years. As for the other parts of the trade, getting Goodson at 7 works for me, and basically you're comparing Quill to a conditional second round draft pick next year. Quill probably isn't the defensive/work-rate guy as described earlier, but he is speed. As Scipio and Damian were saying last night at the Happy Hour, at least he won't be scoring against us next year - that alone has to be worth three points! But the key, boys and girls, is this - if Buzz is right about Ramon, and Colin and Oscar get him to grow and develop the way he should, then we may have a Michael Jordan situation (where the GM said after the first few practices, "I think he's a little better than we thought" after he didn't go No. 1 overall - well, No. 2 in this draft.) If not, then we are in trouble because I doubt that Brad or Vaca can be that true central midfield general. I love Brad's work rate, vision, touch and ability, but I don't think it is good enough to man the middle just yet. He is serviceable, not specatular. And at that position, spectactular is what you want/need.
Has he ever played a full game as attacking mid in MLS? I would love to see what he can do for an entire 90 minutes HEALTHY. Remember he played 70 minutes all year due to injury, that should not be an issue this year. A midfield of Davis Quill O'Brien Allocation would be pretty interesting. Figuring EJ and Toni up top...but ah, I'm getting ahead of myself. the ALLOCATION is EVERYTHING.
Good points, all. I guess I am hoping that Oscar can still play some, and that we can work Ramon into the lineup over the season so that next season, Ramon is our No. 10. As a left mid, Brad is terrific, imo. With the right luck, he could easily pass Eddie Lewis by '06. (I don't dare hope he could threaten DMB for a starting spot, but who knows?) And Quill's defensive liabilities make me very nervous. Quill is apparently very similar to Chivas - only difference is Chivas made his moves off the dribble and Eric makes his moves off the run into space. Neither apparently have much interest in learning defense.... And as I said, putting that in front of Chris "what do you mean, I'm a defender?" GBandi sounds like bad news.... OTOH, using Eric to push Brad, and to be ready if Brad makes the Olympics, is not a bad idea at all. Could Brad be our No. 10? Yes. But if Buzz is right about Ramon, Nunez should be better. (No pressure there, Buzz? ;-)
Well I do think he is going to be very good. But I never said he was a #10. In my book a #10 is like Valdarama, or like Vaca was year one in the 3-5-2 Dir played. Nunez is a two way central mid. A guy you play in a flat four. If you want a current MLS comparison, I like to think Convey, as opposed to someone like Martino who appears to me to be more like a classic playmaker. I do think he can become the pace setter pulling the string and running the midfield. But there will be growing pains. Ramon is just now freshman age having entered SMU a year early after his JR year of high school (home school to grad early).
I agree that the Burn traded away a player who will be very good. Shavar will be fantastic in a few years. So will Goodson. It will take him longer than Shavar, because he does not have the classic central defender stature. He will need to spend a lot of time in the weigth room and learning the speed of the MLS game, something both Thomas and Gbandi never really got used to last year. Thomas might be able to start this year, and I would never even consider putting Goodson on the pitch outside of a mop up situation. Or perhaps he is till not. Goodson adds twenty pounds of muscle and turns out to be the second coming of Suarez. At the end of the day, the Burn still has a central defender with loads of potential, but now they have a defender who can start. Is Talley going to be an all star? Propably not. Will he make less mistakes than Thomas? Certainly. Good day for the Burn.