This is where I am at. I mean, I keep the HGs/GA's (Etienne, Morris, JRR, Sands, Zawadski, Parente, Schulte, etc) and Farsi. I am not opposed to keeping the Cup winners around, but some are getting long in the tooth and are not what they once were (Nagbe, Mensah, Santos, Williams). Aside from Josh, they are pretty expensive. Artur has iffy health. Room has issues coming off his line. Diaz seems ideal for a sub role vs tired legs. Aside from Cucho & Moreira, the new guys have been spotty. Not horrid, but spotty. Degenek, Igbekeme, Yeboah, etc.
No doubt Zardes wanted to play to try & keep his chances for WC alive. And Porter was never gonna play 2 up top, plus we'd have to use funny money to by Zardes down. But like you, striker was not the problem. I think toughness, awareness, and togetherness (or lack thereof) are the problems. We don't have a lot of guys who check all three boxes, and some of those are getting older.
Every once in a while, I'll read a post, then fall back in my chair and stare off into space, in complete bewilderment, trying to imagine the demographics of the poster. Such is the case when I read the recent criticism of Cucho. I honestly don't know how to respond to these without revealing my boorish, condescending, nature. I'm tired, bored with ridiculous debates, and Cucho deserves much better than my current mental state permits. But if this becomes a forced discussion, I will eventually have to unsheathe.
I found a guy we can trade cucho for Kylian Mbappé has asked to leave PSG in January as his relationship with the club has broken, reports @MarioCorteganaThe rumors are back 😅 pic.twitter.com/adorXVzpZW— B/R Football (@brfootball) October 11, 2022
Could work. But I worry about the chemistry between him and Ronaldo. Dunno. Maybe we drop our pursuit of Cristiano? But if we do that to him, we should know that we will never be able to go after him again. He will hold on to that wound forever.
So... Cucho is a "meh", but JRR is your solution? Don't forget, we had a target forward with some height to start the season. Heck we had two of them. That went swimmingly.
Before anyone asks what we do at goalie, the obvious answer is to throw a bunch of money and the master franchise for Pilots/Flying Js in the Middle East at Mansour to get Steffen back.
It works out closer to 21 goals but agreed, Cucho isn't a problem for us. Are we sure there will be an expansion draft? I thought teams had the option to pass it up for more allocation money and some teams had chosen to do that?
You could of tried to get him on loan this year to prep for World Cup but it would be unlikely . That ship has sailed he won’t be back in mls just yet but eventually he will be back . I hope he has a long successful career in Europe.
Room and Steffan and basically the same keeper: make incredible saves at times, are rooted to the spot more often than they should be, can’t deal with a cross to save their lives, and not nearly as good with their feet as they think they are. Yeah, I said it.
Can't. First pick goes to the expansion team. We can't be worse than them no matter how hard we try. First pick is likely to be Danny Flores out of Virginia Tech. And for those who want to wallow in our misery, he's a right winger. 𝗗𝗔𝗡𝗡𝗬 𝗙𝗟𝗢𝗥𝗘𝗦, 𝗬𝗢𝗨 𝗕𝗔𝗔𝗔𝗗 𝗠𝗔𝗡 🤩Virginia Tech walks it off, 2-1!#Hokies 🦃 pic.twitter.com/wOUf2ftIGY— Virginia Tech Men’s Soccer (@HokiesMSoccer) September 25, 2021 (Yes, I will grant you that right there is some truly horrendous defending, even for college, but the kid has skills)
I am hoping JRR turns into a player, yes. But if you read my posts on the subject, you'd see I am not wild about small CFs in a 1 FWD set. I think it would behoove us to have actual, playable, CFs with height on the roster so we can score in different ways, rather than being so predictable. Or at least have the option to do so late. I love what Montreal does with Kamara late. We need to have a similar card to play, and right now we don't. If I am defending us, I just clog the middle, give up the flanks, and dare Diaz/Etienne to beat me with a cross to an undersized CF or with a pullback through traffic to LZ.