Heading that way in about an hour. Have spent the last four days just relaxing on Perico Island between Bradenton and Anna Maria Island. I hate that I have to leave at all.
A big summer window signing would be good not because it will turn around the season but to get a few games in and have a full pre season for 2020. We’ve seen it takes a bit of time for players to acclimate to this weird league.
@cleazer start this damned game or @GoCrew1996 is going to use his influence to delay all useful signings until Winter. This is exactly what he said. Verbatim. Hurry, time is running out. The future of the 2019 season rests on your Sheppard's hook.
Wow, @cleazer, I bet you never thought Sheep League Commish would come with such heavy responsibilities.
He was fully aware of the enormous responsibility when he started this nonsense. It is the most important position in the entire universe.
I agree with others that summers the best opportunity to make the best signings....but I only imagine us signing maybe one or two more players this window and they probably wont be super impactful players immediately....as just like @GoCrew1996 mentioned, a lot of the change will happen at offseason. I think I'm the only one speculating this, but I wonder if were in for that Cadden guy to play RB. Looking at all of Motherwells game, hes primarily a right winger but plays as a RB like maybe 25-30% of the time...with a dash of some central midfield play sprinkled in. Harrison Afful has been a right winger in his career at times...and I wonder if maybe they look at this guy like someone who isnt completely inept defensively, and can be great bombing forward. I very clearly may be way off, but its sensible to me. As far as our next DP goes. I think we just push through the rest of this season using Artur, Guzman, and Trapp in a 433 mostly....then come the offseason we bring in a DP #10. Maybe they strategically want that player at that time to add some hype to the new season.
That's part of what I mean by playing the long game though. Don't be surprised if we don't get our new DP until next summer. Whether that's a winter signing that comes when the rest of world season is over or a summer window signing. Seems they're being more deliberate about building something "right", probably in a 3 year time frame, rather than rushing to get everything all done at once. Everything about what they've done is an example to this; from the 5 year Porter contract to the way they started building the FO before even looking at making player personnel changes.
That would be an excellent strategy if the goal were to depress attendance throughout all of 2020. I mean, as it stands, the club is going to have a hard sell to the 9K-ish current season ticket holders that they should renew for next season. Sure, there's the whole "season ticket holders get priority in the new stadium" theory, but that only goes so far. First, demand for tickets now is very, very slack. Second, we assume that ticket prices will be higher in the new stadium, which won't do anything to increase demand. Third, the new stadium won't even open until July 2021; two years from now. Of course, there will be a short term burst of interest in the club because of the new stadium, but I think it's easy to overplay just how much of a boost we'll actually get. If ownership doesn't show fans that it's serious about fielding a competitive team, I could easily see the season ticket numbers falling next year. Product-wise, this franchise is in a death spiral. If the club is serious about winning, it can't make pathetic excuses to fans about why they should be cool with waiting another year+ before that (maybe) happens.
I'd be happy to agree, as soon as you can show me a single solitary place or time when this club "made pathetic excuses to fans about why they should be cool with waiting another year +" before fielding a decent product. Maybe I missed it. Did Bez make these pathetic excuses? Dee or Jimmy? Doc Edwards maybe? I'd be very interested in a quote from any of the principals giving one of these "pathetic excuses".
This strikes me as the wrong approach. It's the sort of thing Mike Brown would do. The Crew should take an approach more like what Sigi did. He looked high and low, signed lots of guys, kept some and discarded most. If you just tread water for another year, then you have to get it right with every signing. Nobody hits 100%.
Fair enough. As you know, Bill, that quote doesn't exist. My (perhaps slightly hyperbolic) statement was more directed at other posters (I quoted Tobias C, but that wasn't necessarily fair) who've implied that they think the club may not push too hard to sign DP talent. Inside Man posted last week that he didn't think the club was looking to bring in DP talent this summer window He was unsure as to whether they intended to make any additional signings this summer. Personally, I believe that Bez wouldn't have traded for that extra international slot if he didn't intended to use it. So I expect another signing this summer. God knows we need fresh blood on this roster. Quote or no, if we don't bring in another player - doesn't need to be a DP, but it does need to be someone I can see challenging for a starting XI spot - I'll be pretty unimpressed and frustrated with the organization. Of course, it's all just speculation at this point, and for reasons I DO appreciate. This FO seems awfully good at keeping a lid on the list of players it's considering, or in negotiations with. We had no idea they'd been looking at Room for months, until the signing popped up on our Twitter feeds, complete with professionally produced marketing videos. Similarly, the Diaz signing came out of nowhere, as far as fans were concerned. Hell of an improvement over Precourt tweeting hints that we're about to sign Diskerud. What I would hope - and it seems to me that Bez is pretty good at this kind of thing (Porter, I have no idea) - is that once we do sign someone truly impressive, we get the full backstory on how it went down, the timing, the team's exact goals, thinking, etc. Bez made an interesting comment in that interview he did on the MR podcast. I don't recall it verbatim, but he talked about the kinds of major acquisitions he made in Toronto, and made the comment that, in some ways, he was forced into acting so drastically because the franchise was in a free-fall. Look, I don't know if the Crew are in a free-fall, but our core vital signs aren't looking good. The FO is going to need to do something to staunch the hemorrhaging, and time isn't really on the organization's side, IMO.
This times a thousand. The Crew will be sacrificing the 2020 season from a marketing POV if they don't make a major move in this window. If they wait until winter, they'll be playing catch up, trying to get thousands of people who signed up for 2019 to come back for the last year at Mapfre.
Nonsense. Half the people in the stadium at a random game can’t even name half the starting lineup. Do you think they’re lurking on BS or Twitter waiting for secret leaks from IM? No. I guarantee if you did a poll at the next home game. Less that 1/3 of people will know the new GK’s name, and less than 1/2 will even know a new GK was signed. Not everyone at the stadium hangs on transfer news like us here.
Sure but they will know if the team won or not. If we make no additional moves, we'll have a weak offensive team that struggles to score more than 1 goal a match and is frequently shutout. Our record will continue to be bad even after the streak ends. That will cost us thousands of renewals. Even if we sign some name player in winter, the first several thousand renewals will just get us back to where we are now. If we sign an impact player now, we'll have a better sense of whom to keep or cut among our forwards, we'll score more goals, get more wins and reduce the bleeding when it comes to renewals.
Keep in mind, the winter transfer window opens in February. This year it was Feb. 13. That's weeks after camp opens. Of course, we could announce a major signing, and then have that player join the team right about the time the season starts. But much/most of the off season would likely be spent without any major news that would help sell season tickets.
Let’s play a game. The Crew announce they’ve signed Carles Gil from second division Aston Villa. Without knowing what we know now (that he’s been an excellent signing and was the only bright spot on a shit team before Arena showed up) I ask this question: How many renewals does he earn the Crew? How about Alejandro Pozuelo? How many people renew cuz we signed a guy that couldn’t make the grade at Betis and was playing in Belgium? He’s been unbelievably good, and no one knew who he was. You’re really stuck in the uberfan echo chamber here. Hardcores don’t know who Pozuelo or Gil are, how would casuals or the local media? Hell, local media can’t even get the game time or day right half the time.
If the owners don't bring in new players that make a positive difference and make it exciting to come to and watch our games then less people will be buying season tickets for next session! Make us better for the rest of this season and give us hope that the Crew will be making more positive moves in the off season!
We could just resort to some of the old marketing tactics... “Come see the stars play for LA (or other big club). Your team doesn’t have anyone famous on it.”