For our first round pick in 2005. http://www.thecrew.com/show.cfm?article=649 "Simon brings a wealth of experience and grit to our midfield," said Crew Head Coach Greg Andrulis. "He has shown he can produce at this level and we are looking forward to his contributions both on and off the field. This is another piece of the puzzle as we build our team for 2004."
I'm tellin' ya, it's all about "leadership". They're embarassed to say it after all the crap about Williams, but that's what it's about.
Replacing West, Replacing McBride, finding a slapper to keep Cunny content. It's another thrilling silly season for America's Most Massive Club.
So what happened to "We'll be a good team if we don't make any changes"? Just curious. Here, as mentioned by Robbiegoal, is a link to CrewBoy's column today: http://www.1460thefan.com/tf.php?story=dispatch/2004/01/13/20040113-C3-02.html
This was an unbelievably bad trade. https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=90988&highlight=Elliott https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=81598&highlight=Elliott Mark Williams brought experience and leadership as well. How was LA able to unload both Chacon and Elliott on us for far more than they are worth? It's not like they had been playing over their abilities when they were traded. Fire Jim Smith.
I disagree. Elliott could well be this year's Paule. Sure, we gave up a lot more for him than we did for Paule, but we need dmid help in a very bad way, especially with Mais' injury problems. Maisonneuve was a key player for us last season, and we were much much much better when he was healthy and on the field. Who cares if Elliott isn't a scorer? That's not what we want out of that position anyway, and besides - LA had the best defense in the league last year, and he was the d-mid. If he can come forward and be dangerous from time-to-time - great. But we aren't looking for a Scholes type of player - we're looking for a Keano type of player. And, frankly, I don't rate the ravings of most BigSoccer posters very highly (2000 exclaimation points don't make a very convincing argument - especially when his stat line (I know that's not everything) is not so bad. In fact, it's better than Mais' stats - half as many fouls, 1/5th as many cautions, more of a threat to shoot). Sure, this may not work out. Lots of trades don't work out as well as you'd like. But there is a long history in this league of underperformers excelling in a new environment (Kamler, Franchino, Carrieri, Mathis...). And, if it pays off like everyone is hoping, we give up a late first round pick rather than an early one. I seem to remember everyone moaning about trading a first round pick in 2000 for Dante Washington, who was coming off of a total of 11 goals in the previous two seasons for an abysmal Dallas team. Well, he scored a career high 15 in 2000... at 29 years old.