It's obvious big changes still need to be made for this team. The fact that we were very close to actually making the finals does not mask that. I really think we are still only two or three players away. I don't see these players coming through the draft for us, so I think Ned is gonna have to make some trades. First, Cunningham should go. Yes he was our leasing scorer, this season, and last, but his trade value is highest. There are hundreads of things you could say are wrong with his play, but that may be for another thread (for those who disagree send me a tape of even five intelligent runs he made in the NE series, I won't be holding my breath to recieve it). He should be able to bring us either a legitimate right wing player who can cross or a solid central defender. I have in mind a Chris Henderson type player in return to play on our right hand side. Which brings us to West. The man has been in the league 6 (?) years now and has yet to live up to any sorta potential. He lost his right wing posistion this season to Buddle, and it wasn't even Buddle's natural posistion. The man is unable to put in any crosses and lacks anything resmbling a professional soccer players first touch. Yet, I imagine some GM out there may be suckered on into bringing him in. Just a year ago he was in the national team player pool. He has speed which decieves some into thinking he's a useful player. And if we can get a solid central Defender for West that would be great. Now these trades may be backwards, Cunny might be more prone to get the central defender, but these two players should have some market value and losing them would improve our team if we trade intelligently. I can see McBride playing great next year with someone whipping in half decent crosses from the right and some improvement from Freddy in the offseason. You can't go wrong with Buddle or Dante paired with McBride up top, so the scoring wouldn't drop off so much. And well we all know how we feel about or defense. Does this seem to make sense to anyone but me.
i think we have bigger problem in the back line then we do with our forwards and midfielders...lets worry about that before we condemn players who without, we wouldnt be here in the first place. how people forget about jeff's brilliant play against san jose. short memories we all have...
I know that Ray Hudson at one time expressed interest in both Cunningham and West. What type of trade with DCUnited for either of these players do you think it would take? For those who don't know, DCUnited has the #1 overall draft pick, and will likely be under the salary cap after it dumps some players - Lassiter, Zambrano (SI), and Alavanja.
fidlerre, I agree with you on the lack of a backbone, erm, I mean backline. I think most fans do. But who exactly would be available to play in the back? I can see just it now...next year's back four for the Crew: Washed-up Agoos, over-the-hill Llamosa, ready-for-the-home Clark, and still wet-behind-the-ears Leitch.
If the bigger problem is in our backline than up top, and we have the depth up top to trade someone to help out our backline we can address what you see as the main problem. That's the whole point here, but you seemed to miss that.
None of the players you mentioned would do much to help the Crew. If anyone fom DC would help our squad it would be Pope or Ryan Neilsen. And with your back line for the most pretty solid, I think a Cunny for Pope or Neilsen Trade would help both teams.
I find it amazing how everyone is dogging on Cunningham, who WAS our leading scorer, and who also was a catalyst in the series against san jose. do you expect him to be god? superman? think about how much he produces, even though he is frequently double and triple teamed, a situation which, as the case was against new england, is not made any easier when your oppenents are playing 11 men behind the ball. I dont think jeff should be out the door. He still has promise. He has loads of talent. He still does score a lot of our goals. ... as for west. lets see what we can get for him, shop him around a bit. he is useless on the wing, and his touch makes me wonder if he is magnetically opposed to the soccer ball. im not all that worried about our offensive situation anyways. its our backline that needs a bit of tweaking. not a major overhaul, just one or two more defenders to help solidfy things. in fact, we have a lot of promise. everywhere. were going to likely be letting go of a lot of cap space (presthus, for example), which means we can make more additions. and with garcia getting more and more acclimated to the team and his surroundings, i see good things. dont forget how CLOSE we were to taking this series. if we had gotten that PK call in game 1, and not given up that AWFUL second goal in game 3, wed be through... im just bitter that we lost to new england, who the league stacked about as much as pamela anderson, or the contents found on the plate of some fatass at IHOP...
West: Plays D! Stretches the D! Makes runs without the ball! Can Cross from the right Plays BOTH wing and forward Works in the team concept Has been hurt for the last month If you keep BMB, Dante, Buddle as forwards, Westie can work on the wing AND be the fourth fwd. JC won't play wing OR come off the bench = PRIMA DONNA!
he's never impressed me with his first touch....i think getting someone who can retain posession is more important than keeping west. in other words, he's replaceable.
Cunningham's play is so erratic that you can't count on him. He might show up, or he might be an empty space on the field. And his decision making is terrible. I they can get something for him in trade, I think they should. My prediction for next year's Crew MVP: Freddy Garcia. He really came on the last 5 to 10 games. Give him more time to gel with the rest of the team, and he's going to be great. One concern is whether he can endure a whole season of physical play at his size.
and scoring lots of goals for us. had quite a few assists this season as well. there are VERY few players in this league who score with any real consistency. twellmen and ruiz did it this season, stern john did it when he was here, but the point is, youre going to be hard pressed to find strikers like that. were not gonna get ronaldo, inzhagi or henry here, you know. and, i have NEVER seen west put in a good cross. there are players who are above jeff who i would rather see off the team at this point. one is west. another is mais. people are dogging on jeff for the way he played, well, look at how mais played for the ENTIRE PLAYOFFS. what the ************ did HE do? he was crap. and as for promise. it IS useless to have promise, especially in this league, where one (or a few) teams get stacked by the league office in the off-season, and especially when that team is never us...
All this complaining is good though, it shows how our standards have risen. We are always picked to finish last and we don't get special considerations from the league. We still seem to think that we are good enough to go on and win things (which we are). We don't need help to win anything because our players are actually quite good (well most of them). And we built this team ourselves from scratch, how many other clubs can say that? We still have this open cup final which I'm really looking forward to. I think even if we lose that, this will still be our most successful season!
What's that expression about "damning with faint praise"? I too recall some rather nice crosses from West this year, but I'm not planning on wracking my tired gin-soaked gray matter for the particulars. Anyway, I really think the point may be, if I may paraphrase OGHT a bit, not that he NEVER delivers a nice cross but rather that it would sure be nice to see several every game. If indeed digging the ball out of the corner and lofting it into the box for BMB (or Dante or Edson) is a big part of his job, then the least we can say is that we'd sure like to see it more than we do. It's not anything new around here for me to say this, but I'll say it again anyway: I don't think Cunningham is all that effective over 90 minutes. As far as I'm concerned, a 90 minute player has to do more, contribute more, on and off the ball, then Jeff normally does. UNLESS he's a talent like a Mathis, who does even less than JC does over the average game, but who WILL be there when it's time to put one into the net. JC simply is not dangerous enough to be that type of "pure" striker, where you leave him out there and ignore him because that's what yoou have to do to get his goals out of him. I'd rather (broken record time) see Dante, or even Buddle, at that spot. They'll give you an honest day's work, and not spend the whole time begging for the ball so they can run off and lose it. Cunningham is a spot starter and late game sub. If that isn't good enough for him, or if you feel he's wasted being used that way, then dump him. How much longer are we going to sit around telling each other how this 26 year old striker is about ready to "mature" or "break out" or something? We know all we need to know about Jeff, good AND bad. And there's nothing else coming.
But considering the number of breakaways and other scoring chances Jeffy has had over the years, one would figure he would have developed some consistency by now.
Own Goal, I think you said earlier you were not very worried about our offensive situation anyway, it was opur backline taht needed help. Jeff is the sole player on this team that can get us some solid backiline help by way of a trade. Whether or not he has tons of promise (for the 4th year in a row) or the fact that he was our leading scorer two years in a row we have enough forwards that I don't see losing him as that big of a problem, especially if we can get a central defender we need in a trade for him. An offense of McBride, Dante, and Buddle would still be one of the most feared in the league. Like you already said offense isn't the problem You mention Mais as someone taht you want to see on his way out, and I probably agree with that, but as far as trade value his is nowhere near that of Cunningham's. He probably would score against us at somepoint in the future, but its a risk I am more than willing to take for the improvement of our team.
Cut Cunningham and West loose. Then axe Mais. Yeah, that's the ticket, let's begin with our starters and work our way down. McBride? Trade him, sell him, give him away. He doesn't want to be here, he obviously doesn't care, he's just being wasted here. Buddle? Now that he has a broken foot it's clear to me that he'll just be the next McBrittle, cut our losses now. Garcia, yeah he has potential, but he's way too small to handle the beating that he'll have to endure, and he has the worst haircut in MLS. Bienvenidos a Guatemala. Oughten? Don't get me started on Oughten. Oughten shouldn't even be here anyway and is wasting an SI spot. Dump him and find a way to get T-Bone back. Dunseth? I'm constantly confusing him with Denton and vice versa. Get rid of them both so I won't have this problem anymore. McCarty? He's a hack. Make him sell brats if he's gonna pull a paycheck. Clark? Old. Slow. Gone. Busch? Too short for an MLS keeper and what's up with that puka bead necklace? Is this 1970 or what? Martino? Too small, and what did he do for us in the playoffs besides create some bulletin board material for the Revs? Let's be sure to keep Presthus, Torres, Perez, Washington, Harkes,and Warzycha though, they've done very little harm from the bench this year.
Planning for next season will be two parted, risk management, and financial management. Can you afford to have two big dollar guys on the bench in Presthus and Perez? And, do you risk getting rid of perez knowing that Martino is good enough to be the ten shirt for the entire season.