Has destroyed this team in less than 2 months, pissed off the total fan base! I don't know anyone other than Lebron that could manage this... What is the purpose if this?? To kill a franchise? To show he knows what he is doing? Buy himself a ticket out of Columbus? It sure isn't to show that he can build a team from scratch... Who else will leave??? How much more will us the fans take? We will be lucky to win 8 games this year. We will probably set a record for futility in a season and it's an absolute shame for us the fans to suffer like this. Yes there needed to be a few changes but no where to this extent.
Speak for yourself. Freak out in a corner or something. Dont try to lump all the fans together because there are many varied opinions about what is going on. Your a defeatist I take it. To honestly believe we will be LUCKY to win 8 games this year. Your outlook before even entering into training is so ridiculous I wouldn't want you on a u-8 team as a 25 year old.
Yeah, honestly, I'm not pissed off at all. We had aging players who needed to move on, a legend who was also getting up there in years, several younger guys who had been liabilities for too long, so I think it was time to change it up. This team was painful to watch at the end of last season.
Hesmer (look good at end of the season) Miranda-Marshall-Iro-Francis (solid, especially as Francis gains more experience) Gaven-Ekpo-O'Rourke*?-RR (not bad, ekpo and gaven were playing amazing near the end of last year) Mendoza-Renteria (or renteria at outside mid, Meram/Cunningham up top... Either way, solid) - Hyprocrites bashed Lenhart all last season and a half. Remember his horrible finishing, slow speed. - moffat is gone. - we all love frankie, but he was not all that productive skillwise - GBS was too expensive for what his last year woulda been. Still hate to see him go. - Padula and Duncan never would have seen the field. Still hate to see Duncan go. * This team only lacks strong leadership (and emotion since lenhart and frankie are gone)
I bet the same people that come on here every 5 minutes and bash MM and RW would be on here bashing them if we would have kept everyone we got rid of this off season. They would say RW is just keeping Sigi's team around and not making his own and he should be fired because he doesn't have the balls to make changes.
last year was so frusterating. You could see our greatest players aging and becoming less great. Im all for this change and i feel like our management has something up there sleeve, like i said before
We all knew the end was near for GBS, Frankie, Padula, and Oughton. Gino and Duncan both not not starting by the end of the year. Gino was very expensive. I'd love to have had Frankie and GBS back, but both were very high priced. Frankie's RB role has been filled, I think Miranda will be a good player. That really only leaves GBS, Lenhart, and Carroll to be upset about. I've never been a huge fan of Brian, but did respect his professionalism and leadership. But he did not have a really good year, especially there at the end. He's not an elite CM. Lenny isn't even on BC's level. Renteria will be an upgrade. Heinemann can fill his roll. As a stable: Renteria + Mendoza + Heinemann + Meram is just as good as last year. And if Jeff comes back, I think one can argue we've upgraded up front. Bottom line, we weren't the best team in the league anymore, and hadn't been for 2 years. We weren't going to suddenly rise up with the same roster. This team is led by Marshall, Hesmer, O'Rourke, Gaven, and Miranda now. While I was upset, I wasn't that surprised. I can certainly see where MM and RW are coming from. Yes, we've lost leadership and depth, but Miranda was a captain, and should help. Plus, we aren't done yet.
Threads like this remind me why I used to avoid BigSoccer in the offseason. I think we'll be good, maybe not at the beginning of the year but given some time.
What is to say that Marshall and rogers won't bolt over seas with this turnover? Then what would be left? I hope I get to eat my words with all this but we can't let much more happen to this team. I don't trust mark one bit.
Really we don't know what to expect this year. There have been too many changes. We could go for 60pts, we could go for 30. Personally, I imagine us being 3rd or 4th in the East and maybe getting around the 8th seed in the postseason. And other than "doing better" by losing the playoffs in a penalty shootout and accumulating 1 more point than the previous year, I would like someone to give me concrete evidence that we should have expected worse this season by holding on to the players we let go.
Judging by who goes to games, I bet that only 40% of the "total fanbase" follows the team during the offseason. What percentage of the stadium is the Nordecke? Ten? This whole thing reminds me of a certain radio show host. He would go on a bulletin board and get furious that the members of that site were hating everything he did on-air. No matter WHAT he did, someone would bitch that it wasn't what THEY liked. Another show member had to remind him that those fans were just "one percent of the audience." From then on, those fans became known as "one percenters." In a way, we Crew fans are very similar. No matter WHAT the FO does, someone comes on here and complains. We could win MLS Cup 4-1, but someone on here would probably give Marshall crap for scoring an own goal. (Ok, maybe not, but you get the idea.) The CFO could give $1,000 out of their own paychecks to cancer research and someone would hate on it, because it's not their favorite charity...or whatever. We need to remember that we represent a small (at best) portion of the fan base. There'll probably be several people at the first game wondering where Duncan, Gino, GBS, and Frankie are. As for you, no one is forcing you to buy a ticket to a game. If you don't like spending your evenings buying Crew tickets, you're perfectly free to spend your money elsewhere. (It's not a threat, i'm just reminding you that there are options.)
All of this. We needed to change the roster. Yes, the fashion in which it happened sucked, but it was something that needed to happen before we got worse.
Like I said in another thread, it always sucks to lose favorite players, but such is the nature of a league with a salary cap. And let's face it, as a small market, we want the salary cap. We can't have both.
Ok so total fanbase was maybe a bit much but I was just trying to say that at some point and time we have not liked a move this off season and seriously questioned it... I just feel given how everything has gone that there are parts that make me believe that I a reason for concern. I just find it hard to say we are not 'rebuilding' when we have dumped half the team essentially. Just many pieces to the puzzle not adding up and with other things I have heard. I am glad that you all are more optimistic that me.
We'll see what happens. We have to hope that they aren't done acquiring impact players because rookies aren't going to come in and replace legends no matter how much we all wish they could.
This year should be better than the start of the Sigi era. We were still reeling from the Andrulis years.. Filled with hope for 2006... After cleaning house.... Jason Garey had the 5 goals from 25 games (our goal leader) Joseph Ngwenya had 5 goals after replacing the slumping Kyle Martino (1 goal) Eddie Gaven was our new hope with 4 goals (and 4 assists... the assist leader) Sebastian Rozental had 3 goals Kei Kamara had 3 goals 10 other players had a single goal. Frankie only played 4 games Our defenders were Ritchie Kotschau, Chad Marshall, Ezra Hendrickson, Marcos Gonzalez, Brandon Moss, Chris Leitch and Rusty Pierce. We had 5 different goalies start games. We only won 4 home games and 4 away games. Only one player added in 2006 worked out for us: Eddie Gaven (we traded Buddle to get Eddie)
Really? That's where you're setting the bar? 2006? 2006 isn't good enough anymore. We had a guy come in and build a championship team. Through inept management, personality conflicts, or because he was a "west coast" guy we couldn't hang on to the man who built that team. But we've seen the way to winning now, and a rebuilding year won't suffice. The 2010 Columbus Crew weren't in need of a total rebuild, but that's what went down.