NDR: John Spencer fired as Timbers Manager

Not surprised by this news honestly, kind of an eventuality. The team's road record was dreadful, and they really haven't been performing as well as they should. Of course, some of the players are to blame, but ultimately it is the coach's responsibility. Dom has nothing to worry about though, he'll be the David Moyes of the MLS.

 

How is it Spencer's fault that the quality of players he was provided were sub-par? I look at their roster and they really have no proven MLS names. They have a bunch of over-hyped foreigners who can't produce. Kris Boyd has been absolutely disappointing. He's been slow, he has missed many scoring opportunities, and he doesn't even connect on simple passes.

I think Spencer was a great assistant here.. I wish we could have him back.

 

I'll be surprised if POT ever get it figured out. They seem to have a basic misunderstanding, as many do, at just how hard it is to win in MLS.

If your not willing to give a coach three-years to get his thing going then you should not hire that coach in the first place. Then, you have to understand and accept that every year can't be all peachy with win after win. It is just the reality of MLS.

POT's challenge is even greater since they have a messed up home field (tiny-small and bouncy artificial turf) which makes going on the road that much more difficult.

 

Who is going to replace him? Some interim scrub? Portland FO is a joke. They are going to lose their fanbase with all these shenanigans.

 

They replaced him with Gavin Wilkerson, who had success there as a player and coach in the USL. That's probably a decent choice for interim coach, but it may not be shocking to see him get eventually get the job.

 

Time line for building an MLS team:

Year 1: Identify your core.
Year 2: Keep Core together, identify needs.
Year 3. Fill-in around your Core, win everything at home.
Year 4. Keep Core together, win everything at home and win some on the road thus competing for championship.

Sure -- it can be done in three or even two. But if your not willing to commit to this long a timeline then you don't know what it takes to win in MLS.

 

Uh . . . didn't he pick up, sign, and draft the entire team?

 

That was a quick tenure...seems a bit too quick.

 

You can't fire John Spencer! He has the Spirit de Tejas!

 

He had to draft from MLS teams' leftovers (absolute garbage players that wouldn't get minutes in the English 2nd division). All of his Scottish connections were probably too expensive under the salary cap except for the DP.

 

It also did not help that his speedy Colombian midfielder (20 years old) that signed on as a DP is injured and underwent knee surgery. Not saying he would of been the savior of Spence or Portland but I think we all know the difference ONE player makes (can make) in a team.

 

Portland has a decent first season and one half of a bad second season and they fire Spencer? That is comically myopic.

I hope they hire Nowak!

 

I suppose but they only have three players from that expansion draft on the roster. After two years he is in the same boat as . . . say . . .we were after 2010. I would have liked to see him get another year but to say they gave him the players is a bit off, he has been in the position almost exactly two years (before first game) and has filled in the roster with all but three from the expansion (not too mention the million in allocation last year).

 

I tend to agree, you can only do so much in a short period of time. They haven't been stingy with the signings, however, and I imagine they felt that Spencer had freedom to choose his personnel and couldn't get it done.

You'd have to work hard to lose that fanbase.

 

Exactly so. Which shows that they have no understanding of the time, effort and luck it takes to be a winning team in MLS.

Time after time it is demonstrated to us that in order to win in MLS you have to keep a core group of players together over time, lose with them, and let them gel into a team.

Every team that keeps making changes because of losing just keeps losing. Almost every team that wins has kept a core group together through a losing spell and stayed the course.

Look at SJE this year. Much of the core group is the same team that failed last year. Hell, their DP Tresser Moreno seems to be a washout yet their core group is winning home and away.

BTW: I'm not saying that keeping your core together ensures winning. Sadly, it does not. Nothing does.

 

You know the drill....
Bold=emphasis mine.
They have a waiting list of 6,000 people for season tickets.

Portland fans were fine with how last season went. They were expecting playoffs this year, so was Merritt Paulson. Realistic or not, if Seattle did it, Portland fans wanted it. You understand that there is just a little bit of a rivalry between these cities.

Getting off to a slow start is one thing, losing at home to cal fc made spencer dead man walking. It also resulted in a 20+ page thread on the Timbers fans main board with some serious frustration and calls for Spencer's head.

Before anyone thinks that fans can't influence a franchise, I will throw a couple of tidbits at you.
When Seattle was granted an expansion team, Garber thought it would be a good idea to have a naming contest. Sounders was not one of the options given. Apparently he didn't understand the history of the name Sounders. See how that one played out? Also note that there was no "name game" for Portland and Vancouver. The commish probably didn't want to get his head kicked in 2 more times.

As for the second form of influence, Roger Levesque, current Sounders player tried to join the Timbers while they were still in the USL and Seattle was gearing up for MLS. I think he lasted one game. The Timbers Army basically told the Timbers FO that no way in hell was this guy playing on the team.

However unfortunate it is, it appears that Spencer had lost the players and the fanbase was growing frustrated. The way to lose that fanbase would be to not listen to them.

 

So a bunch of drunk, yet passionate, fans get to dictate who, and how, the team is run? Thank god our FO and Dom have the balls to say "F*** you, I'm running sh*t here".

 

?Portland is using the Toronto FC strategy for building a champion. What could go wrong?

 

If this is really the reasoning behind firing Spencer, PO is in a lot of trouble.

 

I like Spencer, but DonJuego you have to admit he created his own roster mess himself. Someone screwed up on the Columbian DP being damaged goods but Cooper scoring after being traded doesn't help optics. Then you've got Boyd as a DP
and you've basically pissed away the allocation money and cap advantages from being an expansion side.

That said, they made a late run last year and 1.5 years isn't enough time.

Paulson seems too hands-on for my liking but I will also say Spencer certainly gave off the same "uneducated fans" vibe that Dom gave off last year. You can't tell the fans you know what you are doing and leave the roster building to the professionals and then suck

 

I can't believe that I am going to loosely quote Dallas fans but here goes....
The team that Houston inherited wasn't exactly expansion. If memory serves, we inherited the 2005 supporters shield winners. That, and winning 2 MLS cups in the first 2 years puts a lot of "F*** you" in the bank.

 

"Born on 3rd base, tagged home twice"

While those championships put a lot of it in the bank, it was the following two years that really did it. We were successful domestically and internationally for 4 years. Quite the run for a MLS team. For 1.5 years, we sucked. Not nearly as bad as people made it out to be, but certainly far from our lofty standards. More than a few people were calling for Dom's head and wanted a whole new approach.

I'm glad the FO stuck it out, knowing how the system works in MLS. Everyone falls. That's the point. The only way to get to the top is to tough it out and build. You can't buy a trophy in this league, and certainly not over night.

 

All I have to admit is what I said, which you then agreed with.

You said it yourself. Paulson to hands on and 1.5 years is not enough.

Not every move works out. They are all gambles. The best decisions can become messes and total bonehead decisions can work out beautifully. So you have to evaluate a coach over a longer period of time. Those folks who want to beat their chest and "Hold Someone Accountable!" are just spoiled idiotic babies. Wear that shoe if it fits.

 

there must have been something tragic going on that we don't know about. you give a guy 1.5 yrs with an expansion team? i'm not saying he deserved 10 yrs ala kubiack and the texans; but 1.5? gotta believe the ownership group got their pee pee hurt over something that they weren't willing to let go. who in the world would've taken the job to begin with if they were told up front "you have 18 months, go get em sport"?
enjoy purgatory portland.
and tell phili hello while your there.