If you don't count the few overpaid players we still have from the Vagenas era (Bingham and Kitchen), it's true this roster has many holes, and it's on DTK : - Pipo Gonzalez is a terrible signing, second after Chicharito (especially with the salary and the huge price we paid for him). And again, he could still be on the books in 2021. - the managing of the CB situation has been terrible this season : we started the year searching for a proven CB, were linked with Zambrano, Franco, De Wijs, Edson Alvarez. Then DePuy had a nice streak and we pulled all of our hopes on a player just coming off the USL, and then we saw he wasn't the solution as a starter. And now, we have nobody. - Insua is a slight improvement over Skjelvik, but that's not enough. - thinking Zubak was enough to back up Chicharito was a terrible mistake. Overall our depth at forward is too young (Koreniuk, Alvarez, Dunbar, Zubak), and it was even more obvious after Katai left. A player like Pontius would have been serviceable. These are the obvious holes, but we can also discuss these : - even as depth, Feltscher is average. - Corona has not lived up to the expectations to say the least. - maybe the Katai signing should have never happened? - still early to tell obviously, but Yony Gonzalez doesn't look like a world beater.
And I'm not sold on Klinsmann yet. He's an upgrade over Bingham and I agree Jonathan has won the starting spot to finish the season, but I don't see a big improvement yet. I think David is a starter for a bottom MLS team (20th-26th), like we are, but replacing him with a starter for a 15th-19th team is not going to be a great solution.
Not sure what you can take from this one. I thought, right up until Pipo's big gaffe, we were playing fairly well by our terribly inconsistent standards, as we tend to against LAFC. Considering it took LAFC 60 minutes and a goal that really shouldn't count to break us down, it's not like the performance was disastrous enough to demand an FO purge if the previous ones weren't. You can't bring Bingham back, so you ride or die with Klinsmann at this point. I think even if he's a lateral move to Bingham, he's a lot younger, so maybe he has some upside. But today, I don't see how a GK who gets chipped twice in a match can be said to be an upgrade on Bingham today. In fact, he made the same error Bingham is always dogged or making -- coming out of his goal and making himself small -- twice. Particularly on the 2nd goal he leaves the goal wide open to close down Vela in the middle of the box?? (not this is very different from coming out for a 50/50 on a throughball, as the first situation) In both cases, there was coverage on the man -- seems it would've been much better in both cases for Klinsmann to stay in goal and force the attacker to force him to make a save. But maybe I'm wrong about that. In any case, this isn't anti-Klinsmann so much as me saying what I've always said, which is that it's going to be hard for any GK to shine consistently with this team. Moreover, with a young guy, I hope repeatedly losing and getting scored erodes his confidence in himself and his defenders in this time when he could be gaining skills.
Yup. When you whiff on two TAM and one DP signing, that is really too much to overcome in this league.....before you even include the other mistakes like no backup depth and bad journeyman signings....
Highlight Time Folks Is the season over yet? It was a wash for me about 10 games ago. Can't wait to be rid of Pipo Gonzalez, Rolf Feltscher and David Bingham. We need to turn Jona's from a DP to a high TAM player and we need to convince a team in LigaMX to take Chicharito's contract off of our hands too. What a complete bust. Incredibly, an even WORSE signing than Giovanni Dos Santos who could at least score every now and again. All his smart runs wasted by crap finishing and he can't stay fit for shyte. We need quality subs for our backline. We need a real number 10 that can manage the midfield attack and we need a number 9 that can consistently create his own shot. Seriously?!? Can we forfeit the rest of the season? It wouldn't matter if we had Pep Guardiola managing this team right now. We need to do wayyyy to much work roster wise before we are a threat to anyone.
I think he is suffering from playing too many minutes, but of course we can't rest him because the quality of our defensive subs is such a joke.
I feel so bad for this guy because he adjusts the lineup correctly for the most part. He is screwed because of too much mediocrity on the roster.
Why isn’t he fired yet? The minute the red card happened I fast forwarded the rest of the game. I haven’t done that in years.
If he is not fired, I don’t intend to waste another minute watching the last few games. If he is fired, I don’t expect any improvement with this group of players but there will at least be a curiosity factor. In the meantime, highlights posted here will be about all I can stomach.
Went rock climbing. Saw saw the game just now. VA-frakkin-R strikes again. Buttt....what was Klinsmann thinking coming out like that?!?!?
The Gs lost, but don't really feel Chivas gained anything. Their first goal was a garbage VAR goal. The Vela goal is whatever and a direct result of the team chasing the game becauae of the garbage goal.
Also better distribution, and more comfortable with the ball at his feet. He’s young (which makes him shaky at times, but means he’s got upside), and I still resent the hell out of his dad, but I’m willing to make JK the younger our starting goalie.
I hate making wholesale top-down changes, so I’ll just recommend getting rid of all of the coaches. Pavón will leave obviously, but he probably was going to anyway. We need to seriously look at the players individually who lack heart and passion for the club and trade/sell them. We need players that bleed for the badge. Build from the back and build around heart and effort. Chicharito needs tap-ins so let’s work the ball wide (so we need wingers). Let’s pick up DP’s that are playing well which means we can only afford mid tier DP’s at best (South America please). The moral of all of this is that the coach needs to be fired. Keane seems like an odd pick IMO. I bet he would get players that have heart though. G’s up!
I don't think Jonathan has done much to make me consider bringing Bingham back. Yea Jonathan kept going down too early and was finally chipped, but he is still young, and has already made some fine saves. He looks like he can turn into a good keeper. Tall, good with his feet, and agile for his size. I really hope we can work with him, and get him some decent defenders.
Yes I saw this on Transfermarkt, I don't know if it's reliable or not. We gave three year contracts to Bingham, Kitchen, Skjelvik, Joao Pedro... It's seems to be the standard so it's totally possible.
You could extend this assessment to all the young players. I wonder at what point being in a team who s*cks is going to slow down the progression of our youngsters. Efrain Alvarez and Diedie Traore were rolling on the USL in 2018 but they haven't done much since. Zubak is another example. Former 2nd Draft pick Tomas Hilliard-Arce never got a real chance too. The only young player who has succeeded over the last three seasons is Araujo. That tells you how good he is, being so young (and sometimes immature) and still being in the top 3 or our best players this season (with Pavon and Lletget) is remarkable.
Wonder what the over/under is on Araujo remaining a G the next several years. If he keeps at it, I don't think he'll be a G for much longer.
It's common for players to look great in USL and not great in MLS. Pretty much everyone they are playing against either has been or would be dominant USL players. I think Alvarez, Traore, Zubak, THA and Araujo all have gotten a lot of chances, both in games and in training, in part because the competition has been weak. And Araujo has taken the opportunities and proven he's a first division level player, the others haven't. Araujo is a superior athlete, has a great work rate and is aggressive on the field. Alvarez has a chance to make it in MLS but he is often passive and one dimensional. He has to a lot to work on. I can't speak to the training these guys have received but in some ways soccer is soccer. I've watched these players on the field and their issues go deeper than their teammates sucking - it has more to do with their own play. Now the argument of weak defenders hurting a goalkeeper's confidence has a bit more credibility to me. I'm still not sure I buy it though - it also gives them more chances to shine.