Preston showed interest in Seattle Sounders' Jordan Morris, but no deal will happen

I always thought Morris was overrated until he burst back onto the scene after his knee injury.

He'd start on all 3 promoted teams, Burnley, and potentially Palace and Sheffield United. I have zero doubt about that, but I understand the hesitation.

 

Jordan Morris never went abroad, and may never go.

 

EJ was jaded for his own perceived underpayment & jealous so played the r-card in response to Morris' new contract at the time. Ultimately he was proven wrong.

 

I don’t remember EJ making it a race thing

 

West Brom and Fulham for sure. Relatively speaking they're probably the two weakest teams to win promotion in the last decade but I really doubt he'd be anything more than an impact sub at Leeds before Xmas (his fitness levels would be nowhere near what's demanded for Bielsa-ball). He'd be an immediate option for Burnley, if only because Dyche is desperate for reinforcements at this stage, but the board just aren't willing to spend money and there are signs of real tension emerging as a result. Sheffield are interesting: they have two young strikers (Mousset and McBurnie) who they paid a fair amount of money for last season) and two veterans (Sharp and McGoldrick) who came for peanuts back in League One and the Championship. They haven't started too well and maybe Second-season syndrome applies to the latter pair; other teams have worked them an their role in the system out.

In any case I just don't see anything happening this season. At the moment he's still unproven at a level that would interest the clubs with money (Europe's Top 5) and too risky this season for even the richer teams from the rest (Belgium, Holland, Portugal, the Championship) this season, given COVID's impact on leagues and teams that are relatively highly dependent on stadium revenues.

 

Footballers are a bit unrealistic about their relative abilities at the best of times (then again, they need to be: realism suggests that nobody will ever succeed ) but Johnson was a flop in England at Fulham (22 games over 4 seasons with 0 goals) and was no more than so-so at his Championship loan clubs (36 games in two separate seasons with 2 goals and 6 assists) and he wasn't exactly prolific in MLS after his first season back. If he did get a million in Europe he wasn't exactly worth it in the end.

While he was could be lethal in MLS before moving to Europe he was pretty streaky - 12 goals in 24 games in 2004 was followed by 5 in 15 in 2005, 2 in 19 in 2006 and then 15 in 24 in 2007 - in MLS 1.0, which was a pretty mediocre league. Morris is scoring about as much in a much-improved (vastly-improved IMO) league and is a more consistent scorer on top.

The biggest difference though is that there is a whole lot more money floating around MLS these days. EJ's only 36 and if he was an evergreen like Zlatan, he'd still have been scoring or contributing over the last 5 seasons and he'd have got Morris money or close.

 

P.S.
Lest anyone think I was hacking on EJ, wasn't he having significant marriage troubles while in England? If he was, that would have impacted his performance quite a bit.

In the end, I think he was a very good League One-standard CF who was playing for teams at levels that he either wasn't good enough for or wasn't given the time to play his way up to. If he'd gone to one of League One's biggest sides (Leeds, Nottingham Forest, Swansea) instead of the EPL's Fulham in 2007-08 it's possible that he could have had 2-3 very productive seasons in the Championship before moving to the EPL. But MLS wanted a transfer fee and EJ wanted the million-dollar set-for-life salary so that could never have happened.

 

Well, if he didn't someone else will.

In 4, 3, 2, 1 . . .

 

He did. At the bottom he says "I can tell you more stories that are similar with minorities in this league. How else you get a Mil a year with no WC under your belt and never played in Europe coming off an ACL injury."

That has only one meaning: Eddie Johnson doesn't even believe but is directly stating that
1) race was a/the factor in Morris' late-2018 contract extension giving him more money than Eddie ever got before moving to Europe in 2008, despite Morris having measurably lesser achievements (no WC games, never played in Europe) and an appreciably higher risk factor (just coming off an ACL injury) and
2) that he has personal knowledge of other black and Latino players getting less than directly comparable white players.

.

 

Do you think that might have to do with a certain American already at the club maybe?

 

thread taking a real past is never dead its not even past turn

 

They were and arguably had had a track record of taking, if not MLS then American players, that was not a great deal less than now, and a few BL1 sides comparable to 2007/08 Fulham - relegation strugglers - finishing 3-5 points ahead of relegation that season bought strikers or goalscoring AMs for the same money. Maybe nobody in BL1 was interested in Eddie, maybe Eddie wasn't interested in BL1, or maybe the fact that wouldn't let him leave until the season was over and the winter window was opened limited the pool of suitors.

 

He'd start on the bench for Palace but Townsend is not great and it wouldn't take long for him to be in the lineup regularly. He'd be a hellva lot cheaper than some of the options they've looked at and he's a righty. Palace don't have many natural righties. I'd love it but it doesn't seem likely.

 

Well, I think it turned out to be a bargain for Seattle to pay Morris. And even if it hadn't turned out that way, I'm sure Seattle would've been happier losing 1 million/year on a mediocre HGP than losing 6 million/year on a high-priced DP.

All I can say about EJ is I hope his heart is OK, and it's BS that he had that goal taken away vs. Mexico when we tied 2-2. He was onside by a mile.