San Jose Earthquakes - Sporting Kansas City (Saturday, 2/21) pre/in/postgame thread [R]

There's a fair number of "ifs" there, and hopefulness. Yes, Munie is better now. Roberts is better now. Bouda is better and so is Judd (as a sub, not as a starter). Leroux is the real deal (but Bruce keeps benching him).

When will Timo get here? And when will he be ready to play?

"If we can get a couple of decent MLS cast offs and spring for another player who's better than good, we have a shot at the playoffs."

We have shown zero desire to sign any MLS cast offs, and zero desire to spring for another player who is starter quality. JoGo is the only guy we brought in, and he might be a walk-on. MAK was in camp, but he's last year's news.

If you or I were running the team, there'd be reason for hope. But we're not, so doom, gloom, and a shitty season on-tap are what we have.

Go Quakesfans!!
F#$% Fisher!!

 

I'm not saying it's going to happen, I'm saying it's a possibility. And when I say "tread water" I'm thinking a couple of wins and a couple of ties out of the 1st 10 games or so. It's fairly low bar stuff.

 

What I need for a low bar right now is a place where I can drink.

I see what you're saying. If we only halfway suck until reinforcements arrive it might not be a complete disaster of a season.

I think we're screwed. Timo might not be ready to start until game 3, and that might be optimistic. So unless Judd, Bouda, Niko, and others (Skahan?) step up, we're going to get reamed. This is going to be an epic slagging. We're going to get rip from the first game. (As someone else here suggested, keep your expectations really low and you might not be disappointed.)

It's time to start following USL sides.

Go Quakesfans!!

 

If Timo is anything like me during my wife’s first pregnancy, he ain’t gonna be fit. In fact, I was 24 and fit (in the national guard) when she got preggers and by the time she had him I’d gained enough weight (sympathy eating?) that I was (happily) able to get my honorable discharge for “failure to meet enlistment weight standards” (which had rather drastically changed during RR’s first term).

 

yeah, i always say the season lasts an eternity...i think we have enough on the roster to hang tough and not have a shambolic start to the season. Critical factor is remaining healthy...Mainly Daniel and Munie. If either goes down, we're screwed. Romney in the middle would be a disaster...same with Jr in goal. I think the energy level throughout the team will be markedly improved. Imo, Bruce is giving a few guys a chance to state their case before bringing in the 1-2 new players. Definitely the case with Niko and Judd. My dark horse player for this season is Jasinski...i think he'll move through the ranks pretty quick.

 

I think Bouda's gonna have a good year. Judd will probably be OK - he can probably break 10 goals in full season's minute. I'd love to see Fernandez in the Niko role, but not sure if he'll get the chance. It'll be a bummer to send him back to Next/Pro where he was already one of the best players in the league (highest G+ in the league).

BTW Buck has gotten really spare minutes in preseason. Looks like JoGo may be getting those minutes, but depends on whether or not we sign him. I'd take JoGo over Buck based on what I've seen so var. No longer any sign of Kaye. That's gotta be awkward. Bring the guy into camp to "trial" and then quickly drop him (maybe)? You already know what you've got with him. You either want him on the roster or not. Not sure that the preseason is gonna tell you much.

 

Yeah, agree about Bouda, but wish he was on the left or take the 9 from Judd. I'm not crazy about Buck at all...JoGo is okay , but i'd rather Fernandez or Mendoza get their sub minutes.

 

Yeah, in Bruce's setup right now he's got natural wingers in the front 4, which is good for service, bad for shooting. Bouda's got a very strong shot with his right and is dangerous cutting in from the left. And we've also seen what Marie can do on the left as a righty.

But then you don't want to give up service either. If Timo goes on the left, he'll be plenty dangerous cutting in, and then we'd have balance - one inverted winger and one natural winger. Actually, the left is a good spot for an inverted winger because Jones can overlap and cross with his left, and that gives you width on that side.

 

Doesn’t Timo typically play on the left? So can’t he cross from the left? I mean, I learned how to cross with both feet. Not that I was ever good mind you. But I could play with both feet. I expect that players in the Bundesliga can play with both feet too.

With four in the back, I fear that we will lose a fair fraction of our offense. Also, missing our three best offensive players is going to hurt big time.

Also, Daniel is fragile, and Junior sucks.

So I think we’re doomed is what I’m saying. I hope I’m wrong, but I think I’m right.

Go Quakesfans!!

 

Yes, I wouldn’t be surprised if Timo can cross pretty well with his left but I think most of the time, if he’s on the left he’s gonna want to try to cut in and score.

I don’t think 4 in the back is less attacking necessarily. It can be more attacking. Essentially you’re replacing a CB with a player who can get more forward and overlap. Both Benji and Jones are pretty attack minded.

 

If the club doesn't bring in more players, this is going to be another long season.

Hard to believe Bruce would come here and stay here with no more of a plan than he has shown so far.

There has to be more, Right?

Right?

 

Bruce on the KNBR morning show right now, trying to sell that we are going with good young domestic players who are more athletic so he expects us to be better than last year, Werner having visa issues but Bruce is hopeful he will be here by the end of the week. , and nothing regarding any more signings so sounds like we are going with what we have.

 

Well that’s good news that Werner might be here this week. Otherwise, the problem with “we’re better” because whatever, all these guys were also on the team last year, so if they should have been playing instead of sitting on the bench, if we could only find the person responsible for those decisions!

 

Kaye might be a known and didn't require more thought than checking fitness. If we can get him cheap it would be a no-brainer to have some maturity to settle things down later in a game.

If Judd gets 10+ goals, that would be well more than ok.

 

I'm not sure the numbers really work out to retain Kaye, and at what price. He was at $800k last year. Even if we cut it in half, that's too much. At the 6/8 spot we already have Beau, Vieira, Harkes, Buck, JoGo(?), and Edwyn Mendoza. Do we need another one? Six guys for 2 spots? If it's between Kaye and JoGo I'd probably go with JoGo. A lot younger and maybe even cheaper.

10 goals for the regular starting #9 is really just kind of OK in today's MLS. That's kind of a Jebo mediocre year. Judd scored 7 in 1000 minutes last year. If he only scored 10 in say 2500 minutes that'd be fairly "meh" results, and a significant drop-off in form from last year.

 

A little nit: I notice that both Roberts and Floriani flail their arms a bit with they handle the ball. That's a habit they should try to break. They are gonna be some handballs... There's no need to stick your arms out like that when you're passing the ball, and it's especially bad if you're a CB.

 

One would think, yeah? Bruce told us one or two more signings, but we haven’t even heard rumors of the Quakes pursuing any new players. It looks like our budget is even smaller this year than last. I can’t imagine what RottenFish is thinking. Is he trying to destroy the value of the club? He wants to sell, so getting top dollar should be a priority, so why is he wrecking the value of the asset?

WTF?!

So we’re about to have a terrible season, which will make the team a much less attractive investment. I’m mystified, also really pissed off.

Go Quakesfans!!

 

Bruce is sticking with the whole "addition by subtraction" thing, so OK, let's go. Let's see it. He's out on a limb now, let's see what he can do. At the end of the season I don't want to hear - well, we didn't have a very good season because we were playing a lot of young players. Well, then you didn't "add by subtracting", you just went into rebuild mode.

He also implied that we didn't do as well last year as we had hoped because he was playing a lot of younger more inexperienced players. Really? I call BS. The only young guy who got consistent starts was Beau, and Bruce moved away from him as the season wore on. The other guys - Ricketts, Roberts, Floriani, Niko, Bouda,...were just subs / occasional starters. He leaned *heavily* on MLS veteran players last year.

 

When you put Bruce's short analysis of last season and his expectations for this season together, it doesn't seem to pass thru the "basic logical thought" filter:

"We didn't do as well as we had hoped last year because we were giving a lot of young guys experience", and also we're gonna double down on the young guys this season - you know the guys that held us back last season, so this season should be better!"

OK...maybe they got suddently better? I'm in show me mode. Can it happen? Sure. Will it happen? We'll see.

 

Addition by subtraction:

EQ starting roster last year.

Add TImo Werner.
Subtract MLS All-Star Espinoza

Now subtract Josef Martinez.
Now subtract Chicho Arango.

Seems like you need "1 or 2 signings" just to get back to last year's level.

And this is in a vacuum.
If other teams ALSO have players who now have experience and are "better" then there is no reason to expect to gain anything on other teams in the league.

 

I probably posted this half a dozen times in the second half of last season. My take was the vets rodrigues, wilson and Romney were supposed to carry the D, but they made a ton of critical point dropping mistakes...Bruce benches them, the young guys floriani and Roberts get a few spot starts but they make inexperienced mistakes...the vets get more starts....same problems...more tough love benchings...they completely mentally shutdown with really poor performances after coming back...Bruce Finally starts Munie, which he should have done much earlier, but Floriani and Roberts are not ready for prime time yet...Bruce is screwed...the D continues to flounder. It was a tough spot to be in...everyone was counting on Rodrigues, wilson and Romney to at least be semi stable until the young guys were really ready...but they tanked hard..we gave up at least two softies a game...and futz'd our way right out of the playoffs.

i think this season he has more players that will actually follow his plan...big difference in that regard between Rodrigues and Wilson to Roberts and Muni
And yes, Bruce is banking on their continuing development...and he has been pretty successful developing young american CBs