The Official 2023/2024 Off Season Thread

They need to take care of Skahan and probably triple his salary….which is still chump change…and if they actually prioritized playing him they’d find out they are still getting a steal.

it’s so frustrating, give him a real run of games to work through the initial nerves and get to a comfort level to build on the confidence. The dude played his ass off, then dealt with an injury and hardly got any minutes once healthy.

 

The problem was the spine. Not only were the CB paining our worst, the central midfield would be in the top #3 (I know that you like Brose, but he was average at best), and Conteh up front.

That being said, five of the starters won the MLS Cup the next year. So, it was probably not worst overall lineup.

 

As usual Matt Doyle gets some things about the Quakes right and other things wrong. I don't think he really watches our games - he probably watches highlights or game summaries and looks at stats and results and that's about it. Not surprising since he's trying to cover 29 teams and we aren't necessarily the most compelling of the teams. We know a lot more about the Quakes than he does, even if we don't all agree (or I'd say frequently disagree )

Still, wrong is wrong. This is what I think he gets wrong:

1) He calls out Quakes 20% increased attendance. He's not wrong, but what he isn't saying is that most of that comes from the Quakes Cinco De Mayo game at Levi's. It was a successful event and the FO should get credit for it, but the point is that there wasn't really a 20% increase in your bread and butter games at PPP. A little bit. My back of the napkin calculation says that the Levi's game (45k reported attendance) is responsible for about 2k of the 3k per game increase in attendance this year.

"I think that translated to a better product on TV. You could really feel the crowd in the biggest moments, which I don’t think was the case in 2022."

I don't think an increase in let's say, generously, 1k in bread and butter games at PPP is really going to result in a noticeably "better product on TV", where you're suddenly going to "really feel the crowd". But again, credit where credit is do. Even a 1k increase is good, so good job FO.

2) "Jackson Yueill and Jamiro Monteiro are both 8s. So why not a pure 4-3-3? Well, because Monteiro – no matter the lineup – seemed only to want to play as a No. 10"

Well he's right that in terms of playing style / strengths, both Jackson and Monteiro are 8's. But Monteiro trying to play the 10 role was not because he "wanted to" (though he may have also "wanted to"). It's because Luchi asked him to. How do we know? Because Luchi said so - he'd say that he expects Monteiro to be the "line-breaking mid". So while Monteiro and Yueill were kind of lined up side by side Luchi expected them to have different roles.

3) Seriously, this team went into Decision Day with a home game against already-eliminated Austin FC and their fate in their hands. If you can’t beat Austin at home you don’t deserve to make the playoffs, right?

Well he's already said this in another article and I've already complained, but clearly he didn't watch the game. We were all over Austin - something like 20 shots to 4, hit the post a few times, Austin's goal on a one-in-100 chance header, etc. Sometimes you dominate teams and don't win. It happens.

4) "Five Players To Build Around"
...

• Gruezo (DM): Had a solid if unspectacular year.

...

Again, not sure Doyle really watches our games. I think the assumption is that well, the Quakes did better on defense after they signed Gruezo as a d-mid, so he must have had a solid year! But then we also had a full year of Rodrigues, Akapo, and Daniel as GK. And he was so quick to show one of those "compared to other mids" color wheels for Niko, if he'd look at the "compared to" wheel for Gruezo he might have a different opinion.

5) "For the sake of the project – to really become a team that has an identity – they’ve got to sell Cowell, right? Between Benji Kikanovic, Matthew Hoppe (if his transfer option's picked up) and youngster Cruz Medina (who you can see with the US at the U-17 World Cup this month) they’ve got ample depth to replace him from within, and that’s supposed to be the whole thing: develop and sell.

Transferring Cade would probably be a good idea if they can find a taker and an offer that's not embarrassing, but again, if he'd watch the games, I don't think a combination of Benji, Hoppe, and Medina is going to be enough of an improvement on the left side. Benji is a question mark after last year, Hoppe did not look comfortable as a left side attacker, and Medina is not nearly ready (apparently, and not surprisingly, he likely has not watched Medina in any of the Quakes 2 games).

 

"solid if unspectacular" is one thing but I'm pretty sure just a few weeks ago someone on ExtraTime Radio (likely David Gass) said that Gruezo had been great for the Quakes

 

Yeah, I'm not prepared to go above anything like "serviceable" and even at that, I'm a little unsure. He wasn't bad, I would say. But again, for ~$4.6M in transfer+salary, you'd hope for a lot more.

 

I agree with Doyle most of the time...and I believe he's fairly local (SF) and does follow the Quakes more than some of the other teams. Imo, regarding the Quakes, he is more often right...a little over sell on Gruezo, but spot on regarding Montiero.

Montiero absolutely wanted, (hopeful past tense) to play as a 10....the same thing he wanted in Philly, but over an extended period of time, he played himself out of it, per Curtain....which should have also happened here. And it was clear Luchi allowed him to have that role...which is big time demerits on Luchi...

 

Well you're assuming that the player is driving the tactics and that the coach is just "allowing" it. That's quite an assumption. I think Luchi absolutely wanted and asked Monteiro to play more of a 10 role. We know because he told us that. That doesn't mean it's a good fit. But that was Luchi's intention.

 

I'm not assuming Montiero is driving anything...Montiero was brought in to have a creative "10" role...and unfortunately, Luchi is driving that decision, which is imo, a bad coaching decision.

 

Agreed.

Do you think that a combination of Benji-Hoppe-Medina is a sufficient replacement for Cade on the left, as Doyle claims? Benji is a question mark after last year and even if his form improves, left side attacker may not be the best place, we know Hoppe is not comfortable / well-suited there, and Medina is clearly not ready. I think it's clear we need a new starting-caliber left side attacker, even if Cade is still with the team.

Even with a new better-suited 10, I don't think we can have another season with such poor productivity from the left side. That's not going to cut it.

 

Definitely showed promise but we need to see more. And as I've pointed out, there's no reason to triple or quadruple his salary when 1) he hasn't quite yet established himself yet - promise, yes, establish, no (remember how bullish everyone was on Benji after 2022), 2) even a near doubling of his salary to say ~$150k would be great for him - I'm sure he'd be quite happy with it, and 3) where else is he going to go. Give the guy a good raise but no reason to waste money.

 

My take on Skahan, give the guy enough freaking money to actually live in the vicinity of his home club. Yeah, he signed a low ball contract, but throw the guy a bone. We waste vast amounts of money on players that turn out to be complete heartless morons and stiffs...and here's a guy plugging away improving his game season to season, putting the work in with a great team attitude and we haven't thrown a little bit of small money his way....to reward and acknowledge the dedication and hard work...Skahan has quality potential...just need to keep him healthy and playing at ease in regular games to unlock that potential. If he even had 1/3 of Cade's minutes, he'd probably be in the starting mix by now.

 

Sure, like I said we can even nearly double his salary and he should be quite happy with that - ~$150k. He's at $88k right now. One of the Epicenter guys suggested paying him $350k, which makes no sense. Maybe after a few years he'll have earned that, but this is the perfect time to lock a guy in for a few years at a salary that he'd likely be quite happy with, and it's low risk, high reward.

 

What you want more of would also cause us to concede more. If Gruezo started making higher risk passes it would lead to more turnovers in transition. If he started pushing higher to try to score more like say anibal godoy, it would leave our defense more exposed, like it often was when godoy was playing for us, and would cause us to concede more.

 

No I’m not just pointing out his lack of contribution to the offense. It’s also that his defensive contributions were pretty poor. Tackles, interceptions, duels, duels win %, winning aerials, etc. All mediocre or poor compared to others in his position and even compared to his teammates in many cases.

Sure there are things that don’t show up in “stats”. But that’s kind of the last leg to stand on when looking at Gruezo’s performance last year. Clearly he is not a ball winner or “destroyer” type of d-mid. That’s not just a stats thing. I think that’s apparent from the eye test. So we’re left with things like “shields the back line!” and “blocks passing lanes!” and I don’t even know how good he is at those things. He’s an experienced player who’s smart about his positioning I’m sure, but he really has very little bite to his game as a defender.

So to me he was just kind of serviceable, which is pretty disappointing for a guy we paid $4.6M to last year (transfer + salary).

 

Honestly, I barely noticed Gruezo was on the field after the first half-dozen or so games. For almost $5m I’d expect someone whose contributions are a lot more noticeable…

 

I think he got kind of a free pass because our defense had improved and people just did a little "correlation is causation" and assumed that it was because of Gruezo. He may have been part of it, but as I've mentioned before we also had:

- a full season of Rodrigues
- Akapo
- Mensah
- Luchi's more defensive-oriented tactics

Then when you actually start to watch him with a little more critical eye it was sort of - wait, what is he doing, exactly? I know, "protecting the back line" and making safe short passes in midfield. But beyond that, not a whole lot for ~$4.6M.

 

“You watch the game, you don’t see Busquets. You watch Busquets, you see the whole game. If I could come back and play as any player, it would be Sergio Busquets” – Vicente del Bosque.

 

I don’t see Gruezo in the same light, or indeed universe..

 

Now you're making me feel nostalgic ...

 

Gruezo best attributes are positioning and reading the game which isn't usually something most people observe. He is fine in the tackle, but he needs to be better with his passing and don't ask him to take a shot.

Overall, I agree with you. He fills a role, but it's not enough for the Quakes. We are a bunch of role players with no impact players.