Ngwenya is a good player and this is a great trade. Moreno is out of favor and plays with his back to goal which makes for a stereotype attack if you play him alonside Ching. Ngwenya has blazing speed and and is skillful which will give our attack fresh options. Under the shrewd eye of Dom and Spencer he will shine in Houston! Stuart Holden should know plenty about him as they played against each other many times when he was at Clemson.
Oh Yeh! And in response to Bobyone, if DeRo needs a rest, we have a much underused and gifted central midfielder called Stuart Holden!
Yes, you are correct about Sigi and Moreno. Sigi is a great coach and seems to stay loyal to "his" players. My son calls Joseph ...Milli Vanilli.
Nope! The point is that we should be developing the young players NOW! Having said that, the latest batch of rookies is very disappointing in real quality. From what I've seen in training and reserve games, Hatzke is the most promising of the bunch, followed by Ashe and Ustruck. Hayden.........what a let down - he's got no chance of playing this year!!
I don't remember being too impressed with this guy. The only time he made any impression on me was when the Crew played here, and I think it was something like "ha ha, that's funny." Now I'm thinking "Oh God, I hope Dom's right." Really. Moreno brings a lot of things to the table that don't show up in the stats. Well, besides the "fouls suffered." He holds the ball better then Ching, and his passing is fairly good for a forward. I know those aren't things we need out of a forward, because even I realize I didn't type "goals" as a asset. Okay, now for my usual. The 2006 numbers: Code: gp gs min g a sht sog fc fs c ej Joseph Ngwenya 22 18 1521 5 2 29 13 27 31 5 2 Alejandro Moreno 30 30 2620 3 6 36 21 49 112 2 1 Brian Ching 21 20 1822 11 2 64 30 38 50 1 0 min/g sog/sht g/sht g/sog min/fc min/fs Joseph Ngwenya 304 .448 .172 .385 56 49 Alejandro Moreno 873 .583 .083 .143 53 23 Brian Ching 166 .469 .172 .367 48 36 Make of them what you will. I hope both teams just got what they wanted, I like the attidude and hart Moreno puts on the field, I hope that's equalled in the new guy. No fighting it, it's done. I'm sure we'll be okay with this after a few games are under his belt.
FC Louie, have you forgotten about all the time Moreno spends sniffing the grass?? Last year it cost us two penalties that refs didn't give him because he dives more times than a submarine! This will be a great trade for us, mark my words!!
Don't know jack about Whoopi but Moreno was one of ours and I will be sad to see him go regardless if I cursed him from the stands regarding his lack of speed. The guy did draw fouls which helped our side. Best of luck to Alejandro except against us. Hope he helps out the Crew cuz they are after all..... the crew.
Cost a PK? Until the ref gives it, it aint a PK it's an opinion. And what I wouldn't really call Moreno a diver. Divers go down under any contact or, like a certain little fishy in Frisco, proximity. Moreno plays through quite a bit of contact before he goes down. That tends to generate a level of believability when he does go down. Sometimes it's obvious, sometimes you have to wonder, and other time you wonder how he could have stayed on his feet. The refs didn't call those penalties because of diving, it was because he tends to initiate contact. That gets little sympathy from a ref in a game changing position like a PK. I think we'll gain something out of this, I just hope it's as justified as some of you want to believe. The numbers compare well to Ching, better the Moreno, but the intangibles...
I think I like this trade. The one drawback is that... Moreno wins free kicks in dangerous positions like noone else on the team. ...and with this team those free kicks win games... Better get better at scoring from the run of play! Also, how does the salary stuff work out? I imagine that Ngwenya is making less than Moreno too, but I don't know.
Re: Dalglish vs Moreno So many things to pick apart here, so little time. I'll save some time and just ask you one question. How do you know Ale wasn't happy here?
As much of an emphasis that Dom seems to put on team chemistry and character, I have to believe he's done his homework on the "intangibles". I know it's a broken record but he hasn't given me any reason to doubt him yet.
Don't agree with the trade. I think Moreno coming off the bench was good. Also, like it was mentioned above he would win alot of free kicks which is exactly how we score, well at least 80% of the time. My guess is that we already have somebody coming, probably from the Mexican league, during the transfer period which made Moreno expendable.
Yep. Ngwenya makes 50,000; 60,0000 and Moreno was at $120,000;$125,000. That's $60,000 more that they can throw at DeRo.
Wow, I'm surprised by this trade. But if this guy is better for the team, all's well. And dustcowpoke, I hope you get smacked by a flag pole at the next home game for that comment. Let me know if Yoshi's on it.
And blog. (And I was just thinking the same thing, Moreno's the go-to guy for TeleFutura interviews. I wonder if anyone else speaks enough Español? ) Anyway, it's nice to see that the coaching staff are not afraid to make changes. I can't complain about any of the moves so far. We can't rely on just Ching and DeRo for all of our goals this year. And if things go south with Dalglish we'll be screwed when our Nats are called up this summer. Plus the Dutch guy will be into wearing orange, right? Wonder if he's built like Peter Crouch or like Kenny Cooper? He's as tall as Pat Onstad, and three inches taller than Chingy.
We won't have Latin players anymore?? Well shyt I might stop going to the games myself, and I'm Texian Army !!
Re: Dalglish vs Moreno I'm with you from the other side of the looking glass. Ngwenya has been solid for the Crew this year, and I'm sure Moreno has his qualities. But I do not see how either team is bolstered in this move. I guess time will tell, but I'm with you...."I don't ********ing get this ********ing shit"
https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=533531 Here's a link to the trade target. He is affectionately known as Jar-Jar. He has quality stuff. I would guess he would fit as a D-mid behind DeRosario, but he does have good skill to lead the attack and distribute (somewhat like a Shalrie Joseph with speed and a successful stint in anger management class).
I've come to appreciate a lot of what Moreno does, particularly his ability to draw timely fouls that lead to useful free kick situations. But we need speed and I think he'll add to the attack. IIRC, I've seen him take some people on and blow by some people. We need someone who can bring a different dimension to our target man oriented attack. You need to have options that allow you to vary your attack and he helps in that regard. He also seems to be a pretty good guy - see the Coastal Carolina article linked in the first post. Dom always emphasizes team chemistry and the FO obviously likes guys who can be involved and visible in the community. And Sigi wouldn't have acquired Ngwenya twice if he thought anything negative about him. Of course, Moreno was also a good guy - just agreeing that Ngwenya almost certainly also meets that criterion.
Absolutely right about Joe being a top guy. Also note that Joe received his first cap for the national team in Zimbabwe and got his Greencard earlier this season. From our perspective this is probably being done to clear the wing for Schelotto. In Moreno we can use more veteran leadership. I suspect Ngwenya will do well for you guys as a complementary player for your forward talent. Here in Columbus opponents could focus on the wings that much more since our forwards haven't a clue how to score.
Good commentary Anderson! I also think we needed more speed up top. Alejandro wanted more playing time. He was a great team player and did whatever was asked of him. He made the most of the abilities he had and always gave 100% Vaya con Dio Alejandro! Mucha Suerta con Crew (just not against the Dynamo!). The franchise does need to pick up more latin players if not only to help connect with our latin fan base in Houston, but also to serve as role models for the hispanic youth in our community. Alejandro served well in that role and we now will be missing that. Maybe some of these earlier posts are correct that the Dynamo will get a MSL or Argy DP when the summer transfer window opens up (Marioni!). On the flip side, we do have a vibrant African immigrant community here (mostly Nigerian), hopefully Ngwenya can tap into that resource and get more of them in the stadium.