News: Tuesday , Nov 03 , 2015

Maybe, just maybe, what Gerrard really meant to say was that he wasn't aware of the difficulty. You can have an idea that Houston is hot and humid, but if you've lived your whole life in England, you really don't have an idea what's going to be like playing there until you do.

I'm not trying to defend or make an excuse for him. Just trying tot see if there is any other way to interpret his comments without assuming he is a complete idiot.

 

Top athletes are a proud bunch....it's hard for them, or takes a lomg time to rationally come to terms with reality.
Hell, some never do.

It's no accident that few top athletes have the mental tools neccessary to coach at a high level. They simply can't come to terms with the world around them.

 

if i were at MLS HQs, i would wondering how the hell they got it all wrong in bringing a Man City ownership group into the league- and it doesnt appear things will go any better in 2016- if rumors are sometimes true, they intend to bring in capello, a well-known euro coach, who has no history of MLS or what the hell he is getting into- its another recipe for disaster

 

For NYC fans that's bad. For the rest of MLS it's great. Every day that NYC fails is another day where MLS becomes less of a joke to the Euro-aristocracy. And long ten that is a good thing. It's not like the fans won't show up. If anything NYC has proven that the market is good, underserved and has deserved much better for a long time.
Here is hoping the Red Bulls remain fully committed to their vision and NYC pulls head out of ass eventually ...

 

Hey, that's the best part. Remember people in Europe think everything associated with MLS to be easy. NYC will find out how hard it is in this league. IMO, guys like SAF, Jose or Pep may have a hard time adapting to MLS if they came over. It's not easy.

 

Sometimes I wonder why you insist on posting so much about MLS when you clearly despise the league.

That said, I think that Gerrard chose his words poorly. I doubt that he was unaware of turf, or that the weather was different in the US vs. England or that there are mountains in North America. I think the reality is that he was unprepared, because quite frankly, there is absolutely nothing in Europe that can prepare a player for MLS. That is the reason why so many mid-season signings struggle in their first half seasons in the league. There is no league in the world that deals with the travel, climate change and elevation changes of MLS. None. People are making a mountain out of a mole hill here.

 

Or maybe he's disgusted with the team's under performance and he is trying to be a leader?
He didn't say anything that virtually anyone who watches the team hasn't said.

Interesting side note: 13 goals in 26 games. Full season that's 16 or 17 goals. Yet the perception is that he had a bad season. He didn't have a great one, but his crappiness is being greatly exaggerated by some

 

Yeah. I can't imagine that the league is at all happy with the fact that 4 of the top 10 selling jersey's were on that team. They probably hate the ratings that NYCFC got on television and the massive attendance numbers. Probably the same as the rue the day that they let MLSE and Toronto FC into the league.

The league doesn't give a sh*t if a team is successful on the field or not. They care about how that team grows the business of MLS. I'm sure Garber and Co. are more than happy to let the City Football Group go through some growing pains so long as the checks keep clearing.

Your post makes it seem like they expected NYCFC to win the league and its now defcon 1 at MLS HQ. From a league standpoint, NYCFC was one of the most successful teams in MLS this year. Anyone who doesn't understand that simply doesn't get professional sports.

 

See my previous post - we agree here. I remember reading that he said the weather in Houston was "shocking". It is, especially if you have never experienced it before. I give him a pass on this. There are plenty of other legitimate reasons to be unhappy about him...

 

What's interesting is that I was reading an article that said according to advanced statistics, Gerrard was the 18th best player in the league starting from his first game through the end of the season. That puts him roughly in the top 4% of the league.

I think there is a severe disconnect between fans perceptions and reality. I'm not saying that Gerrard was a world beater the last few months, but I kind of give a pass to guys who join the league mid-season. Drogba is the exception, not the rule. Ultimately, there are a lot of fans who want these big name DPs on the down slope of their careers to fail, and as such magnify poor performances and ignore good performances. Couple that with the expectations that are placed on these DP signings and nothing short of 2 goals and 2 assists per game are going to appease some fans.

 

My issues with Gerrard, who I thought was reasonably good early on, is that he disrupted the Galaxy mid field. (I'm not a Galaxy fan, by the way. Just an observer.) So while he may have had good individual statistics, there was a net loss for the team. If you want to say that was more from GDS, there's a case to be made there. But he's younger and it makes more sense for the Galaxy to scheme away his deficiencies more so than SG's. Matt Doyle is right - with Keane, Gerrard and GDS, you have three guys who don't defend. You can't have that. Plus the combine to reduce Zardes role and pretty much knock Villareal to the bench. Worse, it is highly likely the will have to part ways with one or two of Villareal, Zardes or Gonzales. That's not the way to build teams in MLS 3.0

If the Galaxy were a team of also rans who wanted to gamble to win a championship, then Gerread would have been a reasonable risk. But you can't cross a room at the Stubb Hubb center without tripping over a trophy. He just didn't make sense for them.

 

I think that Juninho is actually the most likely to be "surplus to needs", and actually has a much higher trade value than any of the three players you mentioned. What the Galaxy midfield truly lacked was a pitbull #6. Sarvas pretty much played that role the previous seasons and it was sorely lacking. I also think that AJ needs to move back inside alongside Omar and they need to find a better GK. Losing Peneda had a much more profound impact on the Galaxy than I thought it would. Ricketts was downright horrible for the Galaxy.

Arena can trot out a 5 man midfield with Gio and Gerrard in the middle and Leget and Zardes on the wings. But that 5th midfielder has to be a destroyer that can shield the back 4 and disrupt counter attacks. Juninho wasn't suited to that role, and that was the Galaxy's biggest issue.

 

Good analysis. Ricketts - once great, now... not so much. I thought Peneda, despite a few gaffes early on, was very good and that the Galaxy would still be playing if they still had him.

 

Henry said the same thing about playing in Houston the first time. I thought his comments were pretty standard stuff we see from players coming over here and its why they seem to struggle at first.

 

This is just stupid. I guess he was going for humor.........I guess.

So much stupid, but I finally chose this example:

"If the game is a scoreless tie going into overage…Same as above, except one player from each team is given "diplomatic immunity" from red cards. Because if the players weren't even trying to score up until now, the fans deserve satisfaction."