I always am amazed at the amount of whining on Big Soccer and this thread certainly keeps up that trend. I keep thinking about this from the prospective of New England's front office -- the people reportedly holding up any deal -- and trying to see why they should want to do it. And I don't see it. If they make this transfer, they lose a key player, make a team that has had success recently worse, and lose the biggest marketing draw on the team. Furthermore, they only get a part of the money themselves and only can use a fraction of that on acquiring new talent. Even if they lucked out and possibly found someone as good as Twellman for their team with that money -- which they probably won't be able to do -- how would that really make the team any better? It seems to me that the only thing that the NE Revs can gain in agreeing to this deal is "good will". And that's nice and all, but it doesn't pay the bills -- or win games or sell tickets. I don't see New England being willing to sell him unless it's for an offer that would blow them away for a player of Twellman's talents. I'm thinking at least $4.5M. And I don't think PNE would come close to that. I have no problem with MLS selling players. Or trying to accomodate players. Those are good things. But I see no reason for MLS to sell a player simply because he wants to go -- they have to do what is best for their own team. I don't see the upside for New England here.
As long as we only allow one guy per team to be paid more than $350,000/year, we're gonna be a feeder league for feeder leagues, it's just math.
I must disagree with this. You must give the man credit for putting together the right personnel to create a winning team. What team had gone to three MLS cups? Consistently in the playoffs every seasons? The key is not to spend more, but to spend less and achieve more. Teams with DPs/maxed out salary cap a la LA/NY, could you say they had a better season than NE?
Hello everyone, i have just joined, and wanted to post a comment. I had a look on this forum, to see what the american football fans thought about the taylor twellman situation. I wanted to post my thoughts, I am a season ticket holder at deepdale, and personally would love to see taylor join. The deal was a guaranteed 3million dollars, plus a sell on clause. We at Preston unfortunately are a selling club, so to see this offer, came as a huge surprise to the fans, I am convinced he would succeed, our play is tailor made for a out and out striker. I read people say why would he want to take a step backwards, that is a ridiculous comment, any real fan knows that England is the mecca of football. The coca cola championship is the fifth most popular league in europe, and the league gets higher league gates, then Italian Serie A. To all of the New England fans, i wouldn't worry, Alan Irvine (our manager) said today was the deadline for a deal to be struck!
Uh, DC, Chicago, LA and Houston/San Jose have all been to at least three MLS Cups and all of them have won more hardware than the Revs. Yes, the Revs have been very good under Nicol doing things on the cheap but it's hard not to look at his success and wonder how much better NE would have done had the Krafts been willing to spend a little more money. I have nothing to base this on, but I wouldn't be surprised if part of Twellman's frustration and desire to leave is based on so many of the key parts of the team having already left. Still, as others said, it's not like he didn't know how MLS had been to his teammates about transfers when he signed his long-term deal. But, three mill is a good offer for a player like Twellman and it's hard to imagine a scenario where anyone pays any more for him than that. I know others disagree, but I predict a poutier and less productive Taylor Twellman in MLS this year. If I'm wrong, I'll be the first person to come on here and say so.