elf

I am okay with ndam. He was having a solid game but his mistakes comes from lack of playing time.  He needs more experience

Nealis was making similar mistakes a few seasons ago.

The issue with last night was that an inexperienced player had a yellow card and the coach needed to pull him in a must win game.

Was ndam at fault? Yes. But so was the coach. Mini nealis needed to come in at half time

How do you not sub out ndam when he got the yellow.

And for the 1000 time... why does he continue to start barlow and manoel. Is he not watching the same game we are watching?

Does he not see a pattern on what happens when they play?

He might be our fastest player. Did you see how fast he ran back to nudge Gutierrez  in that breakaway? Reminds me a lot of Olave

Sell our leading goal scorer before season started ?!?
Wooden spoon winning move for this season

Yes, then you can invest that money to build a better roster and have more room for error if a signing backfires

You would have his salary + allocation to sign someone.

Look at the bright side, Reyes signed a new contract. It is until 2027.

It's like signing a new player

Worst case would be we make a run, but dont win the Cup and the front office uses that to not make changes. For me, the only thing making the playoffs and winning a couple of games would do is open my mind to keeping Troy around next season. No matter what we do the rest of 2023, we need wholesale roster changes in 2024.

Even if we do make the playoffs, I do not have confidence in Troy. We have had better attacking options on the bench and rb 2 but he consistently pushes manoel and barlow as your starting forwards. This reminds me of when buckmaster was starting over murillo under armas. It makes no sense.

Why continously play the same guys over and over again who have continously  fail for the past two seasons and yet expect a different outcome. Its crazy.

It's best to move on. he doesn't maximize the talent that he currently has so how can we be sure that he will maximize a roster with more resources and talent.

As for wholesale changes, we need a new front office. They have failed repeatedly to sign mls starter level players.  

We can be an elite team if they added a quality forward and a quality mid to this squad. Think abt it. Where would this team be if we had a goal scorer?

Ok that was just a whole lot of fun and only the snootiest of snooty soccer snobs would say otherwise. A goal fest in the rain with a battle of the behemoths between Benteke, Nealis, and Reyes.
 
Immediate impressions were that Harper is a refreshing option at AM/winger and DC kinda sucks. 

Yeah, I wanted him to play that position all season long.

Now I want Luq to play behind the forward and have hurtado or ny2 player start at forward.

Yellow was the right call. High foot was a dangerous play. However, no injury was sustained. The ball was in the air close to Luq and his leg was going down. It wasnt malicious. In my eyes it was the right call

yeah leg went down and hit luq in the head. That is a straight red. It doesnt have to be malicious. It was reckless. You can end someone's career with that type of foul.

He now has a reputation for going down easy. It is resulting in him not getting the real fouls called his way now.

So kicking a guy in the face is based on rep and not actual evidence? Var even called the ref to reconsider. This was bs.

Every time Barlow is in the starting lineup, it's another nail in the Lesesne coffin.
 
Enough already.

100%.

We know what we have in him. It is not like he had shown a moment of brilliance where we are like wow... we might have an MLS player here. At most, he is a usl player.  If he is a good locker room guy for young guys to model his work habits... fine. However, he should not start start. He should not be a super sub. He should not be subbed in if we need a goal.

At most...he should be used as a guy that can be subbed in for set pieces in the final seconds. That is it.

The minutes they are giving  him are minutes they are taking away from a rb 2 player  or hurtado to see if they are ready for the MLS level.

Lost and lots of Uber rich people are doing the same these days.  Another issue for local ownership.  There arent that many billionaires from New York these days.  Not sure if any are interested.  A new owner could very well be as absentee as Red Bull is

considering  the price of real estate in Manhattan and certain parts of queens and brooklyn, I am pretty sure there are a few uber rich people in the city.

Elf you may need to provide proof you aren't Denis Hamlett's burner account lol. Who else would prefer to build an MLS squad entirely from RB2 instead of even checking out what the rest of the world has to offer?

We have a good set of role players that have been keeping us competitive.  No reason to dump them.

Plus, the guys that should get promoted from rb2 are having quality season and they should serve as depth and some are expected to be stars in two to three seasons from now. Why not bring them in? They are cheap and have proven them selves in the lower level.

The guys I did recommend to sell or cut are guys that have expressed interest in leaving or we can replace their production with a back up.

The real need is a winger, a forward and then a CB. That is where all the remaing cap / DP spots should be spent.

The hamlet way of doing things is do nothing and spend money on draft picks which is not what I am recommending

 
We've done alright on the Yearwood-level signings. The ~$1M-$3M guys. We've done alright on the guys below them on the roster too. I think our scouting group actually deserves some credit because in theory that should be the harder part of the roster to get right.
 
I still see the top end of the roster as the 99% of problem. Can't wait a few years between ~$5M signings and then whiff on them. Klimala is lucky Jorgensen exists otherwise he'd easily be the biggest overpay in team history.

From the top 12 wage earners on the squad. Only reyes, tolkin and nealis have earned their paycheck.


Yearwood, luq, Vanzier, coronel, duncan, burke and manoel have been awful this year and are being overpaid for what they do on the field. Everyone but Duncan were guys I'd by our scouting department to be key players.I disagree that our scouting deserves any credit.

Morgan gets a pass because he has not been able to stay healthy.



The only reason we are not in last place is because our youth academy  and rb2 graduates have been carrying us.  (Edelman, fernandez, stroud, tolkin, nealis and harper) the team development program is keeping us alive.

You can also look at how much was spent to purchase Carranza, who is only 23, from philly to Miami. Philly traded roughly 550k in allocation money for a forward who currently has 14 goals and 4 assists in all competitions this year.

Red bull spend 200k in nocita who has barely seen first team minutes

Red bull also spent 675k to have clark for 1 season.

For 875k, they could have signed a starter to help this team.

None of then played any significant role in 2022.

I have no confidence that this front office can identify talent.

They will never have talent without changing their system and their principles.  They are not interested in paying for talent so they take flyers on developing players that are willing to play in their kickball system for some extra dough.  E Tanner would never take the job because he could not get any bonafide talent to come and play in the system they use.

Philly and nyrb work with a similar budget. The difference is that  rbny has an incompetent front office who wastes precious allocation money on temporary loans and draft picks and can't identify talent for their high priced players.

This is the most important position that needs to be filled.