2015 Offseason Megathread

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Kjbert said:
I love the link play between Pirlo and Poku. I think they enjoy playing with one another.

But you need to score goals to win and Poku does that. We're so lucky to have him.
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In the spirit of TGIF, i will post this proverbial question, when and how can we get a united Pirlo and Poku party? Pirlo can sponsor the wine at the party from his vineyard and Poku can perform a dance. :) the party game will be throwing darts at Kries picture
 
The Toe said:
http://worldsoccertalk.com/2015/12/19/lampard-can-respond-to-detractors/

Nothing groundbreaking here. I'm not worried about Lamps pulling a Gerrard mid-season. Interesting that he thinks he might be able to work his way to an extension of his contract, though, which I'd assume all of us would quickly want the team to decline.
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I think this season will be much better than last season for him. He'll have trained with the club in pre-season, he'll be here for the whole season, he'll have long since gotten over the calf injury that literally hobbled him a bit. If he can get back to anywhere near his usual form this coming season it'd be foolish to not extend his contract. Yes, he's in his late 30s, but he is world-class quality.

And if all he manages to do is to teach Poku how to play like Lampard in his prime it will have been worth it to have had him here.
 
Seth said:
I think this season will be much better than last season for him. He'll have trained with the club in pre-season, he'll be here for the whole season, he'll have long since gotten over the calf injury that literally hobbled him a bit. If he can get back to anywhere near his usual form this coming season it'd be foolish to not extend his contract. Yes, he's in his late 30s, but he is world-class quality.

And if all he manages to do is to teach Poku how to play like Lampard in his prime it will have been worth it to have had him here.
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Even with the bum calf and lack of conditioning, he hit the woodwork a half-dozen times - that's just simply an off year for him; a few inches difference and he'd be praised for his clutch performances.... He's going to get his shots and score goals in 2016.
 
Ulrich said:
I misread that at first, thinking he said 20% less, which isn't a crazy number to be offered for an aging & temperamental player, but less than 20% of former contract is a huge swing in salary. I can see why he's upset, but accountability, like LionNYC LionNYC mentions is definitely relevant.
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Agreed. The sad truth on USMNT is, as imperfect a player as he is, we are hard pressed to find someone to replace him. Which is why we still have to put up with the fact he is playing for USMNT. US soccer has long way to go :(
 
derek_villa said:
GK is one position America can actually develop too. If CFG wants us to play a style similar to what City plays we are going to have to use those DP and international spots for those types of attacking positions that America has been the best at developing.
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As long as the goalie shaves their head. American goalies are only world class if they're either bald or choose to be bald.
 
Seth said:
I think this season will be much better than last season for him. He'll have trained with the club in pre-season, he'll be here for the whole season, he'll have long since gotten over the calf injury that literally hobbled him a bit. If he can get back to anywhere near his usual form this coming season it'd be foolish to not extend his contract. Yes, he's in his late 30s, but he is world-class quality.

And if all he manages to do is to teach Poku how to play like Lampard in his prime it will have been worth it to have had him here.
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I have to agree.

I might be in the minority in these here parts, but I thought Lampard played decently last season given the circumstances. I know this is totally apples to oranges, but back in the day when Bill Parcells was coaching the Giants, he would always preach players missing training camp would never catch up no matter how hard they worked. Being that he's going to be with us from the start, I'm looking forward to seeing what Lampard can do this summer.

JGarrettLieb said:
As long as the goalie shaves their head. American goalies are only world class if they're either bald or choose to be bald.
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Best post ever!
 
LionNYC said:
10 goals/10 assists? Quantify the over/under for a strong year.
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Well, for Chelsea, Man City, and us since 2001 he had 156 goals in 471 appearances. That's an average of just under 1/3 goal per game. So if he keeps that up that should be 10 or 12 goals in our 34 games next season. If you add in his appearances for England it still says about the same (29 goals, 106 appearances).
 
He lied. Playing bad won't make it worse, and playing well won't make it better. They're unrelated.
If you hold grudges against the untalented, and only forgive those who are useful you're confused.
 
mgarbowski said:
He lied. Playing bad won't make it worse, and playing well won't make it better. They're unrelated.
If you hold grudges against the untalented, and only forgive those who are useful you're confused.
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An MLS Cup would make it better. A U.S. Open Cup would make it okay. A Supporter's Shield wouldn't make him any worse.
 
LionNYC said:
An MLS Cup would make it better. A U.S. Open Cup would make it okay. A Supporter's Shield wouldn't make him any worse.
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IMO if we one any of those trophies I'd be exstatic after last season. If we won the supporters shield I'd be thrilled just cause I got to watch them win all of those regular season games. If NYC falls short of an MLS cup but wins a supporters shield I'd still be happy.
 
JCMore said:
IMO if we one any of those trophies I'd be exstatic after last season. If we won the supporters shield I'd be thrilled just cause I got to watch them win all of those regular season games. If NYC falls short of an MLS cup but wins a supporters shield I'd still be happy.
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Agree with this completely. Many here pooh pooh the Supporters Shield but to me winning it means you've been (arguably) the best team over the whole season regardless of what happens in that odd tournament at the end of the year. Only the most consistently winning team wins the Supporters Shield, but practically everybody makes it into the tournament and anyone can win the MLS Cup with just a few wins in a row. I have nothing at all against the MLS Cup, I'm just a fan of the Supporters Shield.
 
Gene said:
CCL? US Open Cup? Supporters Shield? MLS Cup?

Personally, I'd be doing back flips down the street if we finish .500 next season.......
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I think there is a good chance we finish well over .500 next season. And here is why.

1. It's season two and we have cut a lot of deadwood that was forced on the team by the expansion draft. We have begun trading for actual talent, and will be on our second year of the college draft with a high draft pick. There is definitely some starting caliber skill available to us at fourth pick.

2. We have a head coach that values skill over hustle and kowtowing. We're not going to see situations where someone like GRABAVOY is played over Poku because the head coach likes one player more as a person.

3. Reworked TAM inherently advantages teams that are willing to spend and disadvantages teams that don't or won't spend. This works in our favor massively and disadvantages clubs like, Columbus, RBNJ, DCU, and Montreal; all of whom were above us in the standings last year.

4. We lost games because our defense sucked balls not because we couldn't score goals. We actually scored the 6th most goals in the league but let through the most goals against. Spending our TAM on two CB's can buy you two Matt Miazkas at his current wage demands and you would have some cash left over. If I can figure out those basic stats so can the ownership, expect our defense to be a lot more stout next year.

5. Year two teams tend to not have that same early slump that year one teams have. The organization knows itself a lot better now and so do the players.

6. We have all of our DP's here at the start of the season. This is a big thing, especially considering how many early games we had to play without Villa when he was hurt.

So yeah dude, we're going to get better at a more aggressive rate than a lot of our competitors and we are going to have a much higher skill cap than a fair chunk of the east because our ownership is willing to splash some cash.
 
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