The Outfield
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Great read as always, thanks to all at the outfield for the consistently high-quality content. I learn something new in nearly every outfield article.
Interesting article. I think it would have been more informative if it considered and addressed how the glaring roster weaknesses affected a lot of this. For example, playing without a striker seeps into much of this (of course, how much is up for debate). My impression from a live view was that the coaching staff tried to implement more/higher pressing once our new 9 came, and appeared consistently frustrated when he couldn’t grasp it/didn’t follow the plan. I am not saying NC isn’t to blame for a more conservative/ineffective approach, but I don’t think this tells the whole story.
I also wonder how much losing Maxi hurt the press. The few games Maxi played after returning the press looked better and you could see him actively organizing the team, telling the team when to go, and telling certain attacking players to stay higher at times.
Agreed. I sympathize because it's just so hard to disentangle the effects of Nick's style from the effect of a roster that saw players with 29 goals depart and replaced them with 0 for 70% of the season. Both effects exist. His style shift was visible in 2022 before the departures (except Taty), and his style was pretty consistent after reinforcements finally arrived. I'm pretty sure the roster was a bigger cause of the scoring drop than the manager. But I don't know a way to determine that.
Yes. I am guessing that the reason NC wasn’t fired after a historically poor failure of a season is a mea culpa from Lee and the FO. Hopefully they will keep the promise to give him a better roster to work with and hopefully it was more roster than manager. Both are TBD!
I think that the current roster should comfortably make the playoffs even without more key additions. They were much better in the final 10 games. I do not expect to seriously compete for MLS Cup, mostly because of age and inexperience. But this team should not be fighting for a playoff spot during the last few weeks of the season. They should finish somewhere in the 4-7 range in the East table.
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Can we say that the FO didn’t provide all the proper players for the duration of the season and NC didn’t get enough out of the players that he did have? I think both can exist at the same time. Still, I think NC should be looking for a new job right about now.
Yeah this. I'm working on a bigger season review piece, but hard to see Cushing totally blameless for the season. Unfortunately, we lost the pressure data from FBref so we can't do a just comparison but the lack of the press is not just a this year issue, it's been down ever since Cushing took over last season.
So you're telling me that we can blame Cushing for FBref's lack of pressing data. Only logical assumption, IMO.
#GlobalWarmingPiratesReturn
I think the important point is that this is now what I am saying.
Agreed. This is a much better squad than at the start of the season. I'm really excited for next year. I think we can be one helluva handful for anyone in the league. Anyone.
Yep. The last 8 games of the year we had 15 points. That's a pace of 1.875 points per game, or 63.75 points over a 34-game season.
64 points this season would have been good for 2nd in the East. We basically ran out of time & waited too long to make additions this season.
If we keep our talent and add to it by getting a top-level No. 9, this is going to be a really good team next year. I increasingly believe this was a one-year reboot and we'll be back to what we expect next season.
Bingo. Not that we just tanked the season. But the main object was to make the transition to a younger squad and a different salary profile.
We talk about MLS being a salary capped league. But in reality, it's a salary structured league. You have to spend your money on the right puzzle pieces because you can't just open up your checkbook and fill in any gaps.
And for us, that meant finding a new dance partner for Thiago Martins. We lost our core when we lost Alex Callens. The team began turning around when we picked up Birk Risa. I totally missed it -- I didn't think a left-footed center back was all that important, and I was wrong -- but now I think I see it. And I like what I see.
Anyway, as I've said elsewhere, it was a tough season, but better to get it done with and get through than drag it out. It's kind of like Grant in the Civil War and the Battle of the Wilderness: it was brutal, but he just kept going until he got through and out into open country.
We went through our own kind of Wilderness and got through by the end of last season. Time to march on.
Dude, you're being <way> too poetic for a soccer board LOL
But I totally agree about the structured league thing, and it kind of sounds like what Cushing was saying in his interview with Ian Joy the other day.
Birk's downfield pass at the beginning of the game on Friday was a thing of beauty.
Glad you mentioned that. I was actually watching it during our friendly and couldn't help but think of David Lee's comment the other day:
With the salary cap in MLS, it is vital to be consistent and build your roster in a structured way and consider the long-term impacts of any decisions. While there are still areas to improve, one key positive I do take away is that I feel between both transfer windows in 2023, we have not compromised future success and have provided ourselves with a great base of talent and depth that will allow us to be successful in seasons to come.
To me, that's confirmation: they wanted to improve right away, and knew we needed to, but they weren't going to go against plan and panic buy. Very disciplined. We don't know who they were looking at, exactly, or what was in the pile of scouting reports they had at hand. But we do know they weren't shirking.
That makes a lot of sense. The one biggest contrast to this (and I know it is a couple years back at this point) is spending a DP slot on a CB.
