2021 Roster Discussion

oh it’s total ass covering from our schmuck coach. We agree. But how do you allow your coach to say that ? How ignorant is he?

you’re essentially telling your fan AAs, short of some major moves in the next 6 weeks, that you haven’t fielded a competitive team this season.
Or, optimistically, he knows of some things that are already on the bag.
Pretty sad around here when I’m forced to come up with the optimist post.
 
zalalem - still injured. not training with the team. barely doing agility drills.

callens - came back from peru national team training with a calf muscle strain injury.

he expects heber to be available to play june/july.. august at the latest.

he doesn't seem like he knows of any clear players that will be coming in the summer or before the season starts.. if he does, he's not letting on to it. he did say david is the "main guy" but they do talk. The way he was explaining this part (toward the end), made it seem like his say didn't really mean too much and he was more or less given a courtesy instead of Ronny picking his players.
 
I hope it's a good sign Deila is saying this. Clearly he knows more than we do about what they're working on, and I don't think he would be saying this if they were standing pat. I think this is a good sign that we are still trying to make moves. Maybe nothing comes of it, but hopefully we can bring in a couple guys over the next five weeks. Still a long time to April 17.
 
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We signed him on 2/12 - a full month ago. He's not here yet. Deila merely hopes he we be here when the season starts. And there will still be international travel quarantine when he does show up. If he's not here and there are no more signings our roster looks like this at the opener. Even if there are more signings, unless they already are in country we can't expect them to be here if Amundsen isn't here now.

Starting
Striker
: Castellanos
Wing: Tajouri-Shradi, Medina
CAM: Moralez
CM/DM: Parks, Sands
RB: Tinnerholm
LB: Thorarinsson
CB: Chanot, Callens
GK: Johnson

Bench/Idle
Forward
Jasson
CM/DM Acevedo, Rocha, Haak, Zelalem
CB: Ibeagha, Gray
GK Barraza, Mizell

This is sad. I don't know what happens if 1-2 players gets a knock in preseason, or pregame warmups. The only offensive bench option we have is a 19-year old with zero pro minutes. Our relative wealth of CM/DM depth includes 2 maybe promising players who I wish got some minutes last year (Acevedo and Haak), a solid mid-level MLS bench talent, and a disappointing enigma. Lineup decisions will not be hard as we only have 2 players more than 18, one of whom is a third keeper.

I cannot fault Ronny for what he said the other day about the roster. Forget quality, this team is woefully incomplete, and I don't think we can get through the first 2-3 months of the season, even if Amundsen shows up soon-ish, because it is unthinkable that nobody gets hurt even and misses any games for that length of time. Currently we have no depth at striker, none at CAM, none at FB, and 1 guy at forward. If we sign any of the academy prospects we're committed to keeping them on roster because we have no true USL affiliate.
 
only correction is that Zelalem is not available to play opening day. he's still "injured" and isn't even training with the team yet.

but yea. totally agree. our team is definitely in need of players. any injuries and we are screwed going forward and defending the wings..
 
only correction is that Zelalem is not available to play opening day. he's still "injured" and isn't even training with the team yet.

but yea. totally agree. our team is definitely in need of players. any injuries and we are screwed going forward and defending the wings..
So you’re saying I was unduly optimistic.:p
 
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- Kreis wanted a South American DP (as seen in the Win! documentary)
- Viera...well I don't know any roster complaints that he had publicly
- Dome complained that it took too long to get a striker and that Heber was 9th on the list
- Deila is complaining about the lack of quality and depth signings

The issue is greater than Reyna or Lee or NYCFC. It's CFG and the folks in Manchester and Abu Dhabi.

Other teams are signing international players and I'm not hearing complaints that they're not in training yet.

As mgarbowski mgarbowski said, this team can't be crap for 2-3 months and then suddenly recover with some secondary window signings. Just looking at roster completeness at the moment Atlanta, Chicago, Cincinnati?, Columbus, Nashville, New England, Orlando, Philadelphia, and Toronto look better than us. That's a problem and CFG looks complacent at the moment and they're going to tout the line "best regular season performance since 2015". 2 more seasons that Atlanta, of course we have more points than them. I don't care about what we did for the past 5 seasons when we haven't won anything.
 
Thing is - say we are somehow able to survive 2-3 months with who we have now. by the time summer rolls around, those guys are going to be fatigued and exhausted. a handful of signings is not going to change that and somehow recharge them with a little rotation (something we know Ronny doesn't do enough of anyway).

yea other teams are making international signings, but not sure if they are also having the same visa slowness we are. If they aren't, then CFG/NYCFC are obviously dropping the ball.

Our starting XI is not horrible, but it makes me very anxious with a congested schedule and a few injury prone players (isi, maxi, ... sands?)
 
Thing is - say we are somehow able to survive 2-3 months with who we have now. by the time summer rolls around, those guys are going to be fatigued and exhausted. a handful of signings is not going to change that and somehow recharge them with a little rotation (something we know Ronny doesn't do enough of anyway).

yea other teams are making international signings, but not sure if they are also having the same visa slowness we are. If they aren't, then CFG/NYCFC are obviously dropping the ball.

Our starting XI is not horrible, but it makes me very anxious with a congested schedule and a few injury prone players (isi, maxi, ... sands?)
I’ve been expressing the same sentiments and feeling like I made the right decision to give up my season tickets (which was primarily due to the pandemic) It was only yesterday that I walked by the subway stop we use to go to the stadium, got nostalgic and started to consider jumping back in...
Now I’m hearing echoes of my pessimism and feeling pulled back the other direction...
I’m a yo-yo / ping pong ball. I’m Jones’n for some NYCFC soccer but damn this organization is maddening...
Did we ever get the final story on the why Dome jettisoned?
 
does a deep bench matter if your coach doesn't rotate until there are injuries?
I think Deila screwed up by not rotating last year, but I don't think we can say that's typical for him or predict he'll do the same going forward. Last year was so weird and unique. Besides the covid break, and the odd schedule, the team started 1-5-0 with just 2 goals in the first 6 games. Then Maxi goes out for 7 games, Heber for 10, Sands for 6 and Mitrita leaves with 8 left just as he started clicking and probably would have gotten more minutes with Maxi and Heber hurt. I think Deila kind of freaked out, and felt he had to just keep the gas pedal down with his best remaining players all the time. I'm not defending him by pointing this out. He burned some guys out. But I do think it's not predictive of how he normally will operate. Of course the 2021 roster is creating its own challenges. Not sure how he'll react if we're 3-8-2 before new players arrive and the first half players are burned out for reasons not of his doing.

Also, when he came, there were a lot of Celtic fans on twitter and such giving us all sorts of reports. Mostly they liked him personally and were kind of split on his coaching ability, but I don't remember once hearing that he ran his players ragged by failing to rotate, failing to make substitutions, etc. I think he just made some bad decisions under hopefully never-to-be-repeated conditions.
 
I think Deila screwed up by not rotating last year, but I don't think we can say that's typical for him or predict he'll do the same going forward. Last year was so weird and unique. Besides the covid break, and the odd schedule, the team started 1-5-0 with just 2 goals in the first 6 games. Then Maxi goes out for 7 games, Heber for 10, Sands for 6 and Mitrita leaves with 8 left just as he started clicking and probably would have gotten more minutes with Maxi and Heber hurt. I think Deila kind of freaked out, and felt he had to just keep the gas pedal down with his best remaining players all the time. I'm not defending him by pointing this out, but I do think it's not predictive of how he normally will operate. Of course the 2021 roster is creating its own challenges. Not sure how he'll react if we're 3-8-2 before new players arrive and the first half players are burned out for reasons not of his doing.

Also, when he came, there were a lot of Celtic fans on twitter and such giving us all sorts of reports. Mostly they liked him personally and were kind of split on his coaching ability, but I don't remember once hearing that he ran his players ragged by failing to rotate, failing to make substitutions, etc. I think he just made some bad decisions under hopefully never-to-be-repeated conditions.

let's hope you're right and i am wrong. running our guys ragged will not help
 
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