I’m not sure that’s right. At least, I thought he did fine. And although we had a few vocal, persistent complainers, was it really a majority view?
Cincinnati (Away) - Postmatch
- Thread starter LionNYC
- Start date
Again, what is this “valuable role” you referred to??? Mitri doesn’t do anything that can be done better by our other wings. He’s also guilty of the exact type of defensive play that kept Lewis’s from getting minutes, while also not being as productive as Lewis was.
Last, comparing Mitri’s statistics to Maxi’s first year is a false equivalency. Maxi very often put the ball on the attackers foot/head but he was dealing with such a drop in talent that they couldn’t convert - he did everything asked of him. Mitri can’t blame anybody but himself for not scoring as a forward and misplacing passes his teammates have no chance at.
Yeah I think it was 50-50. Or maybe 40-60 pro Maxi vs against.
Comparing Maxi and Mitri's first year stats is a bit misleading IMO because they are playing different roles. If Mitri was dropping back next to our DMs to pick up the ball and get it to our wingers and still posting Maxi first year stats, then I'd probably be on FootyLovin side of the debate.
A lot of the stuff that Maxi does doesn't end up showing in standard stats. That's also why a lot of people were defending him in year 1. Mitri _only_ does the stuff that shows up in standard stats, and it's not that much of it to boot, which is why a lot of people are already talking about cutting ties.
I think this is spot-on, and is the reason why I defended Maxi since day 1. Maxi arrived and pretty much on his first match realized the team had problems moving the ball forward through the opponent's press and made it his duty. He became a hub. He was getting a lot of touches and, for a guy who was only starting to acclimate to the city, team, league, etc., he was having an excellent completion rate. He was solving problems. A lot of the criticism of him pointed to the fact that his touches were meh, repetitive, slow, whatever. The fact that the team was still a work in progress IMHO accounted for the fact that he could not play any faster or more incisively.
Mitri OTOH is difficult to say whether he is solving problems or creating problems. On top of all the other warranted criticism of him, it seems to me he drifts back too much, often even to our own half, and then quite often proceeds to lose the ball either by unnecessary dribbling far from the opponent's goal or by a stray pass. And of course, he pouts and makes only a token effort to win the ball back.
Maybe it's a justified culmination of disappointment but this seems like an odd game to pile on Mitri. Aside from some sulking at the end it appears to me that he's reduced most of his bad habits considerably over the last two games. He's pressing and tracking back more often, he's passed considerably more frequently in the attacking 3rd and I didn't see him dribble into the defense and lose the ball once. I'm still not convinced that he's going to live up to the price we paid for him but the last two games I've seen signs that he's starting to buy into the system and trust his teammates which gives me a small glimmer of hope he might figure it out.
It seems clear to me that Mitri is working on adjusting to MLS and this team and equally clear that he isn't there yet.
He is different now than at the start of the season. He is dribbling into traffic less and passing more. He is hanging out up front less and tracking back more.
Given his talent, he should be having a stronger impact on the game, but I am seeing effort and some progress. His passes are not accurate enough to make a difference, and his effort around the field is higher, but not smarter. Both of those things can easily get better, so I am still inclined to give him time before rendering judgment.
He is different now than at the start of the season. He is dribbling into traffic less and passing more. He is hanging out up front less and tracking back more.
Given his talent, he should be having a stronger impact on the game, but I am seeing effort and some progress. His passes are not accurate enough to make a difference, and his effort around the field is higher, but not smarter. Both of those things can easily get better, so I am still inclined to give him time before rendering judgment.
Mitri is not *not* performing. Medina is not performing. If your opinion begins with hyperbole, it's not objective.
This was definitely the mantra for Maxi in 2017, although I agree with much of the above about how Maxi and Mitri are different players and need to be judged differently.
Medina is not playing. Mitri is not performing. Not hyperbole.
Mitrita is our fifth highest rated player on Whoscored.com and has 6 goals in 16 starts. Performing, he is.
Performing relative to expectations, maybe not. But that's not your claim. Look around the league, if you expect our three best players to consistently be three DPs and any deviation is a failure, you're going to be calling our management a failure almost 100% of the time.
I cited in a previous post that Mitri is 48th in the league in scoring. He’s a DP forward. 6 goals is not performing - that is pedestrian in the league.
And Management has underperformed from tying up the club with Pirlo, to striking out with Medina&Mitri, to not cutting Mix sooner, not cutting TMac sooner, giving a raise/new contract to Saunders/RJ/TMac/Sweat that was more than their worth, to not solidifying the RB backup position, to carrying the Mata/Sweat combo, etc, etc, etc.
Agree on all of this. But, to be fair they’ve hit HRs on a bunch of their TAM signings which has helped mask some of the glaring mistakes/mismanagement.
How does Mitri rank compared to the other DPs around the league? I wonder if other teams have the same issue as us with DPs being outperformed by guys on TAM deals instead.
I think this is a really important (and usually overlooked) point. If you switch Heber and Taty's contracts with Mitri and Medina's, does that suddenly make our front office great rather than incompetent?
Soon someone's gonna come out saying "the FO is so smart because they subverted expectations away from the actual DP players and put it on two shitty players, so everyone forgets about the other two not-shitty players! haha! Smart office!
A list of current DPs from Wikipedia below. There are 16 teams that are using all 3 Designated Player spots. I'd say that Atlanta and Portland are both getting good value from all 3, though it did take time for both Barco and Blanco to get settled into the league. Arguments could be made for Toronto, DCU, and LAG (Alessandrini has been good, but obviously injured) and LAFC, Seattle are TBDs for their 3rd DP as their top 2 have been great.
| Year signed as DP | Player | Nation | Current club | 2019 guaranteed compensation[14] |
|---|---|---|---|---|
2018 |  | $1,425,000 | ||
2017 |  | $3,058,333 | ||
2019 | | $900,000 | ||
2019 |  | $1,380,333 | ||
2017 |  | $1,913,333 | ||
2017 |  | $5,600,000 | ||
2016 |  | $2,475,000 | ||
2019 |  | $n/a | ||
2017 |  | $864,560 | ||
2019 | | $1,471,667 | ||
2017 | | $707,000 | ||
2019 | | $298,550 | ||
2018 |  | $3,507,500 | ||
2014 |  | $1,965,008 | ||
2019 | | $333,125 | ||
2019 |  | $650,000 | ||
2018 |  | $591,400 | ||
2017 | | $650,340 | ||
2017 | | $386,804 | ||
2020 | | $n/a | ||
2017 |  | $1,869,996 | ||
2017 |  | $2,000,000 | ||
2019 |  | $7,200,000 | ||
2019 |  | $n/a | ||
2018 | | $1,052,000 | ||
2018 | | $6,300,000 | ||
2019 | | $n/a | ||
2019 |  | $883,500 | ||
2018 | | $1,750,000 | ||
2014 | | $4,443,333 | ||
2018 |  | $1,400,000 | ||
2019 | | $n/a | ||
2019 |  | $2,337,500 | ||
2018 |  | $870,833 | ||
2019 |  | $500,000 | ||
2017 | | $2,000,000 | ||
2018 | | $800,000 | ||
2019 | | $n/a | ||
2016 | | $1,380,000 | ||
2018 | | $1,503,333 | ||
2019 | Nani | | $2,486,250 | |
2019 | | $n/a | ||
2016 | | $1,266,250 | ||
2019 | | $2,274,087 | ||
2017 | | $1,375,008 | ||
2019 | | $1,275,800 | ||
2013 | | $2,420,000 | ||
2019 |  | $718,750 | ||
2017 | | $2,001,667 | ||
2017 | | $498,696 | ||
2017 |  | $1,604,042 | ||
2017 | | $800,000 | ||
2019 |  | $500,850 | ||
2016 | | $2,502,500 | ||
2018 |  | $1,800,000 | ||
2018 | | $730,008 | ||
2018 |  | $1,650,000 | ||
2019 |  | $1,700,000 | ||
2015 | | $6,332,250 | ||
2014 | | $6,428,571 | ||
2019 | | $3,800,000 | ||
2019 |  | $547,333 | ||
2019 |  | $655,000 | ||
2019 | | $968,000 |
I have been on the Mitri was a bad personnel decision by the front office band wagon going back a few months. Looking at other DP signings around the league this year, I can’t believe that NYCFC brought in a player that doesn’t have game changing impact. Mitri is also a player that doesn’t seem to fit into the type of system Dome wants to play.
It seems like NYCFC is shopping at the five and dime when it comes to defensive help, e.g. Miller and Rocha. Sands being out for the season now creates an even mired glaring backline weakness. That said, the team is 4 points from the top of the east. I think it makes it that much more frustrating that our two most recent DP’s do not impact the game on a level of Pozuelo, Fernandez, Gil, Bou...
It seems like NYCFC is shopping at the five and dime when it comes to defensive help, e.g. Miller and Rocha. Sands being out for the season now creates an even mired glaring backline weakness. That said, the team is 4 points from the top of the east. I think it makes it that much more frustrating that our two most recent DP’s do not impact the game on a level of Pozuelo, Fernandez, Gil, Bou...
That’s where my head is at. Teams have limited windows to win (especially in a capped league). Look how dominant Toronto was a couple years back, and now look at them. This is our time. There is a great base of talent on this team. It only needs a couple DPs to put them over the top and have us dominating like LAFC. But we didn’t go that way pre-season. And then mid-season when the club saw we are so close, didn’t bother to at the very least trade out Medina for a difference maker to make the extra push for a title. That’s why I feel they really don’t give a damn.
Right, I get the feeling that CFG is not fully committed to NYCFC. That feeling is part of what has me on the fence about renewing my season tickets for 2020.
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