I hope when Bakrar does finall score that it’s at a home game , it’s going to be one hell of a celebration
2024 Roster and Transfer Discussion Thread
- Thread starter JayH
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According to FotMob he has 22 goals in 104 matches, which likely includes tournaments in addition to league games. That's 1 goal every 4.75 appearances (not accounting or adjusting for minutes played). Detailed stats for his seasons in Algeria and even Croatia are scarce so we only know that in one season in Croatia he averaged a modest 0.43 G/90. For reference Heber scored 0.85 G/90 in 2 seasons in Croatia. In MLS play last year Bakrar had 0.36 G/90 which is down but within statistical noise for a very small 10 game sample. Add in this year's minutes and he's down to 0.19 G/90 over 1,416 minutes. He is currently on a 12 game scoreless streak dating back to September 20, 2023.
My dig last night was directed more to the club FO than to him, and as context I mention that from the time Taty left to when Bakrar showed up, the team scored a total of 4 goals from the striker position in 38 league games (2 Heber and 2 Segal). Since Bakrar arrived they have 3 striker goals in 19 games, which is better, but still extremely poor. Though I concede Bakrar is not as bad as his 2024 form, I wonder why the FO thought he was worth waiting for through 2 transfer windows. Or was it a different sort of failure, where they sat out 2 windows and then could not get anyone of real quality and settled just to produce a body.
Lee and CFG decided to sacrifice half of both 2022 and 2023 purportedly in order to get the guy they wanted, who, charitably, was a middling player in Croatia. In his one season he tied for 10th most goals in a 10 team league. And in the offseason between 2023 and 2024 NYC added a second striker who is a homesick teenager with mystery visa issues who has not been fit enough to play significant minutes through more than a quarter of the season. There is zero sense that NOW is at all a priority. Taty was a project but he had first Villa then Heber in front of him on the depth chart. 12 games from now will be 68 games - 2 full seasons - since Taty left. Do we, will we, have a goal scorer capable of scoring about 14-16 goals a season? Some of our secondary scorers are picking up, but none so much that you can hide an absence of goals from the striker position.
Bakrar won't fail to score forever. He is better than he has shown in 2024. And I agree that his work rate and other contributions are great. But nothing in his history suggests he's ready to become a top 10 scorer in MLS.
He's on pace to play just over 2200 minutes. If he somehow gets his G/90 up to 0.43 for the full season (which would require scoring about 0.59 G/90 the remainder) he will finish with 10 or 11 goals. Last year 11 goals was good enough to tie for places 16-20 in the league scoring table.
Maybe he takes a big step up, but if not it is fair to conclude this club is aiming (or at least destined) for mediocrity.
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Not going to dispute any of your critique of the club, but I do think there is a case that this club is built to succeed with a 10 goal scorer at ST. Some teams need a talisman at that position. Others are built for more distributed scoring.
Santi certainly looks like he will hit 10, and maybe 15+, though he could revert to the mean as much as Bakrar could. Could Julian? Ojeda? What about when Magno returns?
That's a fair point I considered and can't fully discount. Just based on eyeballing the MLS tables over several years, the correlation between finishing 1-4 and having a top scorer with 14 or more is imperfect at best. For whatever reason, Western teams seem to finish near the top without a single strong scorer more than teams in the East do. That's just random I would guess, but it's a guess for sure.
But there isn't zero correlation either.
Also as you note, maybe Santi becomes a 15 goal guy this year. It doesn't have t be a striker. On the whole though, I think you make things harder than necessary when you settle for OK production at the 9 position.
A farewell to NYCFC Source
In this exclusive interview, we talk to the teenager behind the anonymous account that consistently broke New York City FC transfer news.
www.hudsonriverblue.com
Like all things NYCFC Source, that interview seems to be a a mix of fact and fantasy. I'd guess it is leaning heavier on the fantasy.
Yeahhhh, what actual adult would use a 16 year old as an agent in the USL or anywhere? That’s just sounds so fake…
The boastfulness is just overwhelming. I wish him luck in his professional career, but his boastfulness is a gigantic red flag for me.
I muted his account at least a year ago. I expected the interview to display some growth, but nah.
