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
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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.
Alonso Martinez as striker is so NYCFC post Taty era. Maybe Talles can play LB when he is healthy.
Can we take a min to talk about Kevin O'toole, as I feel like he is wildly underrated by a large portion of the fanbase? He puts in a good cross, can dribble out of trouble, has good overlap play, has a high work rate, has gotten better every year, and is okay on defense. He misses some tackles but he's an attacking fullback, I really don't think he's worse on D than a typical MLS fullback. Attacking-focused fullbacks are shaky on D all over the world. This is also the MLS, if the guy could attack the way he does and then defend like a CB he wouldn't be in this league anymore.
I see very little difference between Illenic and O'toole. Illenic gets caught out and beat off the dribble just as often as O'toole but people seem to consistently praise Illenic while complaining about O'toole. O'toole is a super draft pick that worked out for us, costs next to nothing from a cap perspective, and reliably puts in a shift every game. I don't understand the general complaints about the guy from the fan base.
I see very little difference between Illenic and O'toole. Illenic gets caught out and beat off the dribble just as often as O'toole but people seem to consistently praise Illenic while complaining about O'toole. O'toole is a super draft pick that worked out for us, costs next to nothing from a cap perspective, and reliably puts in a shift every game. I don't understand the general complaints about the guy from the fan base.
I would say that because Risa is the CB on his side, his defensive vulnerability may tend to lead to more dangerous shooting chances for our rivals than Ilenic's vulnerability, because Thiago is a much stronger defender than Risa. There also may be some sunk cost fallacy operating there, in the sense that Ilenic cost a bit in transfer fee and is a very young prospect we expected much from, so we may tend to give him more leeway.
I should be used to it but it still befuddles me when someone points to the lowest salaried starting player on a team in MLS and think that suggesting the team get someone better at that position is a solid point.
It's different in MLS because other salary capped (or constrained) leagues are structured such that you pay all your starters and limit yourself on the bench. Nobody in the NBA pinches salary on their top 6 players; NHL teams pay their top 2 lines; NFL is very positionally stratified and has rookie contract rules but you still let most of your salary constraints apply against depth. MLS is unusual in that you commonly pay your 4th-7th best attacking players who rarely start more than your cheapest 2-3 starters. Those guys are going to be exposed, and will often have an obvious talent gap compared to the rest of the team, but you really need them. Further, because teams don't all slot those cheap players in the same positions, you will see other MLS teams with a much better player at that position, and not necessarily think: but they have a crappy CB, or DMid, or whatever and that's how they pay for it.
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Guilty as charged. I wasn't sure of him myself, but I was wrong.
Another thing worth mentioning: he's super intelligent, and always seems to be talking to Cushing during breaks in the action. That tells me he's got an in-game critique ongoing in his head. Very healthy for himself and for the squad.
Kevin, if you are reading this. I also give you props on your effort on the pitch. I was saying to myself a few weeks back, self,”Me thinks Kevin O’Toole isn’t as bad as the collective seems to think.”
Not that it matters but,
It appears that my post may have stirred up a feisty defense of K.O’.
Intentionally, it had nothing to do with Kevin other than mentioning his position (or maybe not, is he LB or LWB?) that seems to get mentioned all year round and I was really just making a bad joke about what seems to be the never ending Striker experiment post Taty.
My apologies to Kevin for any insensitivity.
Not that it matters but,
It appears that my post may have stirred up a feisty defense of K.O’.
Intentionally, it had nothing to do with Kevin other than mentioning his position (or maybe not, is he LB or LWB?) that seems to get mentioned all year round and I was really just making a bad joke about what seems to be the never ending Striker experiment post Taty.
My apologies to Kevin for any insensitivity.
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I wasn't referencing any post in particular. I mostly notice it in the game day chats as it seems like O'toole gets held to a different standard. Illenic gets beat on the wing and people will say something like "He needs to do better on that play". O'toole gets beat and it's consistently "We need a better LB, O'toole is not the guy!"
I think part of it is baggage from his start with the team. K.O. was called up from NYCFC II as an injury replacement and for his first few games he looked about as shakey as you would expect an NYCFC II player getting thrown into MLS to look. People got used to the idea of oh no we are starting that minor league replacement guy again I hope it doesn't cost us. Every mistake by him was evidence that we were playing with fire by starting a subpar player. It feels like a lot of fans still view him as a subpar filler player just occupying a hole in the roster we have yet to fill and use every small mistake he makes as evidence for that position.
He's gotten a lot better since then, he is a legit MLS-level starting LB at this point. Given his roster costs he's a massive asset to the club. Superdraft picks that grow into consistent starters are incredibly rare and are usually celebrated by the fans of MLS clubs so its odd the way many NYCFC fans view K.O. I guarantee if we cut him tomorrow he would have offers from several other MLS clubs.
I love cheering on and supporting Kevin when we're attacking towards the first base goal and he's on the left side towards Pitchside.
And right on cue From Doyle::
left back Kevin O’Toole has developed into one of the most effective attacking left backs in the league.
left back Kevin O’Toole has developed into one of the most effective attacking left backs in the league.
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