2025 Roster and Transfer Discussion Thread
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ZYanksRule
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I'm willing to give Ojeda more time because it's his first year with us, and we all know that there's first-year tax for many players in MLS. Bakrar and Fernandez I agree with you. They both have been here long enough. I would love to sell Fernandez off and find a way to get Bakrar off the roster.
Ojeda showed enough promise to earn playing time I agree with you that I think there is still a chance he develops. Fernandez looks like the same player he's been since his arrival. I don't see how a player that has shown no development for over a year is going to magically figure it out next season.
The comments from others that Cushing didn't play the young guys enough seem to ignore that the coaching staff is seeing these guys in practice every day. Cushing very much seems like a reward-effort type of coach. Given how little effort Jovan showed in games I can't even imagine how lazy he is in practice. Jovan played 2 full open cup games with NYCFC2 and produced nothing of note. He made two starts and a handful of sub-appearances for the first team and looked completely disinterested. He showed up out of shape and didn't play hard when he was given his chances, how on earth could anyone justify playing him more than we did?
rewarding hard work for playing time is good. but how bad do you have to be to have your position (ojeda at left wing) be taken by a d-mid (perea)? i think most would agree ojeda did not look terrible when we played. he had some sparks of nice plays and seemed to have fairly good work ethic. he's still pretty young, but i think there's improvement and potential there. but still - how bad of a winger do you have to be to have your coach prefer a dmid over you?
i'd be curious what nick is thinking. is it all about rewarding effort in training or is it something else? we'll probably never know.
That is just when it's sent to the league office. They can make it public afterward.
Yesterday I discussed the minute crunch among forwards as a problem for the team. The flip side is obvious but worth stating directly: it was terrible for the players caught up in it as well. I further believe that Bakrar's failures made everything worse down the line. At season's start, there were 2 strikers with Bakrar in front of Jovan. Among wingers, it went Santi (sometimes), probably Wolf and Martinez, then Ojeda/Fernandez/Jones.
If Bakrar produced, then Jovan probably gets regular minutes as a fill in and Nick maybe never experiments with Martinez as striker, or does so sparingly at best. Then you play mostly Martinez and Wolf at wing, have 3 regular scorers (Bakrar, Santi, Martinez) and have the luxury of rotating the kids from time to time with less pressure to produce immediately and regularly because you can still have 2 of your 3 consistent goal scorers in the lineup.
But Bakrar struggled, and we scored 5 goals in the first 7 games. So Martinez moves to striker 1a in front of Jovan, and and eventually #1, with Bakrar a distant 2 and Jovan now 3. But the Martinez shift didn't open anything for most of the wingers because Jones claws his way to the top of the reserve winger pile, and his injury coincides almost simultaneously with Maxi returning. Santi spends most of the remainder as Winger #1. And then because nobody left scores much of anything besides Moralez and Santi, the rotation tightens.
But starting the season with 4 promising but very raw forwards all age 20 and younger meant it was always likely some of them would get shorted on minutes. Bakrar's struggles just made it worse.
ZYanksRule
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There were rumors last winter that Jovan didn't really want to come. Then he played like he didn't want to be here.
Does Jovan want to be here? If not, he needs to be moved. His work ethic this year wasn't at the level, and if he doesn't want to be here CFG needs to figure out where to send him.
It makes sense but Jones showed that regardless of congestion Nick is more than willing to find increasing amounts of time for players that are making the most of their chances. Given how much we paid for the 3 young prospects they should have been skilled enough to push some of the established starters for time.
The sub and rotation situation also undermines the argument of too many guys. As others have pointed out we started and subbed on Perea over any of the winger choices multiple times. Wolf got run into the ground and we played with fire IMO by playing 37 year old Maxi nearly every game because Cushing couldn't trust any of the young guys. We needed all those guys down the stretch and none of them were good enough to play even for 15 min at the end of a game because whenever any of them entered the game our offense fell apart.
ZYanksRule
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Yep -- I firmly believe this is a problem with those players and not a coaching issue. Nick played the guys he could trust at the end of the season.
To be fair, the actual wingers came on just a couple of minutes later. Still, your point is well taken.
This is a related point. Maxi was hurt down the stretch and on Saturday, and yet he was going 90 minutes every game. He had no pace, couldn't take a free kick or a corner, and was going to be our last penalty taker in Cincinnati. Yet, none of the young wingers impressed enough for Cushing to play them and reduce Maxi's minutes.
Regarding our strikers, remember that Martinez greatly outplayed his xG over the season, with 16 goals on 9.28 xG. The only players to have a greater G-xG in MLS were Messi and Suarez. On the other hand, Bakrar was under his xG, with only 4 goals on 7.76 xG, 5th worst in the league.
Almost all players regress (or progress) to the mean on these stats. If you look at xG/90, Martinez has 0.501, and Bakrar has 0.451.
That's a long way of saying I like both of these guys, and it's not worth giving up on one or relying too much on the other.
Almost all players regress (or progress) to the mean on these stats. If you look at xG/90, Martinez has 0.501, and Bakrar has 0.451.
That's a long way of saying I like both of these guys, and it's not worth giving up on one or relying too much on the other.
The good news about Martinez is his xG is high enough that he's a solid scorer without exceeding his xGoal. It would be a drop off but still solid.
The bad news about Bakrar is he is the only player in the ASA database with 2 years in the bottom 25 all time for G-xG per game, minimum 800 minutes. Expand to the worst 100 seasons and he is one of 6, which oddly also includes Heber (2020 and 2023 Seattle), Rodney Wallace (2017, 2018), a pair of at least partial Red Bulls (Tom Barlow and Klimala), and then Sergio Santos (Cincy and Philly 2022 and 2024). Notably, Heber's bad years involved Covid and an injury, then age. Wallace was just a bad shooter. I don't know about the other guys.
The worse news about Bakrar is he also has 2 of the worst 9 xPlace seasons in the ASA database with the same filters, with xPlace being the difference between pre-shot and post-shot xG values. That suggests his issue is not bad luck but an inability to put the ball on target with pace.
If the plan is for Magno to come back, then this is basically where we are headed:
Martinez
Magno - Santi - Wolf
Parks - Sands
OT - Haak - Martins - Mitja
Quibble if you want over Haak/Risa, Mitja/Tayvon, but that is basically the lineup with a returned Magno. Maybe Cushing starts subbing early and often, giving players opportunities and also rotation. Enter any or all of Maxi, Malachi/Ojeda, Fernandez, Bakrar/Jovan for front 4. Unless Magno has taken a huge step forward, hard to see this team dramatically out performing.
OTOH, if the plan is to leave Magno out on loan, where would we most benefit from a DP3?
DP3
Ojeda/Malachi - Santi - Wolf
Parks - Sands
OT - Haak - Martins - Mitja
OR:
Martinez
Ojeda/Malachi - Santi - Wolf
DP3 - Sands
OT - Haak - Martins - Mitja
A killer striker in front of Santi is pretty appealing. However, give Martinez a full season and even with regression you'd expect 12+ goals out of him. But put a great box-to-box passer with an engine next to Santi and does that open up the front 3?
Martinez
Magno - Santi - Wolf
Parks - Sands
OT - Haak - Martins - Mitja
Quibble if you want over Haak/Risa, Mitja/Tayvon, but that is basically the lineup with a returned Magno. Maybe Cushing starts subbing early and often, giving players opportunities and also rotation. Enter any or all of Maxi, Malachi/Ojeda, Fernandez, Bakrar/Jovan for front 4. Unless Magno has taken a huge step forward, hard to see this team dramatically out performing.
OTOH, if the plan is to leave Magno out on loan, where would we most benefit from a DP3?
DP3
Ojeda/Malachi - Santi - Wolf
Parks - Sands
OT - Haak - Martins - Mitja
OR:
Martinez
Ojeda/Malachi - Santi - Wolf
DP3 - Sands
OT - Haak - Martins - Mitja
A killer striker in front of Santi is pretty appealing. However, give Martinez a full season and even with regression you'd expect 12+ goals out of him. But put a great box-to-box passer with an engine next to Santi and does that open up the front 3?
Re Nick:
Any evaluation of his playoff performance has to focus on 3 out of 4 playoff games failing to score a single goal.
Any evaluation of his playoff performance has to focus on 3 out of 4 playoff games failing to score a single goal.
ZYanksRule
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Do we think Santi can be that No. 10? I don't -- I think he needs the ball at his feet too much and doesn't make the people around him better.
I think I'm OK with Alonso at the No. 9, I want Santi on a wing and I want a new DP No. 10 who can be a star in this league the way Maxi was.
I still think Martin’s worth it. He is our captain, he can communicate with everyone basically in their own language, and he really feels like the leader figure a young squad needs. Take him out and we flounder even more. Sands couldn’t hack it, Maxi is more a mentor than a leader right now. I don’t think it’s smart to remove our rock at this moment without bringing in another leader to transition Martins out.
Two of those came in a series we won. I agree the failure to score was significantly on Cushing because he played not to concede, but it worked, so it's kind of odd to find fault. The third game Saturday was poor shooting.
Before these playoffs Cushing coached 11 knockouts (Campeones, USOC, Leagues Cup knockout, and MLS playoffs). We were blanked in 3 of them, and 2 of those were 2023 USOC and LC when we had an anemic roster.
Sadly, outside of Castellanos in the 2021 playoffs, NYCFC's best scorers have a horrible record in knockout competition scoring.
Villa scored 3 goals in 9 combined playoff and USOC appearances compared to 77 goals in 117 regular season games.
Besides one 3 goal burst in his first CCL game, Heber did little in knockouts until the 2022 Playoffs (under Nick as it happens though Heber gets the credit).
Excluding the 2021 playoffs, Taty scored 0 goals in 4 playoff and 5 USOC games.
This year, Martinez scored 0.96 Goals per 90 in the regular season, and just 0.23 in Leagues Cup and Playoffs.
Besides the blanks against Cincinnati (again in a series we won) I would only categorize the 2016 Toronto playoff 7-0 agg as being possibly coaching induced. Vieira set us up to draw in the first Away game in that series. Once Toronto scored in '84 of that game, NYCFC collapsed.
But the rest of it is players not producing when most needed.
Coaches set atmosphere. Players play.
