Reinforcements must be on the way? Right?
2025 Roster and Transfer Discussion Thread
- Thread starter LionNYC
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I'm David Lee out now, before the summer transfer window. He's not going to cut loose all his pieces that aren't working: Julian, Ojeda, Barker. They all should be transferred or released. Sign better U22s and TAM players.
It's going to be a long 2 months until the summer transfer window and then after that it's going to be even longer.
It's going to be a long 2 months until the summer transfer window and then after that it's going to be even longer.
Our roster feels almost like a reverse money ball situation. In the movie (and I guess real life) when the coach of the A’s wasn't taking Billy Bean’s advice and playing the players he wanted out on the field, Bean eventually traded away their “Star” player to force the coaches hand. In this case Lee won’t add any players forcing Jansen to play with the poor hand Lee dealt him.
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Anyone else get the feeling from Pascal's post MTL game press conference that he might be high on Ojeda? Based on his lineup choices, I was starting to think he favored Fernandez, and an Ojeda breakout was looking less likely. In the press conference, Pascal kept talking about how well Ojeda plays in practice, and he brought him up a number of times when he talked about needing to unlock talent. It made me wonder if Ojeda's lack of playing time is due to Pascal seeing the potential in Ojeda and trying to push him to step up as opposed to Fernandez actually being above him on the depth chart.
When he was on the field, he was def getting directly coached by Pascal more than any other player. Sounded like a mix of good and bad but in any event a commitment to guide him.
I'm very interested to see if we see any outgoing transfers during the summer. Either from the club cutting their losses, or players wanting a different opportunity. There are certainly some candidates:
1. Risa - lost his starting job to Haak, does he leave to find a team where he can start
2. Bakrar - when does either side admit this, just isn't going to work
3. Gray or Illenic - does one leave to find a permanent starting spot as opposed to this current paltoon situation
4. Tana - The Serbian big brother role is no longer required, and if he keeps getting cards, you have to imagine a reduction in playing time is coming.
1. Risa - lost his starting job to Haak, does he leave to find a team where he can start
2. Bakrar - when does either side admit this, just isn't going to work
3. Gray or Illenic - does one leave to find a permanent starting spot as opposed to this current paltoon situation
4. Tana - The Serbian big brother role is no longer required, and if he keeps getting cards, you have to imagine a reduction in playing time is coming.
watch none of those happen and instead, martinez leaves to europe or south america for a large-ish sum, Lee lauds it as a great move, blah blah blah, and we go from relying on martinez to score to being even worse. ya know, cause that's just how it seems to be going lately
And then it takes Lee 2 transfer windows to replace Martinez because he needs to be careful to get the right guy, like when he took his time replacing Taty, and the right player he eventually picked was Bakrar. Yeah, sounds about right.
We have not been moving with alacrity, that's for sure.
I do think we'll be keeping Alonso for a while, though. He might even be a lifer.
I'm pretty sure Bakrar is moving on. We may keep Risa to pair with Haak if Martins moves on, too.
My guess is the Gray/Ilenic platoon will continue since they're so complementary and they both have a way of picking up knocks.
Tanasijevic may get another year if Murray and Amponsah both need another year of development. If they're ready, he may go.
But everything hangs on the summer window. Lee is clearly going to get an opportunity to fill out the squad according to whatever strategy we're operating under, and at least the rhetoric about Pascal having his say is on the right track. Whether that's fluff or not remains to be seen. But we're not bad right now. We're just young, inconsistent and incomplete. With the right additions we could get really good, really fast.
The flip side: another crap window with a couple more development projects signing on the dotted line and we're in trouble.
ZYanksRule
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My concern is in giving Lee this window, because he has not exhibited the ability to scout and recruit the right players to the squad over the last 3 seasons -- especially at the DP/U-22 level -- and if we allow him to make more mistakes in the summer window it will set us back even further.
Honestly, I've run out of patience with this sporting director and I don't think he should be the one making those decisions in the summer.
Unfortunately I think the most likely summer departure is Freese.
I'm almost positive no change is going to be made before the end of the year. Whatever happens, it's going to be David Lee who does it.
ZYanksRule
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I think you're right, and I think that's going to prove to be a mistake. I hope I'm wrong about that.
Me too. If we don't get it right this window, we're into a rebuild of the rebuild. Which would suck.
That would suck. But even worse would be denying that it needs to happen. There is going to be a point soon where whoever is making the decisions will need to get out of Ojeda and Fernandez so this team can move forward.
Circling back to the O and F discussion a few days ago, I think I’m even more annoyed if they have the talent but just don’t play with the same aggression in game that they show in practice. While that too can be a youth issue, it’s frustrating to see young talented guys be given a chance to step up and rather than fail, they shrink.
Same with Talles. OK, they asked him to play a new position, but he never even tried. It’s not like he played 5-10 games in center, back to goal, holding defenders off with his arms, and failed. He just Bartleby’d and lost his job until they sent him home to Brazil. Guy is bigger than Taty and chose not to be physical.
Try! Do things! You can just do things!
Same with Talles. OK, they asked him to play a new position, but he never even tried. It’s not like he played 5-10 games in center, back to goal, holding defenders off with his arms, and failed. He just Bartleby’d and lost his job until they sent him home to Brazil. Guy is bigger than Taty and chose not to be physical.
Try! Do things! You can just do things!
I still argue that, at least on the offensive side of things, this current roster is Lee's second rebuild, and we would be entering the third at this point. So maybe a rebuild of the rebuild of the rebuild?
Championship Attack: Santi, Taty, Maxi, Medina (Bench: Magno, Heber, ITS)
Rebuild 1: Thiago, ST Magno, Santi, Pereira (Bench: Pellegrini, Segal, Jasson)
Rebuild 2 (current): Ojeda/Fernandez, Martinez, Wolf (Bench: Jovan (already gone), Bakrar)
Rebuild 1 took 2 years and culminated in our worst season since year 1 in 2023. Now, approaching two years later, every player from rebuild 1 is gone. Lee wiped the slate clean, picked 6 new players, and we are right back where we were in 2023. The only reason we are not worse is that we got lucky, and a guy Lee signed to be winger depth turned out to be a fantastic striker. This guy is comically bad at picking players.
This is where I think Pascal is trying to go: the "bulletproof mentality" is about being brave and just going for it. It seems he sees it in training but not on gamedays.
Why? Could it be the current roster is conditioned from the Cushing years to pull back and be conservative rather than be daring and attack? Is playing not to lose rather than playing to win ingrained now? If that's the case, is it Nick's fault, or simply a matter of being traumatized during the transition? And if the latter is the case, is the roster simply too young and not professional enough?
I really don't know what the answers to any of those questions are. Maybe it's a combination of all of them and all we need is a few more seasoned pros like Aiden to balance the roster. Maybe guys like Ojeda and Fernandez will show out once they have the confidence it's not all on them.
But I must be honest: I thought we would be there by now. Obviously, losing Santi threw a spanner in the works, as they say, and it's possible that threw off the timing on the project. I can only hope we stalled this last window because Lee is waiting for European targets to come free and we're going to hit it big this summer.
That's not unfair. And if we misfire again this summer, I'll be more than happy to join the chorus.
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