2025 Roster and Transfer Discussion Thread

[FootyLovin]

Maxi was signed 3.5 weeks before the first public Santi rumor. Maybe Lee had no idea Santi might leave when he signed Maxi, but to me Occam's Razor says Maxi was signed to play the 10 as much as he was healthy for, and to run him into the ground in case Santi was sold.

He got hurt, he hasn’t produced at a higher level, he allowed Lee an excuse to further sit on his hands, and we continue to struggle just hoping to make the playoffs and lose. We should have signed a game changing CAM earlier (it can only be debated how far back that should have been).

I get these arguments. I think there is a higher level fundamental issue. We are looking at Santi and Maxi as the CAM question. For me, more broadly it is a question of consistently fully utilizing the DP mechanism. It is the most powerful performance lever available to every team.

Santi's departure gave Lee 8 weeks to replace a DP. Magno's departure gave Lee 7 months.

Imagine we had a DP striker. Santi leaves, but our front 4 are still Hannes, Alonso, Maxi, DP9. Or a DP winger keeps Alonso at the 9 with Hannes and Maxi. We lost Santi, but I'll bet on Maxi being better than bottom third with those 3 ahead of him. And with Santi there and Maxi as super sub, we are a contender.

The biggest issue isn't that Lee signed Maxi to play the 10. The biggest issue is that Lee (or I'd be willing to bet, CFG) are happy to not carry all 3 DP spots.

 

[FootyLovin]

Also, at the end of his evolution with us, he was a dribble-happy and slightly chaotic kind of orchestrator (the opposite of Maxi, in fact) but that may have been because everyone else in our front line (Wolf, Ojeda, Julian, Maxi) was very dribble-averse, so he was a singular weapon. With such an incomplete and mismatched offense it is difficult to gauge how good the scarce good parts (right now Alonso and Wolf) potentially are.

I think you could also at least raise the question of how much of Santi's dribbling decision making was driven by the coaching / relationship he had with Cushing.

 

[KevinJRogers]

With such an incomplete and mismatched offense it is difficult to gauge how good the scarce good parts (right now Alonso and Wolf) potentially are.

Key insight. I'm hoping with Nico coming on, we'll finally get some answers, and not just about them.

 

[KevinJRogers]

The biggest issue isn't that Lee signed Maxi to play the 10. The biggest issue is that Lee (or I'd be willing to bet, CFG) are happy to not carry all 3 DP spots.

Another key insight.

 

[mgarbowski]

I get these arguments. I think there is a higher level fundamental issue. We are looking at Santi and Maxi as the CAM question. For me, more broadly it is a question of consistently fully utilizing the DP mechanism. It is the most powerful performance lever available to every team.

Santi's departure gave Lee 8 weeks to replace a DP. Magno's departure gave Lee 7 months.

Imagine we had a DP striker. Santi leaves, but our front 4 are still Hannes, Alonso, Maxi, DP9. Or a DP winger keeps Alonso at the 9 with Hannes and Maxi. We lost Santi, but I'll bet on Maxi being better than bottom third with those 3 ahead of him. And with Santi there and Maxi as super sub, we are a contender.

The biggest issue isn't that Lee signed Maxi to play the 10. The biggest issue is that Lee (or I'd be willing to bet, CFG) are happy to not carry all 3 DP spots.

We formally opted into the model of 2 DP spots and 4 U22 spots, instead of 3 and 3. I think that an unstated aspect of your point but there's a bigger picture. Regardless of the chosen model, we are 2 short of the full cohort.

I think a team can switch mid-year under the right circumstances and I have no idea if we qualify. Here is the March roster profile, which reflects the official compliance date in February. Excluding players on loan, we had 1 DP (Martins) and 2 U22 (Fernandez and Ojeda)

With the addition of Nico, we have 2 DP and 2 U22. We went through most of the season with just 3 of the 6 spots filled.

IMO it is better to look at DPs and U22s them as a package of 6 in concert rather than separately.
Whether we are better off under the 3-3 or 2-4 model is a related and very overlapping but still separate issue.
One way or another we need 2 more, whether another DP or 2 more U22. We've been reasonably successful with DPs but not so much with U22 so I'd favor switching back, but goodness fill both remaining empty spots somehow.

ETA: If we did want to switch back to 3-3 but cannot do so this midseason, that's a valid reason not to sign 2 new U22 players this summer.

 

[SoupInNYC]

We formally opted into the model of 2 DP spots and 4 U22 spots, instead of 3 and 3. I think that an unstated aspect of your point but there's a bigger picture. Regardless of the chosen model, we are 2 short of the full cohort.

I think a team can switch mid-year under the right circumstances and I have no idea if we qualify. Here is the March roster profile, which reflects the official compliance date in February. Excluding players on loan, we had 1 DP (Martins) and 2 U22 (Fernandez and Ojeda)
View attachment 14040
With the addition of Nico, we have 2 DP and 2 U22. We went through most of the season with just 3 of the 6 spots filled.

IMO it is better to look at DPs and U22s them as a package of 6 in concert rather than separately.
Whether we are better off under the 3-3 or 2-4 model is a related and very overlapping but still separate issue.
One way or another we need 2 more, whether another DP or 2 more U22. We've been reasonably successful with DPs but not so much with U22 so I'd favor switching back, but goodness fill both remaining empty spots somehow.

FWIW, (and I've been so bad at keeping up on here lately, I've skipped most of the back and forth on this), Talles is still listed as a DP on the league site (but we know that can be wrong) and Crooks, on his latest pod, mentioned Talles is still counting as a DP.

So I think we're now under the 3-3 model.

 

[JayH]

We had a game-changing CAM! Until February, we had Santi. OK he wasn't as good as prime Maxi, but he had 12 goals, 10 assists last year. He was very good.

The frustration over our roster-building strategy is fair. We shouldn't have waited until summer to find a No. 10. The rest of the roster has been completely mismanaged. But the idea we didn't have a game-changing CAM, I just don't agree.

Even if it wasn’t specifically a CAM, it’s a high performance key position offensive contributor that’s not an injury prone almost 40 year old who wasn’t supposed to come back. We have been a club that has needed to score goals. Having a better midfielder sooner would have improved our output pre Santi leaving and softened the Santi blow when he did leave. Having a better than Maxi contributor anywhere would have also softened the blow of losing KP for long stretches. Part of this also is the separate issue raised by Footy and MG about not fully maximizing (didn’t intend to do that) our roster utilities which suggests CFG and Lee are not fully committed to putting out the best product and don’t mind our being the aristocracy of mediocrity.

 

[mgarbowski]

FWIW, (and I've been so bad at keeping up on here lately, I've skipped most of the back and forth on this), Talles is still listed as a DP on the league site (but we know that can be wrong) and Crooks, on his latest pod, mentioned Talles is still counting as a DP.

So I think we're now under the 3-3 model.

Yeah its confusing. But: The league roster page also lists Bakrar as U22 and that's completely wrong.

As for the roster profile, it too lists Talles as a DP, but until Santi left he also was a DP which would give us 3 DPs in late 2024 if you count Talles. I think (but admittedly not 100%) we had already opted into 2 DPs in summer 2024. So because Talles is on loan he's classed as a DP but does not take up a DP spot.
Similarly for Jovan. He's U22 but on loan so we have 2 available.
If I'm wrong, then we have 3 DPs and 3 U22 with no remaining spots but 2 of them are playing elsewhere which sucks even more.

I like Crooks but don't trust him to be on top of technical MLS roster stuff. ZYanksRule EganSoccerWords and gbservis all probably understand and track it better.

Edit: NYC definitely chose U22 model in August 2024, and loaning Talles made it possible

New York City FC choose U22 Initiative Player Model

In case you had any doubt, NYCFC Sporting Director David Lee is building a roster for the future.

www.hudsonriverblue.com

 

[ZYanksRule]

I get these arguments. I think there is a higher level fundamental issue. We are looking at Santi and Maxi as the CAM question. For me, more broadly it is a question of consistently fully utilizing the DP mechanism. It is the most powerful performance lever available to every team.

Santi's departure gave Lee 8 weeks to replace a DP. Magno's departure gave Lee 7 months.

Imagine we had a DP striker. Santi leaves, but our front 4 are still Hannes, Alonso, Maxi, DP9. Or a DP winger keeps Alonso at the 9 with Hannes and Maxi. We lost Santi, but I'll bet on Maxi being better than bottom third with those 3 ahead of him. And with Santi there and Maxi as super sub, we are a contender.

The biggest issue isn't that Lee signed Maxi to play the 10. The biggest issue is that Lee (or I'd be willing to bet, CFG) are happy to not carry all 3 DP spots.

I completely agree with that -- this is the big problem in regards to roster management. It is such a more broad question about the short and long-term ambitions of this front office. By not signing all six U-22/DP players, we are deliberately playing with one hand tied behind our backs.

 

[JayH]

I completely agree with that -- this is the big problem in regards to roster management. It is such a more broad question about the short and long-term ambitions of this front office. By not signing all six U-22/DP players, we are deliberately playing with one hand tied behind our backs.

You have the LAs and Miami looking for loopholes to get around the DP rule (in de Paul’s case apparently a very simple one of calling it a shortterm loan until a spot opens) and we are consistently not even using available spots to strengthen our roster. I don’t get it.

 

[Gene]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1945581989903601988