If you are a fan of Robbie keane, Gerrard, Dos Santos, Galaxy or seeing Villa explode on his teammates.Is this one I'd want to watch a replay off? I haven't even come close to watching the highlights, or rather the lowlights.
If you are a fan of Robbie keane, Gerrard, Dos Santos, Galaxy or seeing Villa explode on his teammates.Is this one I'd want to watch a replay off? I haven't even come close to watching the highlights, or rather the lowlights.
If you want to be in a good mood, don't do it to yourself.Is this one I'd want to watch a replay off? I haven't even come close to watching the highlights, or rather the lowlights.
Reckon my voting of 3's & 4's was a tad different from what others saw.
He isn't a striker though...Poku. Poku, Poku, Poku.
Poku.
Villa is right. The only lock starters next year are him, Poku, Pirlo, Iraola and Mix. I honestly don't think anyone else's position is safe.
Can't do that he is too inconsistent to be a lock starter.Please include MacNamara on this list.
You are right Tom, but MLS knows what it is doing. To eventually get to where we all want to get to, regarding MLS as whole, this league needs 1 or 2 teams like the Galaxy. Next step is for a team like the Galaxy to win CCL, and I fully expect this team, if healthy, to fight for the CCL till the very end. Will they win it? Who knows, but I hope they do. I also fully expect NYCFC to be one of the top teams, consistently over the next few years, once we get all of the dead weight from the expansion draft off the team, and provide some real support and real depth, to guys like Villa and whoever else we bring in after Pirlo and Lampard leave.You can watch it to see what the best MLS has to offer. You can watch it to see how the league caters to LA. They made up a rule so they could add Giovani Dos Santos to their already star studded team.
Keane, Gerrard, Dos Santos.
Lletget Zardes, Robbie Rogers and Omar Gonzalez. Juninho
That team is ridiculous.
I have hopes we can do this eventually, but what is the path to doing it in "the next few years?" Our Academy is currently only up to the U-13/14 level. Frankly I'm expecting mediocre to good from this team for the next 3-4 years. If we could do more than that in that time frame I will be very pleasantly surprised.I also fully expect NYCFC to be one of the top teams, consistently over the next few years, once we get all of the dead weight from the expansion draft off the team, and provide some real support and real depth, to guys like Villa and whoever else we bring in after Pirlo and Lampard leave.
I don't know why everyone is flipping out over this loss. The Galaxy were better than everyone else before they got Dos Santos. They crush everyone. We actually hung in there for a while. This was a guaranteed loss. You really can't make judgments on the team based on this.
Let's win this week at home v columbus and start a winning streak.
It was 2-0 when #TheGenius subbed off two of our best players for two of our worst. No team finishes all its chances, we had a few close ones too. We were overmatched on talent, and LA has the best coach in MLS and has played together for a long time. Lose 1-0 or 5-1, doesn't really matter. We don't have to be better than LA this season, just better than four eastern conference teams.I agree with you Tom. However, while I'm not exactly flipping out, I am a bit shocked and dismayed at the score line or rather what the score line really should have been. That was as complete a dismantling of a football team as you'll ever likely see. The second half of the second half they were just toying with us. That one breakaway between Keane and Gerrard was so embarrassing because they were trying to literally walk the ball into the goal. It could have easily been 8 or 9 for LA.
I think this is it, combined with the fact that we have not lost by more than 2 goals all season, even while being thoroughly outplayed a few times. It seemed that one of our strengths was to keep things manageable. No more. Plus I think with the disappointing tie against Columbus folks were looking to make up the shortfall, even though that was probably the least likely game to do it in.I agree with you Tom. However, while I'm not exactly flipping out, I am a bit shocked and dismayed at the score line or rather what the score line really should have been. That was as complete a dismantling of a football team as you'll ever likely see. The second half of the second half they were just toying with us. That one breakaway between Keane and Gerrard was so embarrassing because they were trying to literally walk the ball into the goal. It could have easily been 8 or 9 for LA.
I don't disagree, but that's not how it felt. I think even though it would have been worse if we were down 3-0 at the half against our starters, and the goals were evenly spaced, it would have felt less chaotic and uncontrollable. That's what happens when you get beat by a better team, as Tom is rationally explaining. Instead we hung in, seemed like we had a chance, and then the bottom dropped out, the wheels came off, and then the bus exploded, and clown heads grew out of the wreckage.It was 2-0 when #TheGenius subbed off two of our best players for two of our worst. No team finishes all its chances, we had a few close ones too. We were overmatched on talent, and LA has the best coach in MLS and has played together for a long time. Lose 1-0 or 5-1, doesn't really matter.
It was 2-0 when #TheGenius subbed off two of our best players for two of our worst. No team finishes all its chances, we had a few close ones too. We were overmatched on talent, and LA has the best coach in MLS and has played together for a long time. Lose 1-0 or 5-1, doesn't really matter. We don't have to be better than LA this season, just better than four eastern conference teams.
Oh I totally agree, which is why I don;t really care about this loss. We are not on their level. The losses to Chicago, Philly and Montreal were much more damaging.Tom, I do get it: LA is a great team -- the best of what MLS has to offer. This match showed how far we really have to go before we can be at the top of this league. And yes, Kreis is a dipshit who doesn't seem to have a clue what he's doing out there. But there's another hard truth we must accept: it's 26 matches into the 34 match regular season and our team is terrible right now. 28 pts in 26 matches is simply terrible. As Coach Parcells would say, at a certain point in the season you are what your record says you are and our record says we suck. We are competing on a level with Chicago and Philadelphia -- let that sink in. Not only have those 2 clubs taken substantial points from us this season but we are at the bottom of the table with them. Truthfully, all things considered (expansion, terrible coaching, new players at mid-season, etc.) the bottom of the table is what we've earned. I'm just thankful we don't have to worry about relegation.
Garbowski,I have hopes we can do this eventually, but what is the path to doing it in "the next few years?" Our Academy is currently only up to the U-13/14 level. Frankly I'm expecting mediocre to good from this team for the next 3-4 years. If we could do more than that in that time frame I will be very pleasantly surprised.
Garbowski,
You bring up a good point about the academy, and when that is established, we can turn up some good young quality cheap players, like Bardes, and Miazga but winning in MLS is not about having 3-5 good young academy players in your roster. Its about a system in place, and its about playing as a team. What will change even starting next year is that this team will get rid of most of the subpar players such as these (Jacobsen, Grabavoy, Brovsky, Saunders, Wingert, Ballouchy, Nemec, etc) basically all of the left over trash from the Expansion draft.
People have to realize that it is very tough to put a competitive team during the expansion year when ONLY ONE Expansion team is coming into the league, let alone TWO. So you had Orlando City and NYCFC picking the best players from all of the shitty players other MLS didn't really need/want, for the most part.
Now you have a real offseason and two to get the PLAYER THAT YOU SEEK OUT AND WANT, and that are available, to come and be a part of your system from DAY 1. If you think about this year, our team from preseason until now are COMPLETELY DIFFERENT TEAMS. Night and Day. So what I expect moving forward is this....
Villa up top, and Kreis and Reyna to go get another striker to pair with Villa. They tried it with Nemec and it failed. Nemec sucks.
I expect Pirlo to play one more year MAYBE. I don't expect Lampard honestly to be back. So in the midfield you have Mix, TMac (maybe, although once we get better players, he may be coming off the bench) and Pirlo next year in the mid. In the back we will return Iraola, Facey, and that leaves another CB and fullback spot open with Angelino not coming back, and I think we have seen the last of Hernandez. But also important, I fully expect NYCFC to go get themselves a true number 1 GK. Saunders lacks in so many areas but one of the most important is the lack of communication and setting his backline up to succeed especially in transition.
So we have 1 Forward, 2 midfield spots, 1 CB, 1 fullback spot open and a GK. I fully expect them to get some real good quality for these positions. We have a very good striker, we have Mix who I think will show much better next year, and we can build from there. Believe me a true offseason or two will make the world of a difference.
But specifically: how do we get them? The Super Draft produces very few worthwhile players. We'll be very lucky to get one worthwhile player out if it year to year, and probably won't get even that as best I can tell. We have very little worth trading to acquire existing MLS players from other MLS teams. After getting Mix we are far down the list to get USMNT players, and don't have either the DP slot or allocation funds to pay for another for the next 2 years at least anyway. There are only so many Poku-types floating around the USL. As far as I can see, our only ability to operate freely is with our limited international slots. Maybe we cut Nemec, Calle, Alvarez. And maybe we do better signing international players in Year Two than in Year One. But the best MLS teams seem to have a solid group of good American players who fit in the cap system. It seems the system is designed in such a way it will take us years to put that type of team together.
Note: I'm not saying our scouts and management are incompetent. Nor am I asking you to ID specific ways to get specific players. I'm asking -- generally -- how can our management work in this highly restrictive system to quickly acquire the quality players in the positions you identify?