Why Blaise Nkufo Left
not only is this a good article, but I also want to give a bump to SportsPressNW, a good site founded by Art Thiel and Steve Rudman of the old Seattle P.I. (R.I.P).
http://sportspressnw.com/about-us/
about 1 year ago
malcontentjake
7 comments
0 recs |
Email
PrintComments
Am I the only one who thinks we should spend this money/possible DP slot on a FB?
After watching Juventus all season, who have it worse than us at FB position, I will never again underestimate how important that position is to the success of a team.
And the sad truth is, we are pretty damn weak in that position. Riley is alright and can cross well, but was found out a couple times against LA. Plus, he plays almost non-stop. I think Leo has lost something from last year, and in my mind he wasn’t particularly strong then. These are our starters, and the depth thins out significantly after that.
I’m not sold on OBW or Jaqua staying healthy, but it’s pretty obvious to anyone who sees the roster that we have more attacking depth in general than defensive depth (even if we don’t have a star target forward like Nkufo).
La Vecchia Signora Forever!
Bringing in a DP at this point is going to be tricky...
…since you’re going to be stepping on someone’s toes. The thing about Nkufo leaving now, as opposed to never coming or leaving at the end of last season, is that the Sounders made moves around Nkufo being a DP. If it was me, and Nkufo isn’t in the picture, I would say that the team could have used an elite (for MLS anyway) box-to-box central midfielder to pair with Alonso. I think Evans is a good player for this league, and I think Friberg will be a good MLS player as well, but I think to truly unleash our offensive potential, we need more goals from central midfield. Preferably, this player would also excel at taking free kicks. Basically, we still haven’t replaced what we wanted Ljungberg to do.
I am sympathetic to our weakness at FB, but my general inclination would be to use DP spots to build down the middle of the field. If Evans had been healthy and playing late last season, and Nkufo was already out of the Sounders’ plans, I would say that it would make the most sense to trade Evans for a starting-caliber FB, since a box-to-box midfielder as a DP, and also bring Friberg on for depth. I think that with Jaqua/OBW, while you could do better than that at TF, given the cap and roster limitations, I think it’s reasonable to focus resources elsewhere.
I don't
know if getting a DP fullback is really gonna help our offensive. No perfect full back is gonna prevent us from conceding goals.
Let’s say we go for a fullback DP its gonna bump someone off the roster that’s making less than 90k then we going to have to find someone to fill that open spot. We will run into cap issues that way. trying to add a starting spot from a depth spot is not going to work out well.
you'll
end up loosing more depth than it is worth it.
Kind of lines up with what i thought
It was obvious that Nkufo wasn’t the “target man” we wanted. he wanted to play in Montero’s role.
Side note, Stanley Holmes does a great job for that site. Sounders coverage is on par with their coverage for all the other major sports. Kudos to them
If that's the case...
…it’s really disappointing to hear.
Comments For This Post Are Closed
Secondary Sidebar
User Tools
FanPosts
Community blog posts and discussion.
