Building a better New York City FC for 2016.
NYCFC had a fairly poor opening year compared to the high standards held by the club. Head coach Jason Kreis left at the end of the season, with the team finishing 8th in the Eastern Conference. For the 2016 season Patrick Vieira is due to take charge - but can he do any better without drastically changing the squad? Let’s take a look.
So far this offseason, the following changes have happened (with base salary of the player displayed in brackets):
Departures
- Kwame Watson-Siriboe ($65,000), Jeb Brovsky ($122,500), Ned Grabavoy ($200,000) and Pablo Alvarez ($60,000) - contract options not extended.
- Angelino ($60,000), Shay Facey ($120,000), Ryan Meara ($71,663) and Javier Calle ($200,000) - loans finished.
- Sebastian Velasquez ($60,000) - contract expired.
Arrivals
- Ethan White ($125,000) - trade with Philadelphia Union for a 2017 4th Round Draft Pick.
In salary, NYC have gained a total of $654,000 - as players on $60,000 or less are seen as “supplementary” on the roster, and therefore don’t count towards the overall cap. Looking at their roster currently, they have quite a few gaps to fill:
From briefly looking at this, NYC will definitely need another goalkeeper, and also some additional players in each position also. Looking forward, the team also has very little backbone developing to account for the ageing DP’s in the squad. By this, I mean that there are few players who are able to takeover the reigns in each position.
To fill the gaps in the squad, NYC have a few options that they can use. For a start, their new Head Coach Vieira was previously the Head Coach of the Manchester City Elite Development Squad (EDS), where he won the Premier League International Cup. Vieira is likely to be familiar with all of the players that could be loaned to NYC.
I’d doubt that NYC would loan a young striker, considering the roster already has Patrick Mullins, Tony Taylor and Khiry Shelton. I also doubt that they’d take a goalkeeper from NYC, as they would see very few minutes with Josh Saunders (that is, newly contracted Josh Saunders) #1 in the pecking order.
They are more likely to loan a defender or two. I would have liked Shay Facey to return, but he’s since moved to Rotherham in the Championship in England. 21 year old Ellis Plummer could move instead in order to gain experience. With the signing of Ethan White they may choose not to bolster the centre back position - and focus on the vacant left back position instead. Personally I hope Angelino returns again - and from the quote below from a Hudson River Blue interview with Vieira - so does the new Head Coach.
The advantage of NYC’s relationship with Manchester City is that City will likely cover most of the player’s contract - meaning that the cap hit would be just $60,000 per player. Let’s say that Manchester City loan NYC Angelino, Plummer and a midfielder - let’s take exciting Kosovan Bersant Celina.
The inclusion of these three (or whatever three NYC chooses to take from Manchester City) will only cost $180,000 and considering all are on $60,000 each, there will be no hit against the salary cap. After that, they still have $654,000 left to spend, and 5 roster spots to fill.
So that’s added a bit of youth to the ranks - but what about experience?
NYC have the 4th pick in the upcoming SuperDraft. From this, they really need to maximise what they can get from this pick. I really think that teams should be extracting a starting quality player from these top 5 draft picks, or at the very least using it to get some allocation money or trading for an established MLS player.
NYC have done this with the rest of their picks in the draft - acquiring midfielder Andrew Jacobson and defender Jeb Brovsky last season for picks in this years drafts. Despite Brovsky leaving, the team still got a player who was o.k. for a year, and didn’t get a player who was likely to only feature in half of the years available to him (according to Tom Worville, anyway).
The draft this year looks to be a strong one. Taking a look at the SBI Draft Big Board Brandon Vincent looks to be a good pick for NYC at left back. Failing that, Jack Harrison looks to be a worthy pick too - filling the attacking midfielder hole left by Sebastian Velasquez.
Andrew Tarbell or Callum Irving could make other good uses of that 4th pick - meaning NYC would have another backup keeper and a potential future #1 too.
If NYC trade for that 4th pick - they should try and get some money to pay for rumoured left-back target Rónald Matarrita. Matarrita currently plays for Alajuelense - who I showed are one of the best North American soccer teams right now in my last blog post.
NYC also need to start preparing for life after DP’s Andrea Pirlo, Frank Lampard and David Villa. Although that may seem a long way off - the team without them (and especially without Villa’s goals) - is potentially the worst in the league. I have no doubt that one of those DP slots is going to always be used for a star striker - it just makes sense to have a high quality player to make the most important contribution on the field - but the midfield worries me. It’s slow, lacks defence, and there’s only so many times that Pirlo and Lampard will show “flashes of their old selves”.
The team also has an old age profile apart from the DP’s: Chris Wingert, Andoni Iraola, Jason Hernandez and Mehdi Ballouchy all are over 32 and Wingert and Hernandez playing the 4th and 5th most minutes in the squad last season.
Because of this, the team needs to think carefully about planning for the future. 7/10 of the top 10 minutes on the team come from players 30+ which is fine in the short term, but if NYC want to build a strong franchise going forward it’s something Claudio Reyna and his team will need to address sooner rather than later.
Whether they decide to use their TAM to bring a younger player in a key position (e.g. Defensive Midfield to replace Jacobon) or start distributing minutes to the guys who are likely to be future starters for NYC, they need to do something. Ideally, I’d look to bring in another DM and a long term left back, and a good backup keeper to eventually move Saunders to #2.
So to conclude:
- Thanks for reading/sharing/debating about my past post + I hope you enjoyed this one.
- NYCFC has the potential to be a really strong team - if it can correct the balance of youth and experience.
- They have a lot of money to play with considering the Manchester City partnership is essentially three cheap, but talented, players. They need to invest this wisely and think longer term.
- They should ensure they leverage the 4th draft pick for either a starter or a first teamer through a trade. Between a potentially great draftee in Brandon Vincent or a pretty expensive, but very good buy in Rónald Matarrita, homework needs to be done and key choices like this need to be capitalized upon.
- They have a good team in the short term too, they just need to find a style that accommodates a slow midfield, a complete lack of width at Yankee stadium and an excellent striker in David Villa.
Once again, thank you for reading!
Dollars and Decisions.
