Lazy Saturday...

Okay, so first things first...the MLS HQ troglodytes should be ashamed of themselves. Fining Payne $5k for criticizing other teams' style of play? Shameful...and predictable. Also predictable? Payne's apology. But what to make of this bit of it..?
"In trying to explain the sometimes unfair expectations on the head coach of D.C. United, I made critical comments of Colorado, New England, Real Salt Lake and the league."
Excuse me? What's the unfair expectation? To actually qualify for the playoffs? When more than half of the league does so? Or is it the expectation that we'll play the"attractive, attacking" style that we so obviously played this year (fire up the sarcasmeters!). The subtext here is what's really worrying though, because it suggests that Tommy might have a future with United.

Speaking of futures with United...Wicks goes under the knife and now joins Tino on the 4-6 months out injured shelf. Goffster proceeds to dangle the bait about Wicks' future with the club seeing as how he'll probably be out of action for pre-season. Sadly, I think we'll probably see him back (my complaints should be obvious to regular readers: poor decision making, the statue-pose on close-range finishes, the anger issues).

The question becomes: do we recruit somebody to challenge him for the starting job, because I don't see Kocic being able to do that? Of course, there was this guy who looked lost in his rookie year and turned out okay, but I don't see Kocic having that kind of potential.

3 comments:

  1. Payne is suffering from megalomania, it seems. Even his apology felt contrived and insincere by design.

    You're right to point out his soft stance relative to Tommy's crap-tastic job as the skipper this year. 'Being the coach of United is so hard 'cause you have to play pretty football so Kevin Payne won't throw up while watching the games.' Unbelievable.

    Btw, dig your site more than any other DCU blog out there. Keep up the good work...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for the kind words, Jaime.

    The offseason is barely a week old and already it's starting to get frustrating, but I think I'll withhold final judgement until a couple of weeks past the expansion draft.

    We've been treated to the two opposite ends of the spectrum in the last couple of years with regards to players.

    2008 - The Sudamericano invasion.
    2009 - Generally hold serve and try the domestic draft (pun alert!)

    You could argue that some middle ground would therefore be the logical next attempt, but none of the three approaches deal with the rot at the core.

    Sigh.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Payne is at it again (per Goff's latest post). Is he really laying the foundation to retain Tommy Soehn after the last three years? It very well may happen.

    ReplyDelete