Holding Pattern

I was going to go ahead with another "Refining the Roster" update this morning, but with all the feathers that are flying (settle down, Talon!), I figured I'd wait until we have some definitive news before going full bore with the numbers and lists. So what are we waiting on . . ?
  1. Gallardo on the slow boat . . . or is that the hospital ship back to Argentina? The deal is apparently almost done, though if the word is true that the last hurdle to be cleared is a physical, then let's not start counting our chickens.
  2. Jacobson, with tail firmly between legs . . . returns to the club that drafted him a year ago. Goff says he won't be pulling a hefty salary, but there's no mention if that's a low $33k senior roster salary or a microscopic developmental salary. Whatever the case, he's depth for the central midfield, perhaps an indication that we're moving towards a different tactical approach. He's also got some decent size, so I wonder if the FO might be looking at him as a center back conversion project, à la Ryan Nelsen?
  3. Roger, you are cleared for landing . . . and we'll have to have faith that the FO know what they're doing. Will he be a left back? If so, where does Burch go? Please don't tell me it's into the middle. If Roger goes in the middle as a veteran organizer, does he speak any English to do said organizing? And he still needs a partner. Who's that going to be? Janicki? Veris? McTavish? I hope we're not done shopping.
As Stollar noted, we've got a handful of different directions we can take here. My personal hope? I'd like to see another central defender and a right wing. Gomez was a great player for this club, but we've got the withdrawn forward/playmaker role pretty much covered between Fred, Quaranta, and Moreno.

The cleared cap space would be much more effectively spent on two guys with enough talent to step right into the lineup than it would on one guy who might give you 60-70 minutes per game, no matter how good those 60-70 minutes are. Lest we forget--before we started to fade down the stretch, we were one of the higher scoring sides in the league. It was keeping them out that was the problem. Does Gomez fix that problem?

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