How the roster is shaping up--------------by Section 112 Blizzard
With the imminent arrival of American forward Conor Casey from Mainz 05, probably based on the top ranked allocation, following on from last week's arrival of Carl Robinson and the departures of Rich Kotschau and Rod Dyachenko (two of the four remaining expansion draft selections) the major player acquisition phase may be drawing to a close now. The first and sixth ranked allocations have probably been used and the two later ones that are still available may well be left for the summer window. Barring a major trade the next step will probably be to add a bit of depth to fill out the senior roster to 18 as my back of an envelope style salary calculation below points to maybe $US 200,000 being left out of the $2.1 million salary cap for the four remaining senior roster spots.
It is not difficult to envisage a team based on the 3-5-2 formation that Mo Johnston favoured at Red Bull New York:-
---------------------------------SUTTON
---------------------BRAZ---------REDA-------POZNIAK
----O'BRIEN---------------------ROBINSON--------------------BRENNAN
-------------------EDU------------------------CANCELA
---------------------------CASEY----ESKANDARIAN
So how does the supporting cast stack up and what needs to be done to strengthen it?
GOALKEEPER: Greg Sutton is all there is right now so clearly there is a need for a reliable backup. Jon Paul Piques who has been a reserve for Sporting Braga appears to have the inside track right now but don't be surprised to see a trade of some description used to fill the void in this regard if he fails to impress. One advantage of going with Piques is that he could be placed on a development roster deal initially freeing up a senior roster spot.
DEFENCE: Initially the defence looked like the team's strongest area of the team given all the talk of a "Canadian shield" when three national team players were acquired late last year. The addition of Andrew Boyens, who many saw as being the best player available in the SuperDraft, helps but the unexplained departure of Rich Kotschau has left a bit of a void in terms of experienced cover. Braz and Reda have tended to be marginal figures in national team terms, while Pozniak has never been seen as a star performer in that context so an experienced defender (particularly a left-sided one if a 4-4-2 or 4-5-1 is under consideration) would definitely not go amiss. Perhaps no surprise then to see reports of Rick Titus is an invitee to camp despite his advanced years but hopefully another younger option will be identified, instead.
MIDFIELD: The midfield probably still requires an addition or two to provide a bit of depth and cover as Paulo Nagamura is rumoured to be potentially following Rod Dyachenko out the door due to the immigration issues. Rich Asante and Jeff Gonsalves the Canadians kids from the later rounds of the SuperDraft and local camp invitee Joey Melo can't be completely discounted in senior roster terms although development roster deals are more likely. It will be interesting to see if Qu Xing the young Chinese player who has earned some rave reviews based on the initial days of training camp will be able to keep it going and land a contract.
ATTACK: With Casey, Eskandarian, Buddle and Ibrahim aboard this is probably the one area of the team where a player could be traded away to strengthen another area, although it should be noted that Eskandarian and Buddle in particular could probably play an attacking midfield role as well, particularly if invitees like Marco Palleschi (ex-Torornto Lynx) or Nikki Budalic (ex-FK Haugesund) look the part as cover.
Mo Johnston was probably hoping for slightly more from his two recent allocation signings but was hampered by the inflation in salary expectations created by the LA Galaxy's signing of David Beckham. The bottom line is that he now needs to try to compensate for that by finding some hidden gems with some of his lower budget discovery signings.