I have been wondering all season long why so few veteran players were brought in during the January and July transfer window by BB. This may be the reason why. The question going forward is how much cap space will be available in the next January window and will there be any more buy-outs
This makes a lot of sense, particularly if they picked up all those salary charges. If the league gave them the slots but they're nailed for any loan or transfer where they pick up a portion of the contract, it would explain a lot. There probably IS some sort of offset for that.
If they're still taking a cap hit for Auro, Lawrence, possibly Soteldo, possibly even Salcedo and part of Poz's deal....
Then we have several long-terms like Mavinga and Bono being relatively overpaid.
Add it all up along with this year's ongoing requirements and they might have been so up against it that it was the only route to take; play the kids we already have registered to the first team, extended tryout, clean the decks next year when the cap hits are clear.
Makes sense in that everone knew we were blowing it up and restarting so to "help" us out by removing players, we had to pay. That's how it goes sometimes when you take on or hand out bad contracts.
At least it should all be done this offseason including the last of the Bez overpayments.
It’s very hard to believe some of the stories being told, for sure.
Kamal Lawrence is such a bad apple / distracted by his business interests that he can’t possibly be with TFC but he’s an everyday starter for Minnesota. And it’s somehow worth it for us to pay a chunk of his salary while he does that?
Sounds like someone’s pride is getting in the way of rationale decision making.
Thinking about it a "cap" issue would explain the slowness in getting a third DP. It's quite possible that the cap hit portion of the DP salary might put them over. Similarly if Curtis left the team with any TAM (unlikely but possible), they might not be able to use it.
Could be Manning, could be Bob, could be Kamal himself. Sometimes an employee checks out at work (I think that's now called "quiet quitting" ) for whatever reason but is happier in a different place and performs. It could even be a toxic colleague for Kamal if Kamal checked out as opposed to management. I don't expect we'll get to know the truth.
Last edited by Oldtimer; 09-28-2022 at 10:01 AM.
Depends on the environment as well. Some places are more resilient to locker room conflict because there is enough good energy in the room to keep it in check.
TFC was, and still is, in no position to take that shit on.
We hear Jozy talking about guys shitting on the young kids being an issue when Armas was around. One could only assume Kemar was a part of that problem if they were so willing to pay to have him leave.
Is it also somewhat possible they were close to closing the deal with Criscito but then he decided to stay for the remainder of the season. But they had already been in talks to move Lawrence so they couldn't hang onto him? I could have timelines mixed up here too. But that, on top of the reasons stated above as to why they wanted to move on from him? He did have a lawsuit against him last July 27th 2021 from Sure Sports...maybe there was more to that as to why they wanted to move on from him also...? Either way he hasn't done terrible at Minnesota this year.
Bob never even SPOKE to Kemar Lawrence before casting him off. We have effectively been paying for a better team’s starting left back all year while we had none of our own.
https://www.twincities.com/2022/03/2...nesota-united/
“But under new Toronto coach Bob Bradley, Lawerence said he didn’t join Toronto for preseason, a revelation after Lawrence said he expected to be a key contributor to the Reds in 2022.
“He had different opinions of me; I don’t know the opinions because, honestly, I never spoke to Bob,” Lawrence said Tuesday. “You’d be surprised. Ever since he came in, not before he signed, never spoke to him in my life. It was shocking to me.”
Bradley, in a question that included Lawrence last month, said: “There were just guys in different places — guys that weren’t as committed to the club.” Lawrence was “absent from training sessions,” according to parleh.com reporter Michael Singh.
Heath said last week MNUFC did its due diligence on Lawrence, including checking with Armas. The club was “assured … not only of his attitude, but his quality as a player and as a person,” Heath said.”
The only guy vouching for him is the guy who brought him in and is a renowned moron.
Also as said earlier, it doesn't matter if he is more professional in Minnesota or performing better. Could be because of the new team/city or because he woke up and realized he won't have a job if he kept being absent.
Bottom line, our defense was terrible last year and he was a big part of it. Never at anytime during 2021 did I really want him back at all and although he is a veteran, does anybody really think he would have solved our problems for the first 6 months of 2022?
https://www.torontofc.ca/news/toront...ster-decisions
Bob exercised Auro’s contract option before sending him on loan while still eating a major portion of his salary.
We like to complain there was no money for a keeper, but he exercised Westberg’s option as well.
They committed insane resources to the MAK trade, plus they have to pay his salary.
They committed 300k to TEMPORARILY acquire Laryea, plus they have to pay his salary.
They paid a 700k fee for Jimenez in addition to a 900k salary.
I don’t believe in this narrative that we were strapped for cash.
Not even attempting to salvage the situation with the player or the investment against the cap, though?
You have to at least attempt to make it work when the player is not only in a position of need, but counts significantly against your cap. It’s not even like the cost is buried in the past- we are still paying for him.
I think he had something to contribute. Also don’t think he was the primary reason for our shambolic defending last year.
The references thing isn’t particularly fair. Armas is someone who has nothing to lose by going on record. Any current TFC employee who would vouch for him is basically asking to stand in the firing line politically.
That usually happens during a game to players (even vets) who continuously lose the ball or make bad decision after bad decision during a match. The rest of the guys learn to work around them.
I don't think they are getting yelled at and shit on during training, which was the issue Jozy brought up.
We have problems all over the place but as seen the last 3 games...we have given up 4 goals per game. Our d is still terrible. Part of that is getting overun in the midfield...and Bono as well giving up crap goals.
He and Auro definitely would have improved our d at the start over putting two kids who were not defenders in their place. We gave up constant cheap goals as they were getting skinned.
Lets call a spade a spade, BB had no clue about both, I fully believe they were dumped because MB didn't get along with them.
Well first Bono is terrible. No way around that.
As for our midfield, it's bad. Not going to work as a 3 man outfit with MB there. It's not doable. This year there wasn't any better options available (affordable?) but next year there better be.
As for MB not wanting Auro or Lawrence? Probably. I think Auro probably did himself in by hanging with Soteldo in Florida. I didn't mind Auro here but he also wasn't great. For me, I thought Lawrence was shit. Nobody could watch that last season and say he lived up to his billing. No matter what, benefit of doubt or not, the eye test shows he wasn't up to or into it and there's no need for that.
Manning should also be accountable for the continued bad D but this season they get a pass as it's a rebuild and nobody was stupid enough to take on Bono. However, the GK recruitment this offseason is the most important task of management in years. They blow this or go lazy (resign Bono/settle on Gavran & Ranjitsingh) and that's it for Manning & BB. We will have a new regime in 2024.
Our asset management, specifically but not limited to the full backs, are beyond defending. The Lawrence one is always the one that worried me. If Bob decided to kick Lawrence out based on attitude having never met the player then it implies to me that somebody (I mean realistically, only could be his son) has a disproportionate amount of power in the dressing room to make huge calls based on personal interpretation and that is not healthy
The potential (and key word: potential, cause nothing is confirmed) dynamics here are really troubling.
The captain is the coaches son. The captain (potentially) said certain guys were not good for the team and on that basis, without the coach having any discussion, these guys were shipped off.
If that’s true, our lockeroom must be a giant turd sandwich.
It's probably not as shit as it could be as the Italians won't care, the youth squad are just happy to be here, and the guys who it would bother most are almost all out the door.
However, this dynamic could affect the ability of the team to sign free agent MLSers because those are the guys who might not want to walk into a situation lke that. I wouldn't.