Episode 196 - The Transfer Window closes with a thud

Deadline day is upon us!  There were less than 6 hours left in the MLS transfer window when we recorded the pod and it was meant to be a celebration of the next era of Sporting Kansas City.  Unfortunately, the team largely looks the same it did last week when we recorded.

Now - there are reasons that attempted transfers can go awry and it is not uncommon for that to happen, especially in the price range that Sporting KC is reportedly shopping in.  But it’s the lack of a plan B that is somewhat concerning as we evaluate how this transfer window went for Sporting KC, and it also leaves a roster in a pretty significant state of flux as they attempt to arrest what has been a pretty precipitous fall coming out of the world cup break.

Speaking of those performances, the League Leaders in almost every metric came to Sporting Park on Sunday and looked like they were playing the lowest performing team in the league in all of those similar metrics.  Sporting was pretty comprehensively outclassed in the game, and Vancouver pretty easily took apart what was another naive performance both by the players and tactically by the coach.  It left fans hoping that at least the promise of Andre Luiz and other reinforcements might help improve the on field product.  And while Andre did come on for a 20 minute cameo and look the part, it seems unlikely those reinforcements are coming until the winter at the earliest.

It leaves us to assess those that are here.  And by that I mean the coach who is meant to get the best out of these players and the President of Soccer Operations who is meant to give him an effective roster to do so.  And to say that those have both missed the mark is putting it mildly.  I spent most of last week espousing that I finally saw a plan in place for how Lee was meaning to go about cleaning up the mess that had been left behind when he took over.  Well, either that plan completely fell apart over the last week or he is too conservative in his approach because it appears we are still taking the longest amount of time possible with the mop and bucket.

We’ll also discuss what was a very active transfer window for the rest of MLS, with numerous deals getting done as we close out the day, as well as what was a more wild deadline day than I can remember in England and the rest of Europe.

Music by The Spin Wires