Much as the clubs are in two very different places, the problems are largely the same:
**The players simply aren't good enough.**
In the case of the Timbers, they took a team that missed the playoffs, traded their 3rd best center back (who has looked decidedly mediocre at his new club too), and brought in a high-priced facilitator (to faci…
Much as the clubs are in two very different places, the problems are largely the same:
**The players simply aren't good enough.**
In the case of the Timbers, they took a team that missed the playoffs, traded their 3rd best center back (who has looked decidedly mediocre at his new club too), and brought in a high-priced facilitator (to facilitate what?). I actually kinda like the starting back four and keeper, but there's no depth there and the farther you go up the field the more dire it gets. The 6/8 spots are okay even given the injury woes but the front four have been mostly useless all season. It's hard to even know what we have in Evander when he's surrounded by this much incompetence. Moreno, Asprilla, and Loria are turnover machines. It's hard to play pleasing soccer with *any* of those in your lineup, let alone all three; you simply can't hold the ball long enough to build anything before one of them screws up and gives it away. And the situation at the 9 goes without saying; one guy who can occasionally make something happen if he gets some service and others who probably shouldn't be on the team at all. We can talk about the issues with the manager (and I will below), but I don't think there's a coach in the world who could turn this bunch into a winning team at this level.
As for the Thorns, the obvious issue is that their top players are all out for WWC. Now, we can point to the FO's inability to supplement the top end players with enough depth (and I will), but the players on the field also need to be better. Weaver has been great, but she can't do it alone. Vasconcelos has been a pleasant surprise this season, but only because expectations were so low; she's a fine depth piece, but probably shouldn't be starting at this level, let alone being the second best front line player. Everyone else (D'Aquila, Betfort, Beckman, etc.) has been mostly awful with perhaps a few glimpses of promise, but even that feels charitable. Further back, Moultrie has been up and down, which is to be expected from her age, but also she suffers from her teammates' complete inability to put themselves in dangerous positions or do anything useful when she gets them the ball (I see a lot of similarities between her frustrations and Evander's for the Timbers). Sam has been great (other than a pretty bad stretch I thought she had around when she got left off the USWNT), but she's being asked to do too much and then even she can get caught out of position. The back line has been inconsistent; individually I think they've been fine but the leadership and cohesiveness just isn't there. Kling has been bad at times. Reyes got off to rough start, but I think she' been mostly solid. Bixby has been all over the place; love her when she's locked in, but that hasn't been nearly often enough this season.
**The managers look lost and out of ideas**
In the case of the Timbers, I think this is mostly a function of the aforementioned players not being good enough. Pep Guardiola couldn't get this team to the playoffs. That said, Gio seems to have lost the locker room and, while I don't think most of the locker room is worth keeping anyway, you can't trade everyone and the players who are reacting badly to their own team ineptitude are clearly starting to spoil the whole locker room (Eryk, Santi, and Evander have been notable from the outside, but I suspect there are many others inside). So yes, Gio has to go. I see no reason to rush it since this team is going nowhere, but Gio has to have his name called on Black Monday if not sooner. But let's not pretend that's going to fix anything. I would absolutely bet anybody who wants a piece that Gio gets to 10 wins at his next stop in fewer games than the Timbers do after they let him go.
As for the Thorns, it's hard to be this tough on Norris so early in his coaching career. Like Gio, he doesn't really have a lot to work with right now. That said, he was making some questionable moves before the WWC and is clearly not adapting particularly well to not having his stars. Though I'm not sure Parsons did dramatically better four years ago. I'm not sure it's time to pull the cord on Norris's young career, but he's clearly part of the problem at the moment, not the solution.
**The front office has been MIA for both clubs**
Hard to know what's going on behind the scenes with the FO, but clearly there's been a bunch of upheaval and the only person we can really blame (who's still around anyway) is Paulson (Merritt; as far as we know, daddy's checks are still clearing). Ned has been doing two jobs and we have no real way to know if he's good at either, since he hasn't exactly been set up to succeed. Karina hasn't done much of note to improve her club either, but with the pending sale of the club it's hard to know if she's actually been given any funds or a mandate to improve the club, or if her hands are tied.
We can say for sure the FO for both clubs are a mess, but given how dependent they are on leadership (and money) from the top I can't really in good conscience place blame on anyone in particular. Well, except for one person. To me, this all comes down on MP. Aside from a couple injuries (and I guess NWSL playing through times when players are out for WWC, but that seems like something that should just be factored in), all of both clubs' problems can be traced fairly directly to MP himself. I could speculate that he's petulantly hanging both teams out to dry because he's so butt-hurt that we don't love him enough, but maybe he's just incompetent. Or maybe he needed his buddy Gavin to remind him to get shit done. It doesn't really matter. In the end, this all comes down to him. Obviously the Thorns will be sold sooner rather than later (after the season, I assume at this point), but MP needs to unload the Timbers too. He probably won't, in which case he needs to get serious about actually owning the club again. We'll see...
I call bullshit on this statement: "Pep Guardiola couldn't get this team to the playoffs" - we've all seen this team pull it together in spurts. 20 minutes here, 10 minutes there. What I see is that there is no real "team" on a regular basis. On the occasion it shows up I feel we can go toe-to-toe with any MLS team.
It's like the Thorns are a listing ship in the middle of the sea. So many points lost we'll be lucky to get into any playoffs at the end of season. Sure, there have been USWNT players gone for stretches of time (She Believes crap, Olympics, World Cup) but the players coming off the bench always helped the Thorns stay in the hunt. Frankly at this point my family is wondering if season tickets we've invested in are worth keeping. Losing isn't fun and we don't see a lot of hope in resurrecting a once great team destroyed by mismanagement. This saddens us as we've loved the Thorns since their formation was announced in 2012/2013.
Not make the playoffs? They remain in second place in the table, and there are only Challenge Cup matches left w/o all or at least part of the missing internationals. If the US, Canada, Japan, or Costa Rica get to the finals __and_ are slow to return (like for some "victory tour" cash grab), those players might miss another league match.
Yes, the usual Thorns advantage of crazy depth isn't there right now, based on the inability of a lot of players to step up in the last three games, but missing the playoffs entirely would be a stretch, I'd say.
The Thorns are literally in second place in a league where half the teams make the playoffs. They are one point off first. Their next home game is against the team in first.
It's not as bad as it looks. There are some glaring issues but overall it is still a team capable of competing for the shield and another championship.
Much as the clubs are in two very different places, the problems are largely the same:
**The players simply aren't good enough.**
In the case of the Timbers, they took a team that missed the playoffs, traded their 3rd best center back (who has looked decidedly mediocre at his new club too), and brought in a high-priced facilitator (to facilitate what?). I actually kinda like the starting back four and keeper, but there's no depth there and the farther you go up the field the more dire it gets. The 6/8 spots are okay even given the injury woes but the front four have been mostly useless all season. It's hard to even know what we have in Evander when he's surrounded by this much incompetence. Moreno, Asprilla, and Loria are turnover machines. It's hard to play pleasing soccer with *any* of those in your lineup, let alone all three; you simply can't hold the ball long enough to build anything before one of them screws up and gives it away. And the situation at the 9 goes without saying; one guy who can occasionally make something happen if he gets some service and others who probably shouldn't be on the team at all. We can talk about the issues with the manager (and I will below), but I don't think there's a coach in the world who could turn this bunch into a winning team at this level.
As for the Thorns, the obvious issue is that their top players are all out for WWC. Now, we can point to the FO's inability to supplement the top end players with enough depth (and I will), but the players on the field also need to be better. Weaver has been great, but she can't do it alone. Vasconcelos has been a pleasant surprise this season, but only because expectations were so low; she's a fine depth piece, but probably shouldn't be starting at this level, let alone being the second best front line player. Everyone else (D'Aquila, Betfort, Beckman, etc.) has been mostly awful with perhaps a few glimpses of promise, but even that feels charitable. Further back, Moultrie has been up and down, which is to be expected from her age, but also she suffers from her teammates' complete inability to put themselves in dangerous positions or do anything useful when she gets them the ball (I see a lot of similarities between her frustrations and Evander's for the Timbers). Sam has been great (other than a pretty bad stretch I thought she had around when she got left off the USWNT), but she's being asked to do too much and then even she can get caught out of position. The back line has been inconsistent; individually I think they've been fine but the leadership and cohesiveness just isn't there. Kling has been bad at times. Reyes got off to rough start, but I think she' been mostly solid. Bixby has been all over the place; love her when she's locked in, but that hasn't been nearly often enough this season.
**The managers look lost and out of ideas**
In the case of the Timbers, I think this is mostly a function of the aforementioned players not being good enough. Pep Guardiola couldn't get this team to the playoffs. That said, Gio seems to have lost the locker room and, while I don't think most of the locker room is worth keeping anyway, you can't trade everyone and the players who are reacting badly to their own team ineptitude are clearly starting to spoil the whole locker room (Eryk, Santi, and Evander have been notable from the outside, but I suspect there are many others inside). So yes, Gio has to go. I see no reason to rush it since this team is going nowhere, but Gio has to have his name called on Black Monday if not sooner. But let's not pretend that's going to fix anything. I would absolutely bet anybody who wants a piece that Gio gets to 10 wins at his next stop in fewer games than the Timbers do after they let him go.
As for the Thorns, it's hard to be this tough on Norris so early in his coaching career. Like Gio, he doesn't really have a lot to work with right now. That said, he was making some questionable moves before the WWC and is clearly not adapting particularly well to not having his stars. Though I'm not sure Parsons did dramatically better four years ago. I'm not sure it's time to pull the cord on Norris's young career, but he's clearly part of the problem at the moment, not the solution.
**The front office has been MIA for both clubs**
Hard to know what's going on behind the scenes with the FO, but clearly there's been a bunch of upheaval and the only person we can really blame (who's still around anyway) is Paulson (Merritt; as far as we know, daddy's checks are still clearing). Ned has been doing two jobs and we have no real way to know if he's good at either, since he hasn't exactly been set up to succeed. Karina hasn't done much of note to improve her club either, but with the pending sale of the club it's hard to know if she's actually been given any funds or a mandate to improve the club, or if her hands are tied.
We can say for sure the FO for both clubs are a mess, but given how dependent they are on leadership (and money) from the top I can't really in good conscience place blame on anyone in particular. Well, except for one person. To me, this all comes down on MP. Aside from a couple injuries (and I guess NWSL playing through times when players are out for WWC, but that seems like something that should just be factored in), all of both clubs' problems can be traced fairly directly to MP himself. I could speculate that he's petulantly hanging both teams out to dry because he's so butt-hurt that we don't love him enough, but maybe he's just incompetent. Or maybe he needed his buddy Gavin to remind him to get shit done. It doesn't really matter. In the end, this all comes down to him. Obviously the Thorns will be sold sooner rather than later (after the season, I assume at this point), but MP needs to unload the Timbers too. He probably won't, in which case he needs to get serious about actually owning the club again. We'll see...
I call bullshit on this statement: "Pep Guardiola couldn't get this team to the playoffs" - we've all seen this team pull it together in spurts. 20 minutes here, 10 minutes there. What I see is that there is no real "team" on a regular basis. On the occasion it shows up I feel we can go toe-to-toe with any MLS team.
It's like the Thorns are a listing ship in the middle of the sea. So many points lost we'll be lucky to get into any playoffs at the end of season. Sure, there have been USWNT players gone for stretches of time (She Believes crap, Olympics, World Cup) but the players coming off the bench always helped the Thorns stay in the hunt. Frankly at this point my family is wondering if season tickets we've invested in are worth keeping. Losing isn't fun and we don't see a lot of hope in resurrecting a once great team destroyed by mismanagement. This saddens us as we've loved the Thorns since their formation was announced in 2012/2013.
Not make the playoffs? They remain in second place in the table, and there are only Challenge Cup matches left w/o all or at least part of the missing internationals. If the US, Canada, Japan, or Costa Rica get to the finals __and_ are slow to return (like for some "victory tour" cash grab), those players might miss another league match.
Yes, the usual Thorns advantage of crazy depth isn't there right now, based on the inability of a lot of players to step up in the last three games, but missing the playoffs entirely would be a stretch, I'd say.
The Thorns are literally in second place in a league where half the teams make the playoffs. They are one point off first. Their next home game is against the team in first.
It's not as bad as it looks. There are some glaring issues but overall it is still a team capable of competing for the shield and another championship.