Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Josh Wolff to KC (Editorial)

So the news now is that Kansas City could be bringing back in former Wizard, Josh Wolff to try and help cure their scoring woes. Those woes include only scoring 10 goals this season, 1 less then Landon Donovan has himself. They also include a current scoreless streak of 320 minutes, and been shut out a total of 5 times, which is as many times they've shut out a team. The question is, would he be able to solve the Wizards problems? I personally have my doubts. Wolff has never been as great a scorer as many would have liked him to become. His career high in MLS is 10 goals. Not exactly a great strike rate for a guy that is supposed to help cure the Wizards scoring woes.

On top of that, Wolff has scored only 1 goal in the postseason in his entire MLS career. This includes a a seven year span from 98 to 04 where his team made the playoffs ever season. His lone goal was a PK in MLS Cup 2004. Not the type of scorer you want on your team in crunch time. Even when he was in Germany he wasn't lighting it up. In the season and a half he was in Germany he played 34 times and scored a total two times. Another sign that he's not the type of player that will cure the teams scoring woes. Then there is Wolff's injury history, he's never been a player known to stay healthy, and that will likely continue as he gets older.

So if I'm not in favor of Wolff, I probably should give some examples of who the team could get instead. One guy that isn't under contract to a team right now, is Nate Jaqua. Jaqua played last season with LA and Houston scoring 8 goals in 25 games between the two clubs. He helped to provide striker support for Houston as they made their way to their second straight MLS Cup. After the season he signed with SCR Altach in Austria where he scored 5 goals in 10 games with the club. Jaqua is also just starting to hit hi prime at 26, unlike Wolff who at 31 is likely past his prime. The one issue with Jaqua is that his rights are probably still held by Houston, so some draft pick would likely need to be traded to Houston for his rights.

Adam Cristman could possibly be pulled away from New England. With Kheli Dube, Sainey Nyassi, Kenny Mansally who can all play forward, and that's not even counting Taylor Twellman. The Wizards could possibly persuade the Revolution to part with Cristman for the right price.

Another option is to continue off of the work that Peter Vermes recently did in Hungary, and see if the team can find a good player through that route. Or go back to the well in Argentina and see if a player that impressed when playing against the Wizards in preseason would be available.

In the end, I just feel there are better options then a forward like Wolff who is getting older and past his prime. I also feel that a forward like Wolff is not the type of forward we need. We need a forward that can get on the end of crosses consistently with his head, a guy that can at least consistently hold the ball up. That's why I think a guy like Jaqua would be the way to go. He's still fairly young and I think would do well here with Claudio Lopez swinging the ball into him.

1 comment:

Reepicheep said...

Right on Mike.

Unfortunately I have a sense Onalfo and co. are going to go after Wolff anyways.

I'm starting to seriously wonder about the offensive "strategy" KC has (or doesn't have).