The second stage of the Re-Entry Draft passed with the Timbers again declining to select anyone, to little surprise. It was left to Real Salt Lake to raise eyebrows when they selected Lovel Palmer.
There’s no doubting that Jason Kreis and Garth Lagerwey have shown an ability in the past to build good squads but, as they rebuild their team after a less-than stellar 2012 (sound familiar?), this is still a move that causes me some head scratching. There were occasional games and flashes of the kind of player Palmer could be (mostly for Jamaica), but these were vastly outweighed by ineffectual and downright bad performances that earned him the “facepalmer” nickname among some fans. Perhaps Jason Kreis is just the man to wheedle some kind of consistency from Palmer after a frustrating spell in Portland. Anyway, let the countdown begin to the inevitable 45 yard screamer into the top corner the first time the Timbers visit Rio Tinto.
Following the recent moves, and the re-signing of Danny Mwanga, it leaves the roster looking something like this:
| # | Pos | Player Name | Age | Country |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21 | M | Diego Chara | 26 | Colombia |
| 9 | F | Kris Boyd | 29 | Scotland |
| D | Michael Harrington | 26 | USA | |
| 12 | D | David Horst | 27 | USA |
| 35 | D | Andrew Jean-Baptiste | 20 | USA |
| 8 | M | Franck Songo'o | 25 | Cameroon |
| 13 | D/M | Jack Jewsbury | 31 | USA |
| M | Will Johnson | 25 | Canada | |
| 24 | F | Sebastián Rincón | 18 | Colombia |
| 33 | D | Hanyer Mosquera | 25 | Colombia |
| 1 | GK | Donovan Ricketts | 35 | Jamaica |
| 6 | M/F | Darlington Nagbe | 22 | Liberia |
| 17 | M | Eric Alexander | 24 | USA |
| 11 | M | Kalif Alhassan | 22 | Ghana |
| GK | Milos Kocic | 27 | Serbia | |
| 98 | D | Mamadou "Futty" Danso | 29 | The Gambia |
| 19 | F | Bright Dike | 25 | USA |
| 90 | GK | Jake Gleeson | 22 | New Zealand |
| 18 | D | Ryan Kawulok | 22 | USA |
| 27 | D | Chris Taylor | 23 | USA |
| 22 | D/M | Rodney Wallace | 24 | Costa Rica |
| 7 | M | Sal Zizzo | 25 | USA |
| 16 | M/F | Brent Richards | 22 | USA |
| F | Ryan Johnson | 28 | Jamaica | |
| 10 | F | Danny Mwanga | 21 | DR Congo |
| 20 | F | Jose Adolfo Valencia | 20 | Colombia |
| 2 | F | Mike Fucito | 26 | USA |
With the Timbers having traded away all their picks in the 2013 SuperDraft – an interesting development considering Caleb Porter would be the one head coach in MLS who’d be best placed to judge the quality of the crop of players coming through this year – any further moves are likely to be players coming into the league from abroad, or further intra-MLS trades.
Looking at the current depth chart, there are a few things that stand out. One, we’ve got loads of strikers. Like, tons. If, as we suspect, we’re going to be playing with one guy in the middle, it’s very likely we’ll see at least a couple of these guys gone by the time First Kick rolls around.
Rumour still swirls around the future of Kris Boyd, with the bastion of journalistic integrity, The Sun, reporting that Boyd is set to be axed by the Timbers. Nottingham Forest, where Boyd had a fairly productive loan spell, have been linked with the Scot and they would certainly fit the bill as the sort of club I’d expect him to go to – Championship, fringes of the play-offs, looking for that extra little push to put them over the line. We’ll see what happens there.
Gavin Wilkinson, deflecting rumours about the club being interested in signing Mikkel Diskerud, did confirm that the Timbers were actively seeking to bring in a creative, attacking midfielder. A look at the depth chart shows that the Timbers do lack that creative guile through the middle, so it certainly makes sense that it’s there that the Timbers are looking to add to.
Yesterday Merritt Paulson echoed his General Manager in confirming the club were actively pursuing an attacking midfielder.
Two areas where GW/CP still want to make additions: creative mid and right back. Goal is to have all spots filled by start of pre-season
There is a real dearth of options at right back currently. Palmer and Kosuke Kimura have both departed leaving Ryan Kawulok, who hasn’t been given his chance yet, and Jack Jewsbury, as well as Michael Harrington who could fill in on either side. Paulson’s tweet would seem to indicate that Jewsbury is no more than a depth option at right back, which makes sense to me as I think his lack of pace would leave the side vulnerable, but it once more feeds into the insecurity around Jewsbury’s spot on the team.
Stumptown Footy recently had a piece on Wilkinson talking to both Jonathan Bornstein and Robbie Findley, two players that the Timbers hold the MLS rights to, with the strong suggestion that at least one of the two is an immediate target.
Findley has struggled in Europe since leaving RSL at the end of the 2010 MLS season. He hasn’t scored for Nottingham Forest (them again) since February 2012 and a loan spell at League Two side Gillingham ended after a month, with a sum total of 243 minutes on the pitch, one league start and more yellow cards than goals (1-0). A common refrain from Forest fans about Findley is that he is a striker who seems to be utterly bereft of confidence, and a return to the States may be just the thing to get him back on track as he’s unlikely to break into the Forest team any time soon.
Bornstein’s move to Mexico hasn’t been terribly fruitful for the US international, and Tigres seem to be making another effort to move him on. Of the two, Bornstein would seem like the more logical “get” at this point. We’re practically tripping over strikers at the moment, and I’m not sure we need to be taking on a drastic rehab case like Findley on top of everything else 2013 will bring. Bornstein could add depth to midfield and at left-back (perhaps pushing Harrington to right back). Again, we’ll see what, if anything, happens there.
Someone definitely arriving in Portland very soon is Caleb Porter. The new head coach bid farewell to Akron, and can now give his full attention to the Timbers as pre-season looms every bigger on the horizon.
