Is it too early? No, and I’m usually extremely measured on this kind of thing. 1-7, by itself, would be enough. However, we’ve also been shut out six times. That’s too many for a whole season, much less by mid-May.

Onalfo, like Soehn before him, can point to injuries, but that only softens the blow so much. When I see New England with 8 points and 10 goals scored while missing Reis, Barnes, Osei, Joseph, and Twellman and having lost Larentowicz and Heaps in the offseason, I feel a lot less sympathy towards our situation. MLS teams often do better than 1-7 just by accident. Watching this team is like watching someone get less than half of the questions right on a true/false test.

Jürgen Klinsmann is still out there. He has stated he wants to start coaching again. He almost came to coach the US squad before Bradley came in.
I know it is impossible, but hey, come onnnn.

Either way, something needs to happen, this past weekend was horrible, and simply stating that, “SOMETHING NEEDS TO CHANGE” isn’t a game plan Onalfo, sorry. RFK had filled out a bit from the previous beat down by the Red Bulls, I fear that the players will soon be hearing chrickets from the stands….

1. So our first few games were totally unacceptable. We changed to a theoretically less attractive style, more based on physical play and simplicity, and we improved marginally from “truly awful” to “really bad.”

I seem to recall that Richie Williams interviewed to be our head coach, and after it came out that we weren’t pursuing him, there was talk from Payne about finding someone that believed in attacking soccer.

Right now, we really suck and we’ve abandoned the sort of passing game we were told would be a fixture. I don’t think people would be so angry if we were one of the many teams with just over 10 points using a rough equivalent of the current team’s approach.

2. Sticking with NY coaches, Hans Backe seems to know how to work within a tight budget. NY is not a contender, but they’re a decent team despite having 0 good keepers, a rookie and a guy who’s past his sell-by date in central defense, unsettled situations at both right back and left back, and no consistently fit partner for Angel or for Lindpere in central midfield. In short, he’s taking a pretty poor roster and getting more out of them than the sum of their parts. He also has contacts that can find guys like Lindpere and Roy Miller.

Onalfo, meanwhile, is getting less out of the team than you’d expect, and doesn’t seem to have any contacts outside of checking the MLS waiver wire.

Ignore the impending arrival of Henry and NY’s stadium situation. These rosters are not that much different, aside from ours being more injury-prone. The fact is that Backe has come to MLS with no knowledge of the league or its various peccadilloes. Onalfo, meanwhile, played in MLS, was an assistant in MLS, was an assistant with the national team, and had 2.5 years as a head coach. Only one looks like he’s unfamiliar with the concept of MLS as a whole, and it ain’t Backe.

Are the rumors about Onfalfo’s contract being guarenteed for three years actually true?

How could this be possible? United has had three coaches that lasted three years each in recent history. If this is the case, what the hell is the front office thinking?

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