The Richmond Kickers announced today the five players that D.C. United will send on loan to the USL club: Chris Durkin, Alhaji Kamara, Maxim Tissot, Chris Odoi-Atsem, and Eric Klenofsky. These players will be on indefinite loan, but are eligible for recall at any time.
All of these players are young and are in need of playing time, so sending them to Richmond makes sense. Durkin is a guarantee to start, with Kickers’ coach Leigh Cowlishaw intimately familiar with the player; he gave Durkin his first professional minutes when he subbed into a midseason friendly against West Bromwich Albion in 2015.
Klenofsky seems like a strong bet to start as well, but will have to compete against the newly signed Marcel DeBellis, who the Kickers brought over from the Ottawa Fury, as well as former Middlesborough academy player Alex Wimmer. Kamara will need to show sharpness in the preseason, but there is a good chance that he will see plenty of minutes since the Kickers struggled mightily down the stretch to have anyone but Yudai Imura score goals.
Other players are also likely to come to Richmond from D.C., but on a case-by-case basis. For example, I could see Jalen Robinson getting some time with the Kickers to keep his sharpness up.
We will, of course, be covering the progress of these players in Richmond this season.