Jozy Alitdore is telling the world that he’s off to England. And the Daily Mail is confirming, saying:

“Hull are ready to rival Fulham in a bid for highly-rated America striker Jozy Altidore.

The 19-year-old is with Spanish club Villarreal and shot to prominence in June with the first goal for in the USA’s 2-0 Confederations Cup semi-final victory over Spain.

Fulham have watched Altidore for some time, as have Everton, but Hull believe they have a chance to persuade him he can play regularly in the Premier League and are prepared to pay around £6.5million.”

If this is all true, and Jozy puts up some decent numbers in the EPL, it could be another shot in the arm to American soccer. We need more Yanks to go score goals in the Best League In The World, and if a 19 year-old is going to lead the charge I say more power to him.

[IMG via Daylife]

“At this point he’s probably more inclined to play wide midfield for us while Robbie and Ekpo are gone,” [Sigi] said. “He can play Alejandro’s position in a pinch. He can play Guillermo’s position and he can certainly play both flank positions. He helps us with his versatility and at the end of the day it’s going to be competition and who’s playing best will be out there.”

The Crew traded a first round draft pick and swapping allocation table slots with New England. New England moves to third in the allocation table, Columbus to tenth. There’s a lot of talk about whether it was a good deal, especially trying to value the allocation swap. Allocation awarded McBride to Toronto, but they didn’t end up with McBride. Chad Barrett’s a nice consolation prize, but I think it shows the relatively weak value of the allocation spot.

Whether or not New England did us a solid probably depends on what you think Pat Noonan is worth. The Revolution have a solid offense that Noonan wouldn’t break into any time soon. And, there are some concerns with his ability to stay healthy. It looks to me like his injury risk isn’t any higher than any other 28-year-old.

To assess his potential value to the Crew I reviewed his overall MLS stats. I chose 15 forwards currently playing around the league to compare with Noonan. This will be his sixth season playing in MLS. I chose forwards with as few as 3 seasons and as many as 13. I chose mostly impact players, but there are no DPs. This is a good sampling of experienced league forwards in MLS. Noonan compares favorable with the forwards finding success in MLS this year.

I pulled the regular season stats for each player in the sample from this MLS site.
Finally, I compiled them in a spreadsheet I’ve published here. (The number after each name is years in MLS.)

Here’s how Noonan stacks up in goals per game:

Assists per game:

Shots on Goal per game:

So there it is, ahead of Dwayne De Rosario in goals, third in assists with only Jaime Moreno and Landon Donovan ahead. He’s right in the running in shots on goal as well.

This last table gives an idea of the overall strength of the acquisition. I used the point system from MLS Fantasy Challenge to give a strength rating. Fantasy rules give 10 points per goal, 5 points per assist, and 2 points per shot on goal. I did the multiplication and got this career points per game rating.

Between Kenny Cooper and Edson Buddle. Better than Barrett, De Rosario, Jaqua, and our beloved Ale Moreno. I think that’s a pretty solid pick up.

It’s no fun to lose. I’m most disappointed that the Crew drops to 1.6 Points Per Game, the same figure as Chicago. That’s a slide from 1.8 at the end of June. New England is at 1.9 PPG with two games in hand on the Crew.

Injuries and absences are an easy culprit to blame for the loss. We knew that Hejduk, Rogers, Lenhart, and Ekpo would be out. Miglioranzi not being available was a surprise. In-game injuries for Marshall in the 28th minute and Evans in the 53rd hurt, and really limited what could be done to adjust their look on the field.

I was surprised by the line up. Zayner and Peterson started while Elenio ,who I thought we’d see, didn’t enter the game. Also, Jason Garey sat until the 69th minute. That’s comparable to when Sigi has brought Lenhart on to the field, but looks like a big step away from what he was trying in Colorado. I’d be curious to hear how Sigi would debrief on the tactical decisions on these two games. Clearly you don’t want to come out to play a game like we did in Colorado each week because it usually shouldn’t bring a win.

Offensively the Crew got some great chances. Schelotto and Moreno each had a second-half goal denied by exceptional saves from Pat Onstad. Gaven and Evans each had some chances. You’d hope Evans could get one of those in, but you really can’t fault those touches.

The Crew are off until August 16, so hopefully Evans, Marshall, and Miglioranzi can get healthy. Hejduk and Lenhart are back, but Lenhart’s probably still a sub rather than a starter in Sigi’s scheme. Hopefully Rogers and Ekpo get some professional growth out of the Beijing visit.

There are rumors that the Noonan deal is back on. He’d be available by the 16th as well. The Crew play Western Conference teams to round out August, including an improving FC Dallas twice. The offense with Noonan can get tooled up to face a string of Eastern Conference games to close the playoff bid.

Defensively, we saw Houston’s goals come from the same kind of plays and field position we get killed on week after week. Poor tracking has made balls played to the penalty arc near deadly for the Crew. The defenders and midfielders seemed to come back to defend fairly well, but aren’t applying pressure in the right spots, or aren’t cutting the right angles down to stop shots. Where there had been a lot of standing flat across the penalty area with no depth of defense, now there’s some depth to go with the poor tracking.

It’s not foot speed or clever challenges that’s beating the Crew defense, it’s simple passes and wide open shots. It’s good to see some adjustment since I’d been attributing the problem to coaching, but I think this game gave more credence to personnel issues as a key factor. That should seem odd given that we didn’t see anything like the defensive first team in this game, but the game actually showed that the same kind of errors and attacks are causing weakness regardless of who’s on the field.

So, how can the Crew squeeze the opposing offenses to keep them from converting chances? Some options are 3-5-2, being more defensive-minded in the current 4-4-2, adding to the roster, eliminating errors, or working on controlling midfield possession better?

Is it Ibezito Ogbonna?
He’s Nigerian, 25, and played for Hapoel Tel-Aviv.

He was 10 goals in 31 games in 03/04, 7 goals in 29 games in 04/05, 10 goals in 30 games in 05/06, and 1 goal in 7 games in 06/07. He was injured in 2007 and also transfered to the Romanian club CFR Cluj where he only saw 9 minutes in 07/08.

CFR Cluj released him at the end of this season and he is reportedly looking for a new club.

His first name also appears as Ibazito.
Stats in Hebrew.

Schelotto came to Columbus on a 2 year, ~ $2 million contract. The Crew charged $150,000 to salary last year, and are charging $375,000 this year. Mathletes in the audience will notice that these numbers don’t add up to $2,000,000. The front office signed a DP-level player without using the DP spot with accounting tricks that created a $850,000 off-the-books payout last year. They were only able to hide $625,000 this year, and chances are the voodoo economics are tapped out by year’s end. (Note to Crew accountants: Bear Sterns needs your help.)

It’s probably going to take using the DP spot to keep Schelotto for next year anyway, and doing it this year has some benefits. With Nico Hernandez and Guillerme So waived the Crew has two open slots on the roster going into the transfer window. Hernandez was contracted at $100,000. So was on contract for $73,000. The Crew could report up to $415,000 of Schelotto’s fee as a salary charge under the DP rule, but it looks like they could also choose to report less, maybe even none. That creative accounting would free up as much as $548,000 under the salary cap. That really improves the kind of shopping we could do in July.

Bank like that covers DeRosario and Ching down in Houston and almost covers Joseph and Twellman in New England. I’m not sure who’s been scouted, or who’s available, but now I can see Sigi and Bliss making two quality additions that fit with Schelotto where I had been nervous about whether they could really find a DP that could play well with Schelotto this year and make up for his absence next year.

I’m being a little generous to myself by calling this a wild guess. It’s probably more like baseless, rule-defying conjecture. Sue me.

The interview

Also, it looks like over the weekend, Eddie Gaven gave the U-23 men’s national team the game winner over Honduras. The goal came in the 95th minute of the game (better late than never!) and was scored off of a penalty kick. That put the US in the top spot in the group and qualified them for the Semi-Finals. They play Canada tomorrow at 8pm in Nashville. Canada had a fantastic game out against Guatemala by defeating them 5:0 eh? Honduras will play Guatemala. Good Luck Guys!!

According to Seattlepi.com, the Crew are pursuing Gino Padula for the Left Back Position. The article says that Pedula has most recently played for Montpellier of the French Second Division. Sigi thinks it will “plug a hole” in the Crew back line.

Then along came Columbus coach Sigi Schmid, who offered this dynamite explanation in comments to the local media:

“We were looking for someone to hold the ball with their back to goal and give our midfielders a better chance to join the attack.”

Ah. To someone who has spent much of the year pumping the Crew midfield (me), this explanation clicks sharply into place. All right, Sigi, the logic of that bought you a healthy grace period…well, sort of. It’s not like there’s no need to get the ball rolling. But Sigi has sold me on the move, anyway.

Even as Goff wonders whether anyone will bite given Gaven’s salary, here’s one guy’s take-away: I like this call.

If nothing else, it sends a message to Gaven (e.g. “get confident or get thee gone”); all season, Gaven has played tentative one minute and as if he’s trying to make up for it the next.

And if Goff is wrong and someone does bite, what then? Depends on the deal, naturally, but there are a lot of players in Major League Soccer (MLS) who would count as an improvement on an over-cautious Eddie.

So…let me get this straight: the Crew’s biggest problem is offense, the forward line in particular and they go out and get a player who, according to the Houston Chronicle’s report, has scored 23 goals, plus tallying 16 assists, in six MLS seasons. Fewer than four goals per annum is supposed to help…how?

Don’t get me wrong: I love Alejandro Moreno as a player, not least for an unbelievable work-rate and an uncanny ability to draw fouls – and maybe the latter will come in handy with Guillermo Schelotto around. And Moreno wears this wonderful grin while he plays, just the perfect picture of the face someone wears after they’ve stolen your keys without you noticing. So, hopeful as I am to be proved wrong, I’m not seeing the savvy behind this trade. I dunno…maybe it’s a marketing thing…is there a huge Venezeulan population in Columbus?

Anyway, best of luck to Moreno who has always seemed a decent sort. Welcome aboard, man. The same for Ngwenya; good luck in Houston.

Finally, let the record show that the Columbus Dispatch turned in a piece on this; means the right people will notice, right?

“The wait is over.”

“Not for the Crew’s first goal of the season, but for the person who might score it.”

And there you have it: the basic concept for the first-ever Columbus Crew Offside contest: Who will score the first goal of the Columbus Crew’s 2007 regular season? Here are the contest’s parameters:

- This contest applies to league games only – e.g. goals in the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup don’t count.
- I’m only looking for the name of player. Off the top of my head, I think I’ll use the game in which said player scores as a tie-breaker in case everyone votes, say, Eddie Gaven.
- The minute on which the game is scored will count as a second tie-breaker. And I’ll use “Price Is Right” rules for that – e.g. the “prize” goes to the person who comes closest to the minute the goal is scored without going over.
- This means that “bidding” the 1st minute has its advantages and disadvantages.

So….in order to play, participants’ entries should look something like this:

“Joseph Ngwenya, April 28 v. DC United; 35th minute.”

Here’s the Crew’s 2007 schedule to help with selection.

The announcement of this contest had to wait on the prize…I’m still working on that. Sort of. I’m leaning toward a home-made plaque, something kind of crafty, but not super-crafty – e.g. it will look like crap. But I will mail it to you; the winnder, assuming he/she is brave enough and interested in collecting, can visit my personal site, click on my profile, and send their street address my way over email.

Returning now to the Guillermo Barros Schelotto news, it looks like the Crew finally got their man. No disrespect to Columbus, but I’m still wondering how the Crew’s new Argentine will take central Ohio after life in Buenos Aires. Maybe he’ll like the quiet. But one thing the article (the link at the top of the page) does help with is the reason why the Crew kept dancing around confirming this signing:

“‘This is a big moment in his career and he deserved our respect,’ [Crew general manager Mark] McCullers said about why the Crew refused to acknowledge the situation during the past week. ‘We wanted to give him the opportunity to speak first, but, on the other hand, we had to be able to speak on behalf of our club.’”

That is, on the whole, an admirable position, one that I hope will sweeten Schelotto on both the Crew and life in Columbus.

Before going, I thought I’d pass on the latest first-hand views from the guys at Hunt Park Insider. A guy named Paul Vancouver posted player ratings – and, let me tell you, this guy is one tough grader. And elsewhere, Robert Novick wrote up some general commentary on last Saturday’s game; his material on Andy Herron is particularly worth the visit.