Union unlikely to make any moves
The Union’s summer dealings have been limited to a pre-contract agreement with Homegrown midfielder Anthony Fontana.
CHESTER » By MLS standards, the summer transfer window that closes at 11:59 Wednesday night has been active if understated in the shock value of foreign arrivals.
But all Earnie Stewart would offer as to the possibility of the Union contributing to the transfer hoopla Wednesday morning was a hearty “maybe.”
“We’ve been searching for some fits that might be good for us,” Stewart said. “But I believe once you do something like that, it has to be good, and up to now the business that we’ve been able to do wasn’t sufficient enough to say, that’s a lot better from what we have, so we have refrained from that.”
“It’s always busy,” manager Jim Curtin said. “There’s a ton of players that come through, players that you’re looking at, things that get close and they get down to the final minute, and it will tonight, too. There could be something that happens, for sure, but we’ll always be working up to the deadline.”
The Union’s summer dealings have been limited to a pre-contract agreement with Homegrown midfielder Anthony Fontana and Wednesday’s blockbuster acquisition of Chief Tattoo Officer Jay Cunliffe of Bonedaddys Tattoo in Aston. Which is all to say nothing, lest Cunliffe is an undiscovered soccer savant inked in a pique of genius.
That posture stands in stark contrast to last summer’s aggression in Stewart’s first season at the helm. The Union defended playoff position from last March onward and robustly reinforced the side with record signing Alejandro Bedoya while swapping Sebastien Le Toux for Charlie Davies.
This season, the Union (810-5, 29 points) have chased the pack since an 0-4-4 start. While every team in the East short of leaders Toronto FC has shored up weaknesses, the Union have sat on their hands, either in a supreme declaration of faith in the squad or something else altogether. The Union can still add out-of-contract players and free agents, through early September, but any transfer must be sealed Wednesday.
Stewart diagnosed the inaction as a symptom of the market. The Union evaluated Costa Rican Elias Aguilar and Argentine Nicolas Martinez in the search for a glaring need for consistency in the No. 10 role but passed on both. Team chemistry was a specific concern listed by Stewart in vetting Martinez, under contract with Greek club Panathanaikos and brother of former Real Salt Lake player Juan Manuel “Burrito” Martinez.
“He was here for training for us to get to know him and for us to look at him,” Stewart said. “The thing I truly believe in is that is have to find out what the person is like. We’re not going to just put people into the locker room that we have if you don’t know them. It’s a very important part of the chemistry we have here. We had Nicolas over here, but we did not feel for us that it was the right fit.”
The Union’s No. 10 quest has coincided with Ilsinho’s hot streak. Also looming is an escape route from hefty contracts (Ilsinho, Roland Alberg, Maurice Edu, among others) after the season, freeing up significant resources to make a splash.
The belief that Stewart harbors in the current iteration of the Union entails a “first do no harm” ethos.
“What we set out to do 18 months ago was build something for the future and make sure there was a foundation set and that the add-ons we would do at a certain point would be good, would be better than what we have, and up to now I think we’re doing a good job at that,” Stewart said. “Sometimes people want to go very fast with things. … It’s for us to judge if going that fast is good, and I don’t believe that right now.
Finding a player to impact the final 11 games of 2017 is a daunting proposition, particularly in the Union’s modest price range. Even last year, Bedoya arrived just in time for the club’s tailspin into the playoffs, and it took Tranquillo Barnetta longer than a halfseason to settle in.
All those factors on the left side of the equation — fit, expectation and cost — summed to exceed the potential benefit. And Stewart, as he often does, flips the context from process to results: The chance to land Bedoya last summer dictated the Union’s move more than their placement in the standings.
This year, Stewart doesn’t disavow the impulse to push the Union into a playoff spot. But if the right player isn’t there, then the result won’t come to fruition.
“I can sit and here and say (the standings don’t) have anything to do with it, but that’s not true either,” Stewart said. “The difference between really good and where people perceive us to be is not that big as people think. … Last year with Ale and Charlie, it’s one in-league (transfer) that everybody knew and the other is Ale, who we knew what he was about. That’s a good fit. And this time around, I don’t believe that.”
“We’ve been smart, I think,” Curtin said. “Sometimes the best move is to not make a move. There’s an instance now where something might happen from now until the deadline, but at the same time, we believe in the group we have.”