The trade season is about to get going here. The league has announced a trade between the New York Red Bulls and the expansion Portland Timbers today. The Timbers have acquired defender Jeremy Hall in exchange for a third round draft pick in January’s SuperDraft.

Hall played 37 regular season games and made 31 starts over his two years in New York, logging two assists. He never really seemed to fit in to the Red Bulls long term plans I thought. I kind of felt he’d be exposed for the expansion draft and picked up by one of the two expansion teams. New York was wise to at least get something out of it and get a low round draft pick in the process. Also I doubt many New York fans will really be upset over this deal too.

Nice, cheap pickup for the Timbers though. This could be a heck of a deal for them really if Hall ever reaches his potential that we saw in 2009.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csf6CD3rwGU&feature=player_embedded

Juan Pablo Angel will lead the Red Bulls again, who else will step up? (Getty Images)

Its been a little while since we did a preseason look in on a MLS club. We hammered out about half of the league already but with the on-going CBA issue things like this had to take a backseat for a little while. Well today we’re back on the horse and continue on our preseason coverage here.

Today we have the New York Red Bulls. A lot of talk always surrounds this club each year and 2010 will be no different as the club has a new arena (finally) and a new direction in terms of management (yet again). Hans Backe is now the manager with Eric Solar leading the charge in the front office when it comes to player moves. No longer is it Juan Carlos Osorio making ill-advised moves with Jeff Agoos.

The thing is will it actually matter? Will the Solar/Backe move actually pay off and New York shines in their first season in the mecca that will be Red Bull Arena? Time will tell but we can say that anything should be an improvement on last year’s product.

So let’s see where New York is with each part of their roster and what further moves are needed to be made before the season kicks off.

Keepers:

Who they have:  Bouna Coundoul.

Notes: First of all they do have guys like former TFC keeper Greg Sutton in camp right now. Good thing too because Coundoul is not the answer for their keeping situation. I know some folks like him but I just don’t believe he is a solid #1 in this league. His time in Colorado was decent but never great. If the Red Bulls go with him all year their success on the field won’t be too great. But if their defense improve from last year then it may be a gamble worth taking.

Sadly at this point with the CBA issues at hand it will be tough for New York to get a real solid keeper in camp. If I were them I’d be doing everything possible to get Kevin Hartmen from KC. Or I’d be tossing some trades around to someone like San Jose to get Joe Cannon.

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Defense:

Who they have: Kevin Goldthwaite, Chris Albright, Tim Ream, Carlos Mendes, Roy Miller, and Andrew Boyens.

Notes: A decent bunch with the pickup of Albright and Miller. If Mendes can turn his play back into what it was a couple years ago they may be set in the back.

So far in preseason play this group hasn’t played too bad. As long as Albright gets to be 100%, Miller proves he is a good signing and the rest of the group does their stuff right this team could surprise a few folks. I still think they are a little weak in the back though, plus I’m not entirely sure their centerbacks are good enough to keep up with some of the better offenses in the league just yet.

One guy to keep an eye on is Ream, I really think he’ll be one of the surprise rookies from this year.

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Midfield:

Who they have: Seth Stammler, Siniša Ubiparipović, Danleigh Boreman, Irving Garcia, Austin de Luz, Jeremy Hall, Dane Richards, Joel Lindpere, Ernst Öbster, Tony Tchani, and Luke Sassano.

Notes: This group is really the make or break group for me with this club. If the new additions from Europe pay off it will make Backe and Solar look like geniuses. For the last couple years we’ve seen this club go strictly after South American talent here and none of them payed off (except for their DP Juan Pablo Angel).

Enter Lindpere and Obster, two guys far from their usual reaches in South America. Some preseason talk of those two have been positive and the rest has been okay, nothing too negative at this point. Lindpere is a hard worker in the center of the park, which has been lacking from this club.

Also let’s not forget the two rookies de Luz and Tchani. I have to think both will see plenty of action this year and Tchani has to be in the early discussion for ROY.

I do worry about this club on the wings a bit. I know Miller has played decent on the wings in preseason but still seeing Boreman and Richards on the roster worries me that the club is going to lean on their speed over everything else. Neither really bring anything else to the table in my mind but maybe Backe can figure out something more to do with each of them that Osorio couldn’t.

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Forwards:

Who they have: Juan Pablo Angel, Macoumba Kandji, John Wolyniec, and Conor Chinn.

Notes: I do believe that Angel will return to a better year now that he isn’t playing 15 home games on turf. Getting his home games on natural grass will go a long way in getting his production back up. I look for a big year out of him right away.

After that I wonder who will help lead the charge. You can always count on Wolyniec for a few goals but that’s usually off the bench. Kandji is good but I’d really like to see more out of him this season and prove to the league why the Red Bulls paid a transfer fee from a USL club to get him.

The big thing will be interesting to watch this summer, will the Red Bulls use their second DP slot at the transfer window? I think this may be the year they do it, especially if they are close to a playoff spot going into the ladder half of the summer.

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Overall:

I think this club will improve under Backe and no that’s not the Swedish biased in me talking I really believe that. I think for once this club isn’t going into a season with a load of hype built up by the media and that is a good thing. The only hype they have is with their new digs at Red Bull Arena, which will be special.

Is this club a playoff contender right now? I doubt it, but if their defense shows up a little more this year then we have to think it is possible. Unlike last year they won’t have a crazy schedule that puts them on the road for four games in a row or weird stretches of going from coast to coast. Its a more do-able schedule for them.

I think they are improved but they still have some ways to go with their wing play and in the back. I still don’t like their keeper situation and I’d love to see them go after Hartman or Cannon. I’d also really like to see them make a move for another ex-Wizard in Claudio Lopez. He’s a guy I really think would do a lot of good in New York. But I doubt either of those moves will take place until a CBA gets worked out.

You think they get free Red Bull?

New York Red Bulls: Rookie Cribs - Part 1 from Red Bulls Reader on Vimeo.

I felt looking at the results and each game this past week that week 16 was really predictable. I know I missed a couple games in my score predictions but aside from the RSL-San Jose game this week lacked a lot of surprise or anything worth getting overly excited about. Maybe that is the dog-days of summer kicking in here for the league but each result was as predictable as the next on Saturday.Which can be a good thing but can also be a bad thing.

RSL Gets Lucky Late

I’ll start with the first game of the week on Friday here today. Something can certainly be said about Real Salt Lake nearly losing at home to San Jose while dominating the bulk of the game. Kudos to the Quakes for their defense for the first 90 minutes of the game. Unlucky was certainly the own-goal to Chris Leitch. Sometimes the ball bounces that way folks.

But looking at this result for RSL I begin to really question this club going forward this season. Certainly some pieces were missing but I still felt they had the side on the field that should have won this game. I just feel that they are certainly missing a piece or two here though. I like Robbie Findley and Yura Movsisyan but neither are the go-to striker that this club needs to depend on. Findley can be too hot and cold while Movsisyan tends to miss the easiest of shots. Then I look at their defense and wonder if they have the talent to hold up against clubs like Houston or Chivas in the playoffs. Right now I just don’t see them getting there.

Red Bulls On The Brink

The few that cover this Red Bull club up in New York are all saying the same thing today. “The Season on the Brink.” Well with the most games played (19) and the most losses (13) and the fewest points (10), yeah you could say they are on the brink. Honestly they’ve been done for a lot longer than that. I said in my season preview for this club that they’d either be a good playoff club or an underachieving side.

One thing that is amazing is how long Juan Carlos Osorio has kept his job here. After nearly two-thirds of the season being complete and his club is this bad, many would think he’d be gone already. I kind of have a feeling he will be there until the end of the season. That is unless he decises he has had enough before then and leaves on his own terms via Fernancdo Clavjio.

I think the only thing that can be said for Osorio at this point is the couple players he draft this year that have turned out to be pretty good. Jeremy Hall and Nick Zimmerman both definitely show a bright spot for this club’s future. Comes to show that you can’t win on over priced foreign talent alone in this league, you need quality young talent to do work too.

Dallas Gaining

Much can be said about winning 2-1 at home but a lot more can be said about how it was done. Dallas got a huge lift getting New York in town this past week. Not only were the Red Bulls a fairly easy test but it gave way for guys lik Jeff Cunningham to break the club out of a bit of a funk when the club doesn’t have Kenny Cooper in the line-up. I liked the combination of Cunningham and former Red Bull Dave van den Burgh on Saturday for Dallas. Some how it worked but sadly enough we won’t get use to it here once Cooper returns.

Still on another note Dallas has a long way to go here. No doubt they won’t be in contention to reach the playoffs out of the west this season. But they are slowly building a decent base for next year.

Houston Returns To Winning

After a small slide for the Dynamo the league leaders return to the road in Kansas City and get a quality win. The Dynamo get another win, their ninth of the season and become the first club to break the 30 point mark in the standings.

Houston really handled the pressure well late as Kansas City pressed for a game-tying goal late. KC continues to lack some punch up top which is going to haunt them as this season moves towards the playoffs in the next couple of months.

This was a physical game between these two sides. Houston may have gotten the win but they will be without two key defenders for their next game in Seattle. Both Geoff Cameron and Bobby Boswell will miss the important game with the expansion Sounders due to suspension.

Crew and DC Level

Too bad both sides were missing a chunk of their roster for call-ups and injuries because this one would have been much better for it. Still a quality game with some bad calls from the center ref in it. DC took a late first half lead into the lockerroom to only give it right back up after the break to the Crew. From there on neither side really took hold of this game. DC seemed to control a little more of the pace in this one which lead to a boat load of extra attempts on goal. Big credit to the Columbus defense for stepping up a little more in this one because of that.

DC presented the Crew with a five-man midfield which seemed to slow down Guillermo Barros Schelotto a decent bit. The Crew did find a couple ways around it but never enough to really pressure the Black-and-Red backline.

Both sides are in the thick of things for this eastern crown race. In all honesty right now I think it will between these two sides though we could see the Fire sneak up in there after the way they played in Colorado this week.

Colorado On the Slide

I guess my talk of this side being a dark-horse in the west was possibly a kiss of death to the Rapids. Another loss at home, this time to the Chicago Fire who have looked really good in their last couple of games (SuperLiga mostly). To me Wilman Conde was the player of the game and possibly the player of the week from this game. Colorado had no answer for him when he was around the goal and when he was defending his own goal.

The win was a big one for the Fire as they leap back up the standings into a tie with DC. They really looked like the side we thought we’d see all season long this past weekend. Maybe this is the start of their run going forward here.

As for the Rapids I still have high hopes for them going forward, espeically once they get Conor Casey and company back in the lineup. This club still has some work to do though to make sure they are in contention for the rest of the season to get into the playoffs. I’m slowly writting them off for catching Houston or Chivas here but if they want to stay up there with Seattle for third-best in the west they need to improve their roster right away. Add some depth to the defense and find a playmaker who can set up the scoring in the midfield. Right now they are lacking a bit and it is causing them to drop games that they shouldn’t drop, especially those at home.

Newcomer Nets One For LA

Not a bad start for Alecko Eskandarian. He moved lockerrooms at the HDC over the week and it payed off in a big way. His goal marked a quality win for LA on a night that really saw nothing more than a bunch of fouls. Honestly there may have been more fouls on the field than fireworks in the sky after the game.

The Galaxy really controled this match from start to finish as Steve Nicol’s group is really struggling to find their way again now that the injury bug has knocked out more key members of their roster. Either they are going to have to be creative to find ways to win or just hope they can ride out this strom of injuries again here this summer. Things are not looking good either way in New England right now.

As for LA it was a typical win for them, once they got the goal it was all they needed to play their style of game. Sit back and take pressure while countering when needed. Look LA will make things interesting this season but once this circus called Beckham kicks up again it will be real interesting to see which way this club heads. History should tell us which way that will be though.

Butts-in-Seats

Holiday weekend produced good numbers for the league. All over 10k, even in Dallas. LA and Colorado posted the biggest numbers with 20k and 19k respectively while Columbus and Dallas each got 14k. RSL posted a solid 17k on Friday’s game. And KC scored another sell-out, five in a row at home now. Very positive things there folks.

Some see Husidic as the top attacking midfielder in this draft. His size (at 6’1″) gives him a good advantage over a few others in this draft. Also to go along with this size, his speed is also seen as one of his better assets.

I see Husidic as a mid-first rounder that could move up the board if he continues to impress in some workouts. The need for an attacking midfielder in this draft will be interesting to watch for a few clubs.

Husidic joins a pretty strong Generation adidas class that already includes Maryland defenders Omar Gonzalez, Rodney Wallace and midfielder Jeremy Hall, Akron striker Steve Zakuani, Cal goalkeeper Stefan Frei and Indiana defender Kevin Alston. Some reports suggest other targets Peri Marosevic and Michael Stephens are close to signing and could end up doing so by sometime this week.

Hall and Gonzalez are the first of a group of players the league is expecting to sign. Many are expecting this draft to be very deep in talent (but don’t they always say that?).

Both guys should be potential first rounders in this year’s draft. But the combine and other workouts could change that outcome (anyone recall Eric Avila fall to the second round last year after being hyped as a top four pick?).

More players are expected to sign in the coming weeks.