George John will take his talents to England. (Getty Images)

I really wanted to get to this yesterday since the player’s agent actually contacted me about it. Ah never the less it was still reported well over at my other hub at BigDSoccer.com.

FC Dallas defender George John is on his way to Greece to pick up his Greek passport. Once that is taken care of (likely today) he will then register with the EU so his transfer to EPL side Blackburn Rovers will be complete. Both MLS and FC Dallas agreed to the deal with the EPL side over the weekend and the deal will become complete once all the paperwork finishes up.

John currently makes around $42k a year in MLS and his transfer deal with Blackburn is said to be around $2 million.

According to his agent Ted Philipkos, should something fall through in this deal today or tomorrow, John will be back on a plane to the States and will remain with FC Dallas.

My feelings about this deal are pretty simple. The player wants to go and he should as it is a great chance for a quality American player to be in the EPL. Sure it hurts FC Dallas and MLS at the same time but let’s put it this way, John wasn’t putting butts in seats anywhere he was at. No offense to him in that comment but the club wasn’t marketing around him like they were when Kenny Cooper was in town and left for Germany a couple years back.

It is the nature of the business too. Players come and go and right now MLS is still a league that develops and sells. Thankfully the amount of talent the league is buying today is greatly different than it used to be. Before we’d see players like a Clint Dempsey or Stuart Holden go but no one in their quality would come to MLS in return. It isn’t that case these days as a player like John will leave but we can look to the owners willingness to spend money on exciting players like Fabian Castillo as proof that things are better in MLS.

I wish John nothing but the best in England. I’ve pointed out several times over at BigDSoccer this year that he is one of my favorite players to talk to from FC Dallas. Hopefully he does us all proud over there in the EPL.

Stuart Holden is on his way to Bolton. (Getty Images)

The day has some for those Houston Dynamo fans, their club no now longer has Stuart Holden. Bolton manager Owen Coyle has confirmed that the club will sign Holden as one of two winter acquisitions.

Holden joins former Dynamo teammate Ricardo Clark, who has signed with Eintracht Frankfurt, as Americans to make major transfer moves from MLS this winter.

How can a team recover from the loss of their two most important midfielders? It won’t be easy though having quality coaching in Dominic Kinnear, who has been a master at getting exactly what he wants out of players and deals with other teams. Also having some quality talent like Brad Davis and Geoff Cameron doesn’t hurt either.

But it is more than losing the likes of Clark and Holden that will be a game changer this winter for Houston and for that matter Major League Soccer. Clark we knew was headed overseas and the Dynamo easily knew last winter that they’d need to prepare for such a move. As for Holden there was always some hope that they could retain him even though his price tag was far higher than anything they could pay for.

Houston will have to recover fast here as the western conference is getting better each day with LA, RSL, Chivas, Seattle and even Dallas being major players for this coming season. If they don’t want to get passed up as the top dog in the west for good Kinnear will have to make some moves, which have to be expected at this point. I wouldn’t be shocked to see him go within the league for a veteran looking for a new home. Possibly a guy like Pablo Mastroeni would be a decent fit to replace Clark (just an idea floating in my head).

Houston is going to be down this year but I don’t think we can count them out just yet.

Not official word yet on how much the deal is for. Some across the pond have been saying it is less than a million. I don’t buy that for a second. More credible people here like Buzz Carrick at 3rdDegree or Steve Goff at the Washington Post suggest the club/league could end up with as much as $3 million, depending on how Cooper does in Europe. Which Dallas will pocket most of that.

Cooper had wanted to move across the pond last summer but the club rejected mulitple offers from clubs. Apparently the club also rejected a couple more offers this past month from various clubs, including 1860 Munich.

We know that Dallas in a way was planning for such a move during the Gold Cup run while Cooper was with the US national team. Head coach Schalles Hyndman tried a couple different moves up top in place of Cooper, one being veteran striker Jeff Cunningham. At times things worked out but just like most of the season it did not.

At this point FCD has 14 days left in the summer transfer window to bring in a player (window closes on August 14th), but can also sign anyone that is out of contract during that window until the roster freeze date on September 15th.

In a way I just don’t see them filling this void until the winter. Maybe I am wrong and will be proven wrong but I kind of think the club is throwing in the towel on this season with this move.

Overall though I can’t but be more excited for Cooper. I know this is a move he has wanted for some time, even though he does indeed love Dallas. It’s a good move for him personally because another year in Dallas would continue to hold him back I think. He could only carry that club so much.

According to Goal.com, the Columbus Crew are said to be interested in the 26-year old striker that tourched the Revs last night in the 4-0 win.

When the Guyanese speedster was asked if he had been contacted by any MLS sides, he smiled. “Yes,” he said. “Only Columbus has expressed some interest.”

Eh, why not if you are the Crew. They’ve learned already that speed is what works in MLS and it will continue to do so down the stretch. Now I don’t think Richardson would be able to join the Crew this season but they could certainly add some speed and depth up top to their roster for next year if that is the case.

I don’t know how well Richardson would do in MLS but he may be worth taking a chance on if he can torch New England on their own turf like he did last night.

What do you all make of Columbus going after a guy like Richardson? Good move or just a waste of time to poke fun at their rivals?