Its been pretty dead on the Rapids front during the international break other than Acosta's good second half against Mexico. Today though we got some bad news. The injury that Namli has been fighting was worse than we feared. Last week he had surgery on his ankle in Amsterdam and will miss 12-16 weeks in recovery. That puts his return, at earliest, right after Labor Day. That's, at minimum 14 of the remaining 27 games this season. Realistically probably more like 17 or so games before he could be back as a starter.
Obviously this is a significant loss for the team, especially with the likelihood of missing some of Acosta/Bassett/Vines/Lewis to the Gold Cup and World Cup Qualifiers. That said, the team has been performing well without him since he was injured in early May. At this point 4 of our midfield 5 starters are essentially locked in with Price, Acosta, and Bassett running the triangle in the middle and Barrios holding down one wing. That leaves Shinyashiki, Benezet, Lewis, and Galvan to battle for the other wing spot.
Namli was originally signed on a 2-year loan from FC Krasnodar, which will be up at the end of the season. I think, for all intents and purposes, Namli's time in Colorado is done. He may be able to bolster the team for the final run of games (and any playoff run) this season but otherwise I don't see a string case to reinvest in him going forward. While he clearly has skill, he just doesn't fit in this team at this point. If we play him at the 10 then the only combination that works behind him is Price and Acosta, and even that group leaves us defensively vulnerable. He could be an easy starter on the wing, but that's a lot of money to pay for a position that, as you can see, we're very deep at. I think the best move is to see out the loan, thank him for his service, and let him go while we reinvest his salary in a position where we need more help.
I do wonder, if the team plays well over the next 3 months, if it makes sense to cut his loan off early and let him return to Russia in the summer window. If that means we free up salary or an international spot it might be worth taking the hit to our depth. Regardless, unlike Aigner or Gashi, I can't fault the FO too much for this move. As I mentioned before, Namli can clearly play well enough to stand out in MLS. Maybe not at "DP" level for sure, but he showed why the club signed him. Most European players, especially top players, need time to settle in when they get to MLS and Namli never got that. His 2020 was thrown into complete disarray due to COVID and now he's missing at least half of 2021 due to an injury. Those aren't things the FO could have foreseen. We never got to see Namli fully integrated into MLS.
While we're talking about the roster, Darren Yapi was loaned to the Springs today. That's 8 players now loaned out getting time in Colorado Springs or Phoenix.
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1 comment:
I think history will look at Namli's time here as kind of a stop-gap while Bassett developed. When he was brought in, we didn't really have any creative force in midfield. However, with Bassett's amazing 2020 and (so far so) good 2021 performances, Namli's value to the team is not as high as it was when he was brought in. If the Rapids are commiting to the 1-DP bit, I'd much rather see the money spent up front.
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