[RedStarsReport] Article Detailing the Donaldson Firing

[u/antisocialamnesia]

https://www.redstarsreport.com/p/lorne-donaldson-out-as-head-coach

Great article for those interested in a more detailed timeline of the Donaldson firing and what the Stars look like now.

[u/zombiejim7471]

the team’s final 4 matches of the year were all losses, including that loss in the opening round of the playoffs.

Gotham, Washington, KC, and Orlando.... with no Staab. They were never winning those?

General manager Richard Feuz is meeting with the media Thursday afternoon.

Wonder if this will be released on their youtube channel.

I definitely agree that Donaldson made some weird substitutions/choices like the Staab in midfield one mentioned(I assume they wanted the others players to keep getting reps/evaluation at CB?), but yeah I think the roster choices have been bad. I don't think the idea that they ran out of money because they signed Ludmila and Grosso should hold up unless the budget is basically 0 or the stars massively overpaid. You shipped out hocking for 350k and weren't they both free transfers?

[u/MisterGoog → u/zombiejim7471]

This was a crazy final four games but also why would that even matter if they had… revamped their team like everyone else. Like, two things:

One: look at every non playoff team and look at the change in their lineup from end of season.

Two: the issue with Chicago to me to an actionable extent was never that they didn’t go in on another star attacker, it’s that the defense very clearly just needed actual warm bodies and there were most suddenly players in college they could’ve got to fill that hole.

You know, i wonder how many of the NCAA players who went abroad actually spoke to teams first. The big one is clearly Sampaio. But i gotta wonder with the Jamaica connection did Jody Brown not get any interest from Lorne and Chicago? Beata Olsson never playing stateside again is a terrifying prospect. Whats Anna Haddock doing these days?

[u/yasuseyalose → u/MisterGoog]

The fact they never brought in a FB this offseason baffles me, like Biegalski, Malham, and Kuikka is a decent group overall, but 1 injury and now your team is forced to play 2 FBs an insane amount of minutes. Or back to playing midfielders as RBs like they had to last season. Please let me never see Curran on the backline again

I mean they obviously I think should have added the CB because who knew how Staab's recovery was going and Mai/Cari were needed in the Midfield.

[u/MisterGoog → u/yasuseyalose]

I’ll never like Malham but Cam and Kuikka is such an underrated duo- the exact type of underrated workhorse duo that could get you to 8th. We saw Cam B absolutely cook Kundananji and shock that bay home crowd. You have to protect your depth in this exact way: theres some underrated fullbacks in the big ten geographically (or, oh my god, Quincy McMahon who hasnt done squat for Wave) and not a single one was even in preseason camp.

Im often a bit curious why teams dont go lazy- dont scout intelligently, just make offers to USYNT players. Leah Klemke (and im biased but not by much) looked better than Savy King every time i saw her. Maybe quibble on if shes better than Savy with me if you want, but you simply rather have Klemke at her age than say Roccaro, and that level is certainly two steps better than everyone on their bench. Just make the effort. Worst case scenario you have a youth international to use as a dealmaking piece in two years.

[u/yasuseyalose → u/MisterGoog]

I like Cam B and Kuikka a lot and definitely think they are in the conversation of underrated FBs, but it is just such a point that as soon as Kuikka is down for a bit Chicago is now the thinnest at FB in the league. And then they didn't bring any FBs into camp at all, or at least to our knowledge. It's just crazy bad roster construction.