Akinmboni close to Bournemouth move, Shaq Moore traded, and more: Monday Freedom Kicks
Happy Monday, everyone. Hopefully you have been enjoying the holidays. We’re less than 48 hours from the flip of the calendar to 2025. Because it’s the holidays, there wasn’t much going on, so it’s a short set of links today.
First, looks like Matai Akinmboni is finally sealing his move to Bournemouth. Sad to see him go, but looking forward to seeing him hopefully break through there and thrive.
Looks like DC United might have another young attacker on the radar:
Holiday shopping: What every MLS team needs this winter (MLS)
The wish list for DC United is simple: Help for Christian Benteke. Let’s get that help for him.
FC Dallas lands USMNT right back Moore in trade from Nashville (PSW)
Shaq Moore is on the move to Dallas for up to $150K in Garber Bucks. Interesting move for Nashville, and Dallas lands another USMNT caliber player.
Are Southampton on course to become Premier League’s worst ever team? (BBC)
Southampton is baaad this year. Could they finish with the worst season in EPL history?
Thankfully for me, the Real Madrid wave is only starting to grow. If those three players can continue to get better on the field, Real Madrid is gonna look back at the fall struggles and laugh as they lift more trophies.
Be safe for New Year’s, everyone, and I’ll see you in 2025!
I’d prioritize a central defender over another helper for Benteke. If you had to choose only one.
Earlier on there was talk of some guy from France coming in? We have to at least get him or we’ll see a lot more 6-0 and 3-4 scorelines.
While we need to strengthen a number of areas, not helping Benteke with talent that can support and even take the pressure off him will be disastrous for our defensive efforts, as well as our scoring ability. If we can’t be incisive, not only will opponents not fear us and have free license to get forward, but we’ll have to commit more and more numbers forward to try to get anything done. This, to my eye, was more responsible for us conceding than anything Bartlett or McVey did.
A little bummed because was looking forward to Akinmboni becoming a starter, would be nice to see another homegrown make waves. Don’t know enough about the academy to know if there are other defenders coming up but would be nice to see DC start to fill that gap with homegrowns. That would leave more resources to spend on the attack. (understanding that it takes longer for central defenders to develop) I do wonder whether Pirani will continue to develop, he’s so young it is a real possibility. If he can evolve into an influential, top 10 level #10 that would help the attack a lot– having more tools in the box than “lump it to the big guy” (although with Benteke that is not a bad tool to rely on)
On Top Drawer (I don’t have a subscription so I can’t see into much of the info there), Travis Clark lists 6 DCU prospects. 2 are defenders. One is Ethan Pendleton, who is committed to UCLA next year. The other is a younger kid, Judah Pritchett. No info I can see except that he was with a Delaware club in 2023.
Other commits among the 6 are midfielders Gleb Bogdanov (going to Villanova) and DCU’s top prospect, Gavin Turner, who is heading to UVA — a year or two there would be good seasoning for Gavin, hopefully prior to signing a big Homegrown Deal.
One more 2025 grad listed there is Anthony Jin, a forward, but no college commit is listed.
The other prospect often discussed is Graham Jones, who, IIRC, traveled with DCU for their preseason. Jones is primarily a left back, but plays CB, too. Not sure why Clark didn’t list him. Anyway, Jones is also heading to UVA. Might be a good thing for DCU if Jones and Turner continue to work together, in practice and maybe in games, too.
Another player maybe worth noting is forward Otu Bisong, who has been called into Philippines youth clubs. Unclear if he’s going to ODCU (per Top Drawer and VA Dev Academy), or also to UVA (per DCU Instagram)
There’s also Dash Papez. Team Captain back in his academy days. A CB freshman at Princeton. Started 7 matches, despite apparently missing almost 2 months with injury. And Justin Melly, another Freshman who started 18 games in defense for Cornell.
Other players with some apparent potential are James Snaith who started a bunch on the wing this past season as a Freshman at Brown, and Garry Zhang, a Freshman midfielder at Princeton who had 8 appearances and scored once against Seton Hall.
One prospect I didn’t mention is 16 year old Aiden Zarate, an attacking mid, who seems to have some real ball skills, and captained US U14 Futsal side that won a world championship.
We desperately need a legit MLS Next Pro side to develop real prospects like Zarate, Turner and Jones.
Reduces fines from the league office, too! 😉
Interesting point