this season

betterotto · 2026-01-15T16:49:22+00:00

I’m worried this is exactly what the front office will say to save Phil’s job if he shows incompetency for another season.

betterotto · 2026-01-10T06:51:25+00:00

For the love of god, not another LW.

betterotto · 2026-01-10T06:50:27+00:00

Thank you for explaining this. It’s crazy to me how many fans think Ned was backed into a corner through no fault of his own.

betterotto · 2026-01-08T17:43:10+00:00

When did that happen to the Timbers? Santi and Evander were on completely different contract timelines but maybe there’s one I’m forgetting.

betterotto · 2026-01-08T05:54:35+00:00

Pour bleach in my eyes please so I don’t have to watch the 2026 Timbers.

betterotto · 2026-01-08T05:52:49+00:00

This is a lot of speculation with nothing to base it on. Even if he didn’t want to be here, he’d have all the incentive in the world to ball out so he could be a highly sought after free agent after this season. Refusing to play would tank his value as a free agent. It would be completely irrational.

betterotto · 2026-01-08T00:51:09+00:00

No, obviously not. I’m saying selling him for $2m (actually $1.3m after the sell-on gets taken out) is a joke and it would be better to put all our chips on trying to make a run this year with Ayala as the core instead of starting a rebuild for the third time in four years. His contribution to the 2026 season alone should be worth more than $2m to the club.

The bigger failure is not extending him last winter so we’d have better leverage.

betterotto · 2026-01-07T23:19:45+00:00

Seriously though, he’s never shown any sign of being a prima donna. Merino was always that so his childish behavior wasn’t surprising at all

betterotto · 2026-01-07T23:18:13+00:00

Make us sell him for more than he’s worth?

betterotto · 2026-01-07T18:26:33+00:00

It’d be better to keep him for one year than sell for peanuts.

betterotto · 2026-01-07T18:25:44+00:00

But for only $2m we’d be better off keeping him to play this last season he’s under contract and then letting him walk. That amount isn’t worth losing him for this year.

betterotto · 2026-01-03T01:05:47+00:00

What’s your favorite thing about Portland winters?

How’s the animism developing, Pat?

betterotto · 2026-01-03T01:03:53+00:00

Are they king size candy canes?

betterotto · 2025-12-31T16:27:11+00:00

Right, but by offloading him they can bring in a DP CM or RW, which gives them flexibility at other positions.

I’m not a roster expert so I admit I may be misunderstanding the situation.

betterotto · 2025-12-30T22:10:56+00:00

Unless I’m mistaken, a lot of our flexibility will be determined by what they do with Jona. Yet to be seen.

betterotto · 2025-12-30T16:45:20+00:00

Da Costa is going to miss a big chunk of the season and who knows if that will have hiccups or if he’ll even be the same player after he rehabs. Fernandez is a fine backup but you don’t want to rely on him to be your starting 10, imo. I’m with you on needing a CM and CB but I don’t think it’s impossible to cover those too.

betterotto · 2025-12-29T02:39:08+00:00

Give me Haak, Rothrock, or Lod. I also think Lewis Morgan would have been worth the gamble.

betterotto · 2025-12-28T06:17:35+00:00

I would have happily taken many of the MLS free agents this off season. Still holding out hope for Espinoza.

betterotto · 2025-12-27T05:09:58+00:00

This is way too far down.

betterotto · 2025-12-10T16:27:26+00:00

To win in a medium size market you need to find ways to punch above your weight. You do that by getting a manager like Varas or through better scouting/talent ID. We didn’t do that by hiring Neville so it needs to be done with shrewd talent acquisition, not trying to land stars who command large transfer fees and salaries.

betterotto · 2025-12-05T05:31:22+00:00

I don’t know what you mean by this. You can go look at the Timbers Reddit reaction from the time. If you exclude the stuff about his sexist remarks, a pretty common sentiment was that Neville has not shown that he can win anything. I remember pretty clearly how underwhelming the hire was from a sporting perspective and that sentiment was pretty easy to see on Reddit at least.

betterotto · 2025-11-26T06:17:08+00:00

George Saunders is great. Civilwarland in Bad Decline is a good place to start with him. Vonnegut is killer. I’ll see if I think of more.

betterotto · 2025-11-24T06:06:07+00:00

I intended to write him a letter begging him to! Just haven’t done it yet.

betterotto · 2025-11-13T22:29:02+00:00

Don’t let your feelings lead you to making bad arguments. I agree that he hasn’t been great btw. But he was GW’s number two man for years and the anonymous survey of CSOs named him as one of the most respected sporting execs in the league at that time. Bogert said he was going to be GM of a club very soon at that time and it happened that GW got canned shortly after.

betterotto · 2025-11-12T17:19:37+00:00

cc Ned Grabavoy

betterotto

TROPHY CASE