MLS Transfers: 5 biggest early-season roster concerns | OneFootball

By Matthew Doyle

We’ve got a small sample size of games that count under our belts, and with that, we’ve had 180 minutes of light shined on some of the roster holes around MLS.

Can’t hide when the games matter, right? If your perception heading into the season is you’re deficient in one particular area, and then the first couple games of the year provide proof that your hunch was correct, well… the Primary Transfer Window is open through April 23. And the clock on the season is ticking.

This is, in other words, the usual assess-and-reassess rhythm of the early season. And with assessment and reassessment of roster shapes and exploitable holes comes the need – an existentially urgent need, in some cases – to fix them.

Here’s a handful that have jumped out at me so far this season:

Columbus Crew

Need: DP Attacker

This one’s obvious, right? The Crew sold Cucho Hernández and traded Christian Ramírez, and have only replaced them from within thus far. And through two games, things are going great – Jacen Russell-Rowe’s got two goals and the Crew have six points. I would have no problem with them seeing Russell-Rowe as a starter from now on.

Even so, he’d be the only out-and-out forward on the roster, and the only guy really capable of playing the No. 9 for an extended period. Diego Rossi is more half-forward, half-winger, while AZ Jackson and Dylan Chambost are more in the attacking midfielder mold.

They’re missing a big piece that ties it all together and elevates the collective.

What kind of budget room do they have?

Right now the Crew only have two DPs on the roster, one of whom – Darlington Nagbe – can be bought down. This team could go out and get two Cuchos if they wanted to, or could go 2/4/2 for the extra GAM.

As it stands, the hot rumor is Palmeiras attacker Flaco López who, like Cucho, is kind of a 9.5 rather than a pure No. 9. And a move for Flaco suddenly makes a lot more sense with Vitor Roque (who Cucho displaced in Betis) now in Sao Paulo as the presumptive starter.

Columbus also don’t have any of their U22 slots filled. The only limiting factor at the moment is they’ve only got one open international roster slot.

The other thing to remember: you don’t get any GAM for selling a full DP overseas, so while they’re not up against the wall, they’re not exactly diving into a pot of cash, Scrooge McDuck-style.

FC Cincinnati

Need: Midfield Ball-Progressor

To be clear, Cincy’s starting XI is elite, and their ball progression through central midfield is very good (just shy of elite) when Pavel Bucha is out there.

But when he’s not, when it’s Obinna Nwobodo and Tah Anunga together, you get the kind of performance this team put together in that 4-1 loss to Philly last weekend. The Union cut off Miles Robinson’s ability to pick out the wingbacks and the wide center backs couldn't break lines, so it all fell on the central midfielders. Anunga completed just one progressive pass before coming off at the hour mark; Nwobodo, in his 90 minutes, completed just four.

All that meant Evander kept dropping deeper, which shattered Cincy’s shape, and the rout was on.

While I think the backline distribution issues will improve once Matt Miazga is back (should be soon), if the Garys are going to do damage across multiple competitions, they need a Bucha understudy in the central midfield mix. They can’t afford to run him into the ground, and as the Union showed, they can’t afford to not have him out there in a big game.

What kind of budget room do they have?

They have more TAM guys than anybody in the league, so they had to opt for the U22 Initiative Roster Construction model (2 DPs, 4 U22 slots, $2 million worth of GAM). And even after collecting GAM from the Lucho Acosta sale, they have just about exhausted their funds.

So I think they’ll go out and try to find a young CM, which makes sense given they’ve got three of those U22 slots open. They also have two open international roster slots, so they really can do some overseas shopping.

Know what’d be an interesting one, though? Noel Buck. He was one of the best central midfield prospects in the league two years ago – a real contributor for a team on track for 65 points – but isn’t even getting off the bench now for New England. Could the teams work out a loan with a purchase option that triggers next year?

Do that and the Revs would get a loan fee for this year, and then get another tranche of GAM from a homegrown player sale in 2026 (staggering the sale so it triggers in January is essential since the Revs already maxed out their 2025 take via the Esmir Bajraktarevic sale). Cincy get a young, domestic player who fills a need. And Buck gets a spot where he’d get playing time.

Feels like a win-win-win situation.

Houston Dynamo FC

Need: Left-footed Center Back

The Dynamo’s issues clearly go beyond what one player can fix. Let’s take that as a given after what we’ve seen from the first two weeks.

With that as context, Andrew Wiebe made the point on Sunday Night Soccer’s broadcast that head coach Ben Olsen feels like it’s actually Micael – a left-footed, ball-playing center back who’s also part brick wall – who’s the biggest loss from last year’s team. Most of the coverage heading into this season has been about getting a new DP No. 10 (which, to be clear, they absolutely need to do), or what it’ll look like when their U22 wingers are healthy again, or how to replace Coco Carrasquilla, or how Jack McGlynn’s ready to step into a major, high-usage orchestrator role.

But through two games we’ve seen just how tough it is to maintain Houston’s system if you don’t have a natural, left-footed distributor at left center back. It’s a massive need, one that is potentially make-or-break for the 2025 season.

What kind of budget room do they have?

They’re going with the 2/4/2 model and all four U22 slots are filled. So are both DP slots, though that’s just a technicality since Artur (who can very easily be moved into a regular senior roster slot) is occupying one of those temporarily.

They’ll have plenty of GAM because of the model choice and the Micael sale. The DP slot is, I’m sure, being saved for the No. 10 – which is as it should be. They need an upgrade there.

Everything else has to go into finding their Micael replacement. Everything.

One slight issue at the moment is they’ve only got one international roster slot open, though that can be rectified pretty easily.

San Diego FC

Need: Midfield Creator

This became exponentially more urgent after Chucky Lozano limped off with what appeared to be a hamstring injury half an hour into Saturday night’s scoreless draw with St. Louis because now Mikey Varas & Co. can’t rely upon the front line to do all the heavy lifting.

That’s a problem because thus far the midfield has been functional, at best, pushing forward. And the one guy on the roster who’s classed as an attacking midfielder, Onni Valakari, hasn’t looked the part when given the opportunity:

What kind of budget room do they have?

We don’t have most of their data yet, but the best guess from folks around the league is they should still have a substantial amount of GAM. That’s aided by the fact that, for now, they’re a 2/4/2 team, which will obviously change to the DP model if the long-rumored Kevin De Bruyne move happens this summer.

Just as obvious:

San Diego have at least one open U22 slot to address this need, but no international roster slots open. They’d need to wheel and deal a little bit to make room, but that can be managed given the funds they’ve surely got on hand.

Orlando City

Need: Center Back

The main problem for Orlando City, through two games, is that Pedro Gallese can not stop the ball. He’s allowed six goals on 2.9 post-shot xG as per FBRef, which is four levels beyond “bad.”

Now, bear in mind this is a small sample size, but Gallese’s shot-stopping numbers were really poor in 2022 and last year, as well, and weren’t great in 2023 either. He’s not the guy he was when he first got to Orlando five years ago.

He’s not this bad, though, for one, and for two, in young Javier Otero, it looks like they’ve got the heir lined up.

So I think center back is a more dire need, as was especially apparent against Philadelphia in the opener. If Robin Jansson’s not out there, they really don’t have the ability to play out from the back against anyone who brings well-structured pressure. And even when Jansson – who’s now in his mid-30s – is on the field, they don’t scramble well and don’t command their box in the air in front of Gallese.

What kind of budget room do they have?

Maybe it’s time for 20-year-old academy product Thomas Williams, who was excellent defensively and with his ball-carrying (he’s not much of a passer yet) last year in MLS NEXT Pro, to start getting first-team minutes?

They might need to go that route since they’re committed to the 3 DP roster build model, and aren’t flush with GAM. Not broke, mind you, but they won’t have Houston or San Diego-style budget flexibility.

They do have one U22 slot open, and given their South American scouting network and connections, I wonder if they could land a high-profile kid like Juan Rodríguez, who’s a starter for Peñarol and has already made his full national team debut with Uruguay at age 19.

They’d need to open up an international roster slot to do it, but for a talent like Rodríguez, it’d almost certainly be worth it.