Coffee with the Caps, Monday January 6

Good Monday morning Caps fans and welcome to the deadest time of the year. No signings on the imminent horizon, with the club yet to even announce the retention of Erik Godoy—something which everyone has known is a thing for over a week now.

Yeah sure the MLS Superdraft is on the horizon (this is a shorter column in order for me to prepare a fuller preview later this week) but how super is the damn thing anymore anyway? It is a conference call now anyway and I can tell you there has never been a conference call in the history of the world which could be considered “super.”

To be clear, this dead period is normal. Especially if you’re working with European leagues, the transfer market needs a little time to heat up. Liga MX and many leagues in the Americas have either recently ended or are still going, meaning there are some busy executives throughout Latin America. The market always takes a bit of a nap throughout the holidays, only to wake up in time to get most of the new players in the door before training camp begins. The continued uncertainty over the CBA may make for a bit more waiting than usual as well, with teams waiting to see what the new salary cap and GAM/TAM/WHAM allocations will look like.

But the lack of rumors to chew over has been no fun! At least when there were people making up “Joe Hart is coming to MLS” stories I had something to laugh at. When I’m half asleep at work on Monday morning writing these columns, its nice to have a little bit of material to work with.

So that’s why I’m turning it over to you all. What are the transfer rumors you want to will into existence? Because if the British tabloid world has taught me anything, its that if you try hard enough, you can almost any transfer rumor take hold. Did your brother’s boss’ stepsister see Axel Shuster at the supermarket the other day? Did you hear from some dude on Reddit that we’re definitely getting Julian Gressel? Who has followed the Whitecaps Instagram lately? Surely between the five of us who read this column regularly we can get something going.

In the meantime, here are a few links to chew over...

Best of the Rest

It is Mock Draft Szn on the college soccer interwebs. A few names have been bandied about in these mocks, first from TopDrawerSoccer.com and the other from the MLS site

The MLS brass runs down the best jerseys of the decade. The Caps make the list but, interestingly, not for the hoop throwbacks

NYCFC have tapped former Celtic gaffer Ronny Deila as their new manager, a somewhat underwhelming appointment after being linked with Giovanni van Bronckhorst among others

DC United are the latest MLS team to splash a little cash in Liga MX this offseason, as they appear set to haul in Monarchs midfielder Edison Flores

Fraser Aird (remember him?) is being linked to Landon Donovan’s expansion USL side in San Diego. Would be fun to see him in the CPL but this is the next best thing