Real Salt Lake General Manager Craig Waibel didn’t pull any punches on ESPN 700 last week when asked about a lopsided midweek 5-1 loss to the Houston Dynamo. It’s not likely his feelings improved much after a 6-2 loss to FC Dallas on Saturday to wrap up a disappointing stretch of two road matches in eight days.
With the next transfer window is still a month away when teams will start signing up players from outside the league on July 10, there is still time before any roster changes can really take place, but Waibel had a message to his team and its fans.
“It’s unacceptable. Either the players change their attitude … or we do,” Waibel said on The Bill Riley Show. “We’re coming up to a really important window in the summer window here and we’ve got to come up with quite a few answers. You are what you are. You are exactly what your schedule says you are and what your roster and record says you are at this point in the season. Plenty of injuries. Plenty of excuses. But at the end of the day there is no excuse for how we played on Wednesday.”
Between now and that summer window, Waibel and his staff will undergo evaluations of the entire roster with an eye on getting the team back on track in the short term and long term. With a roster made up largely of young players – 11 players are 23 years old or younger – the key all along has been development. In the next month, though, some of the specifics of how those young players will develop and who will be the best players to complement the roster and aid in that development will come into focus.
The return of four key players from the U-20 World Cup, where Danny Acosta, Justen Glad, Brooks Lennon and Sebastian Saucedo helped the U.S. to a quarterfinal appearance, will be helpful. As will the returns of Nick Rimando and Jefferson Savarino from international duty and David Horst, Jordan Allen and Demar Phillips from injury. Those seven players alone will give Head Coach Mike Petke a much more diverse roster with many more options when RSL hosts Minnesota United in the club’s return to MLS play on June 17 at Rio Tinto Stadium. A matchup with the Sacramento Republic in the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup on June 14 will also provide a proving ground for some players looking to cement their spots in the lineup moving forward.
“We are on the steady track of development. I do think we have a very good roster when we’re all healthy,” Waibel said. “From there, we have some real talks about what players are performing up to standards and which players aren’t. From there we have to make some decisions.”
To hear the full interview, click here.
