Hilfe » Pakarinen Jersey[/url] . TSNs Farhan Lalji reports the Edmonton

In the end it was an all too familiar tale that played out on an all too familiar stage. Jari Kurri Jersey . When Toronto FC travelled to New Jersey to play the Red Bulls back in 2009, the prospects of making the playoffs for the first time weighed all too heavy on the shoulders of a team that was simply not good enough for such a burden. The 5-0 humiliation that day simply rubber stamped the inevitable. The team wasnt good. With or without a ticket to the playoffs. On another October night in the Garden State, almost five years on, a different looking TFC got a similar dose of medicine. Only this time it was supposed to be different. This team was supposed to be ready for the big time. Ready for the bright lights. Instead, they arrived back to their hotel in Hoboken, where the lights of Manhattan glisten in the distance, closed the curtain on the dream and fell asleep pondering a failed season. A bloody big disappointment. More finger pointing. Some will say what else could have MLSE have done, after all they threw $100 million at the team and they still failed? Its a lovely round number that adds exclamation marks to another season of ineptitude but it hardly paints the true picture of ineffectiveness. In less time than it takes for a mother to carry a child full term, Toronto FC had gone from Tim Leiwekes Why cant we be great? message to a season of failure once again. During those nine months there were many answers to Leiwekes question. Coaching, formations, tactics, injuries, defensive errors, flights to England, the World Cup. The list can go on and on. The main answer to his question, though, is the lack of combinations in the squad. This is professional sport, it is not like running a team on a football manager videogame simulator where you can buy a bunch of players, run their stats through a system and win games. Yes, money was thrown around but what use is it if you bring in players who dont mix? Leiweke and MLS had three golden tickets in their hands the moment Leiweke convinced the board to spend more money on the team. Yet, they gave two of them to strikers who never looked like compliments to each other. Along the way, of course, there were other factors, notably Jermain Defoes multiple injuries and frequent flyer miles, but when you sign TWO designated players to play up top, you would hope they would somehow have some kind of understanding of how to play off each other. That should, at least, have been the minimum requirement. Thirty-two games in, under two different coaching staffs, and the jury is officially in. The verdict delivered is a harsh one.... Toronto FC have played 2,880 MLS minutes this season. Gilberto and Defoe played together for 530 of them. Less than 19% of the season. The club has now scored 43 league goals this season. They only scored eight of them when the two big money strikers were on the field together. As if that wasnt a big enough problem, the signings themselves led to bigger problems. Having them both around forced the team into a system that didnt suit them and even when they did play together, it didnt make the team better. Strike one. They gave their third golden ticket to Michael Bradley, a player, like Defoe, this franchise could only have dreamed of having one year ago. Yet, with him and Defoe they failed again. Why? Another strike for combinations. Toronto FC GM Tim Bezbatchenko admitted to me earlier this season that the deal for Bradley came together very quickly and late into the offseason. The club has paid for it ever since. Not the signing of the player, but the timing of the signing. In order to get Bradley they had to move the perfect player to get the best out of him. Matias Laba has been immense for an excellent Vancouver side this season and would have been the ideal partner for the American international. Instead, the club spent the entire season looking to find ways of getting more out of Bradley and they never accomplished it. With Laba and Bradley in midfield and a healthy, fully committed Defoe up top it would have been hard to imagine this team not making the playoffs. Laba, however, is a Whitecaps player and is not returning. There will be those who believe throwing DP money after central midfielders is a waste but the modern game is so often won in transitions and having such a solid core can win a club a lot of matches. Bradley is a rare talent at this level who needs to be treasured. It is easy to say he is vastly overpaid but the truth is the club has never had anyone like him in terms of his distribution and football intelligence. Under Ryan Nelsen, he was often asked to play too high up the field, when he is far best suited facing the field where he can pass and attack from deep positions by breaking lines. Vanney recognized this but was already forced to marry, temporarily, a system that required two strikers, forcing Bradley into a midfield two. Inside that, Vanney, like Nelsen, never found the right balance for the American international because he simply didnt have the right players in the squad to get the best out of him. Strike two. Behind whichever midfield combination they played was a back four that never settled together all season. Toronto FC has had some of the worst defences in recent times in Major League Soccer and this current group is not one of them, but they certainly were culpable for much of this seasons disappointments. Full back is clearly a position Vanney is looking to evolve and his work with Justin Morrow since he took over shows real positive signs as he tries to bring a high pressing style and the need for at least one full back to advance forward to not make the attack narrow when the left midfielder, usually Jonathan Osorio, cuts in to help centrally. Defending is a collective responsibility across the entire team but it was clear this season that far too many errors were made by centre-backs. Out of the 64 starting apperances by the two this season, 40 of them were combined between Nick Hagglund and Doneil Henry, two players who played the majority of the season having turned just 21-years-old. Hagglund, now 22, has shown a lot of promise but no one at the start of the season would have thought starting him in 23 league games was the right thing to do. Henry had a season to forget with a number of high-profile individual errors and the team never found the right balance at the heart of the defence. Under Nelsen the team went behind often and recovered often. It was a formula that was not sustainable. In their 32nd match of the season on Saturday they went behind for the 26th time. They had recovered 14pts from losing positions by recovering 12 times from losing deficits, but there are only so many times you can do that. Playing from behind is a dangerous game and, the Portland match aside, they havent looked capable of winning a game they trailed in for two months. Captain Steven Caldwell is arguably the best centre-back the team has ever had. His leadership and tenacity was exactly what this team needed for many years but when Vanney recognized the team needed to play higher up the field with more tempo and an intelligent pressing game, it didnt do Caldwell and his partners any favours. They arent the most technically gifted, possession based defenders who can step up with the team. Instead, to compensate for the lack of pace, they dropped deep and into their comfort zone. Strike three. Maturing and learning how to win is what this team needs as a group. Theres no need for this team to be blown up, said Vanney after Saturdays match. It may be easier said than done. He clearly has some very useful parts to work with but some will be moved on and for the good of the team they should be. In the end it was another poor season, one where collective responsibility is needed following a far too simplistic reliance on individuals. This winter the club will need to do a better job at evaluating talent and they should start by looking at their own. Iiro Pakarinen Jersey . TSNs Farhan Lalji reports the Edmonton Eskimos non-import DT has a workout scheduled with an NFL team next week and isnt expected to sign a deal with any team until then. Connor McDavid Jersey . It was considered unlikely that Rielly would be loaned to Canada for the tournament, which begins Dec. 26 in Malmo, Sweden, though a stretch of three straight games in the press box made it something of a debate. http://www.oilersauthority.com/ . - All-Pro quarterback Aaron Rodgers looked spry enough in pregame warmups Sunday for Green Bays divisional playoff game against Dallas.Britains Katarina Johnson-Thompson moved a step closer to qualifying for the Rio Olympics after shining in Gotzis on day one of the heptathlon. The 23-year-old, looking to bounce back from the agony of last years World Championships when three fouls in the long jump dashed her medal hopes, was in fine form after recording three personal bests (PB) to leave her in second place at the Hypo-Meeting.She excelled in the 100 metres hurdles, high jump and 200m to build a total of 3932 points on Saturday. She trailed Canadas Brianne Theisen-Eaton, the world indoor champion, by 40 points, with the long jump, javelin and 800m to come on Sunday.The Liverpool athlete needed 2,268 more points to get the Olympic qualifying standard of 6,200.That looked comfortably achievable, with her overnight score nine more than it was when she set her overall PB of 6,682 points on the way to winning in Gotzis in 2014.Fellow Briton Morgan Lake, however, ended a disappointing day in 29th place on 3,498 points, while Jessica Ennis-Hill was absent, not ready for a heptathlon following her Achilles injury.Johnson-Thompson got her day off in Austria to a perfect start with an equal PB in the 100m hurdles of 13.37 seconds before she cleared 1. Mark Messier Jersey. 92m in the high jump, an outdoor PB. Johnson-Thompson clocked a personal best in the 100m hurdles Having lead the competition after two events, a poor showing in the shot put - her best throw of 11.55m was the worst in the field and well below the 13.14m PB she set earlier this month - saw her drop to sixth overall.But she responded brilliantly to clock 22.79secs in the 200m, the final event of the first day, to win her race ahead of Theisen-Eaton and was well-placed to lay down a serious marker ahead of Rio.Johnson-Thompson told the BBC: This is my first big competition, especially after a knee operation last autumn, so I just want 6,200 points and to be injury free and to be going home with my ticket for the Olympics. 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