Atlanta United needs a roster turnover, which means tough decisions await

With a roster that is clearly not good enough and a team that isn't competitive, Chris Henderson must swallow some bitter pills.

Over the weekend, a report came across the wire that an anonymous UAE club has offered a roughly $1.4 million transfer offer for Atlanta United LB Pedro Amador.

If this report is true, Atlanta United should take the deal. Negotiate for as much as you can get, but take the deal.

It’s a tough reality to stomach. Amador has hardly been the greatest offender contributing to Atlanta United’s woes since his arrival. In fact, the opposite is true. Amador was scorching hot last year and one of the catalysts for the run the team went on to reach the playoffs and beat Inter Miami. Joining midseason last year, the Portuguese fullback started 15 of his 16 appearances in all competitions and recorded eight assists, including five consecutive MLS regular season/playoff matches with an assist.

In another world, Amador is exactly the kind of player with which you win a title. A technically proficient player on minimal salary is exactly what MLS teams are looking for. The problem for Atlanta is the team is so bad and the roster needs so much help, the benefits Amador provides will never be fully realized until he’s no longer the cap value he is at the present moment. By the time Atlanta can build its roster back up to a championship level, Amador will likely need to be offered a new contract — one which is more commensurate with his on-field value. Can you win a title with a $600k fullback? It’s not impossible, but you have to make up for value elsewhere on the roster in that case.

Ultimately the conversation that is being had amongst fans and executives alike isn’t just about Amador. This report simply illustrates the predicament Atlanta United finds itself in: the team is a bad and in great need of improving the roster. The only meaningful way to improve that roster is to, essentially, sell it for parts and hope you can make better signings/decisions with the new stock of resources.

Each player on Atlanta United’s roster holds value in two ways: one as the cost of their salary against the cap, and the other as their cash value on the transfer market. What will ultimately happen when the current season ends is players’ contracts wont be renewed. The team will essentially recoup value for those players in the form of their salary costs. These are the players that are so overpaid that there is no market value for them. But given these tend to be players on significant outlays, that’s valuable resources General Manager Chris Henderson can use at his disposal. There must be confidence that, for example, Henderson can replace Brooks Lennon at RB for less than the roughly $740k per year that Lennon currently costs. The remainder of the purported savings can be reinvested at other positions.

But in the case of players like Amador, the team is positioned to recoup value in the form of cash (via transfer) that exceeds any outsize value the player is currently providing on the field against his cap number. What stings is that these tend to be your best players! And it’s hard to justify getting rid of the few on Atlanta United’s team that can offer fans hope.

But there’s no other option. The only way you get out of the hole Atlanta has dug itself in is by selling off players for whatever you can get and hope you can make more shrewd signings that better utilize every dollar that’s reinvested. If Henderson is successful, he will have more players like Amador that could be moved for excess value, they will be replaced sufficiently on the field for less cap space, sold at excess, replaced, sold, replaced… this is the way of soccer roster management — and it’s easier said than done.