Atlanta United's rebuild needs to be ruthless

Tear the whole thing down.

Editor’s Note: As the transfer window opens this week, Five Stripe Final will turn an eye toward how the team is best preparing to be competitive next season. Joe kicked it off with his article here. Sam’s conclusion will follow later in the week.

It’s funny how fast things can change in soccer. Joe opened this trilogy of opinion posts on how to fix Atlanta United in the next two transfer windows on Monday. Since then we’ve already had two big pieces of news that will affect the roster.

There’s no doubt that Chris Henderson has the Five Stripes in complete rebuild mode after the most embarrassing season in club history. They’ve clearly decided to place most of the blame on the roster and are hellbent on making sure the same problem isn’t the reason the team fails in 2026.

Joe did a great job of laying out the basics of an outline on how revitalize this roster. Make sure to give his article a read. I agree with almost everything he wrote and won’t be rehashing it. Instead, I’m going to try to go a bit more in-depth on what I would do with certain personnel decisions and the exact type of players the club should be looking to recruit in the next two transfer windows.

The Grim Reaper Cometh