Romney celebrating with Walker Zimmerman. Mike Meredith/Club and Country
#HotTimWinter continues apace, this time with some bad news from the “Dave Romney is underrated” lobby: the veteran centerback will be traded to New England Revolution. First reported by Seth Macomber of The Bent Musket, with details filled ini by the ‘stache:
You’ll note that this very site has been chairing the pro-Romney lobby, so before we get into the player impacts, the financials:
Gaining $525k in General Allocation Money for a 29-year old centerback who’s never been a best XI player is solid (it’s partially reflective of GAM inflation, yes, but it’s solid nonetheless – Atlanta’s 21-year old George Campbell earned them $600k from Montreal, Tim Parker is just six months older than Romney, much more decorated in his MLS career, and got $500k to go to his hometown St. Louis, which presumably paid a premium for that reason and because expansion teams always pay a little penalty on the trade market). It also gets a $475k budget hit off Nashville’s books – not super-expensive for a veteran, domestic CB, but well below the TAM cutoff, and there’s an argument to be made that if Jack Maher’s ready (and Ahmed Longmire is close enough to be a backup), and if someone like Laurence Wyke (likely close to a senior-minimum deal)can perform at a backup level well enough to mean you don’t need that expenditure.
He was underrated during his time with LA Galaxy, and perhaps not underrated but underappreciated at Nashville SC. From a business standpoint, it makes a lot of sense. From an on-field standpoint, it seems like it’s going to hurt – though it probably spells the end to Nashville’s back-five ideas, which is just fine by me – from a personality standpoint, fans may not feel too much pain, but Romney is always a funny, honest, and intellectually curious guy in an interview setting, and will be missed in that regard around here.
As for what Nashville loses in terms of a player… Romney was an ironman until the final regular-season game of Nashville’s second season, and the quality of those defenses speaks for itself. ASA‘s Goals Added didn’t love him – but that’s largely because of the role he played, with limited interrupting asked of him next to Walker Zimmerman.
All that said… his advanced stats fell off this year to an extent. That happened particularly with passing, where he was the most-conservative of his NSC career (to be fair, in part because of Nashville’s playing more in a back-three, so the distances and verticals he was asked to hit were shorter) with an ASA xPass of 81.2%, and he also overachieved his xPass by the least he had in either of the prior two years. The fact that he’s simply not able to be the ironman he was to start his NSC tenure is an unfortunate reality of age, and also makes the departure a little more understandable.
It’s worth noting that the super-dumb front office of LA Galaxy never played Romney in his finial couple years before he joined Nashville SC, but he’ll now be reunited with the coach who brought him into the league, Bruce Arena. The Revs’ style (don’t tell Charlie Davies: it’s pretty much the same as Nashville’s) is obviously going to be a good fit for him, as well.
Club and Country 