Change Is Good

Mark McCullers and Robert Warzycha are the definition of “conservative”. They do not say more than what is required and they are not prone to overreaction.

But the former would be wise to consider doing something…spontaneous…after Saturday night’s loss in Chicago.

McCullers was uncharacteristically outspoken about this Columbus Crew roster prior to the start of the regular season. He spoke of aspirations that began with an Eastern Conference title and ended with the possibility of Columbus hosting MLS Cup 2013. He told us this year would be different, because this roster was different. He convinced us the sky was the limit.

Does he still believe that after Saturday’s pathetic showing against the Fire?

If he does, he needs to do something crazy. He needs to fire Robert Warzycha and replace him with Technical Director Brian Bliss.

In the first 6-8 weeks of the regular season, Warzycha has managed to alienate his best striker (Jairo Arrieta), deploy his best playmaker (Federico Higuain)  in a no-win situation as a second forward instead of a playmaking midfielder, and stood firm on the central midfield pairing of Agustin Viana and Danny O’Rourke. Of the seven goals allowed by Columbus this season, four have come from outside the penalty box. This would suggest that Viana and O’Rourke are not doing a good enough job of closing down long range shooters.

Yet Warzycha has shown no effort to make any sort of tactical or personnel changes in his Starting XI. His rigidness has become detrimental to the team’s success and McCullers should hold him responsible by not allowing him to see out the final year of his contract.

Brian Bliss is the obvious choice for an interim coach. He is the one who assembled this roster that McCullers has spoken so highly of. He is the one who can figure out how best to deploy them and start producing wins instead of draws at home. It’s time he had a chance to prov himself.

Columbus is not an organization with a history of knee-jerk reactions. But that has to change. The longer Warzycha is allowed to run this team into the ground, the more it harms the development of youngsters like Ben Speas, Wil Trapp, and Matias Sanchez. It wastes the talent of Pipa Higuain and Jairo Arrieta. The phrase “desperate times call for desperate measures” immediately comes to mind.

Let’s hope Mark McCullers is starting to get desperate before it’s too late.