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Posted by
Steve Bottjer,
April 1, 2013 |
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Twitter @BottjerRNO |
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Fresh off positive starts to their 2013 MLS campaigns, neither the Montreal Impact or Toronto FC are sitting still with respect to improving their squads and doing everything they can to build for success in both the short and long term.
RedNation has learned that Toronto and Montreal are reportedly currently filing documents with league headquarters in New York and are expected to announce a significant trade between the two clubs on Monday, with fullback Richard Eckersley headed to the Impact and Andrew Wenger, first overall pick in the 2012 MLS SuperDraft, headed the other way back to Toronto.
Eckersley is expected to add pace, depth and experience to an Impact back line that already features experienced veterans such as Alessandro Nesta, Matteo Ferrari and Nelson Rivas.
The move is a somewhat curious one from an Impact standpoint given that Montreal Impact Head Coach Marco Schallibaum and Eckersley had been involved in a heated scuffle at the end of the Impact’s 2-1 victory over Toronto last month at Olympic Stadium in Montreal.
However, sources close to the Impact have told RedNation that the Impact brass see Eckersley as a key defensive acquisition as both a player whose pace can offset the lack of speed currently exhibited by the 37 year old Nesta and as a contributor who will bring quality of his own as an experienced defender from Europe that will be able to slot right into Schallibaum’s system and offset any injuries that Montreal could incur over a heavy duty schedule.
With respect to the recent altercation between Schallibaum and Eckersley, anonymous sources close to the deal have indicated that both the manager and the player have already put the situation in the past, with the former having stated behind closed doors that he genuinely loves the passion and fighting spirit displayed by the player.
Eckersley leaves Toronto after making 34 appearances over two seasons.
From Toronto’s standpoint, the club loses a player who was entrenched in Ryan Nelsen’s starting eleven, but gains a talented young player who showed enough in his rookie season last year to suggest that he will be a top shelf MLS forward for years to come.
With Danny Koevermans not expected back until the middle of the summer, Robert Earnshaw is the only proven and experienced striker on Toronto’s roster. The acquisition of Wenger adds depth to Toronto’s forward corps while also opening up significant salary cap space for TFC to bring in further reinforcements with the summer transfer window opening in the coming weeks. Eckersely is one of the highest paid defenders in the league while Wenger is still on a Generation Adidas contract.
Sources within Toronto FC have told RedNation that while the team was not actively seeking to trade Eckersely, the trade for Wenger made sense on too many levels for Toronto not to complete it, with Head Coach Ryan Nelsen being of the belief that Englishman Darel Russell can slot in at right back and get the job done in Eckersley’s absence and President and General Manager Kevin Payne being extremely high on both Wenger and on the salary cap flexibility that the move provides Toronto.
The Toronto FC management team had spoken in recent weeks about the hard decisions they would continue to have to make with respect to shipping out players in order to build a team capable of being competitive against the top teams in Major League Soccer. In that vein, Eckersley joins midfielders Julio Cesar and Matt Stinson as the latest player forced to leave Toronto as the team rebuilds under Payne and Nelsen.
Wenger leaves Montreal after making 25 appearances with the club and scoring 4 goals.
Both Eckersley and Wenger are expected to join their new clubs once the deal has been technically completed following the filing of the requisite paperwork on April 1st, 2013.
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