Portland Timbers: An expensive, 29-year-old striker not ideal

The Portland Timbers have reportedly made a $10 million offer for Chile striker Eduardo Vargas. An expensive, 29-year-old centre-forward, however, is not an ideal acquisition.

Atlanta United have revolutionised the term ‘smart business’ in MLS. Their excellence in the transfer market, signing young, improving players and then selling them on for a profit, demands that other teams now step up to their level of efficiency.

Many MLS organisations are being found out. The older, close-to-retirement Designated Players are not as effective, the desire for youth is greater than ever, and the shift towards becoming a selling league to self-fund new investments requires clever spending in the first place.

We have seen this offseason many teams adopt a similar approach to the Atlanta one. New York City FC signed Alexandru Mitrita. The Vancouver Whitecaps signed Yang In-beom. Real Salt Lake signed Sam Johnson. These are all young, improving DPs either in or approaching their primes.

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And then there is the Portland Timbers. News broke this week that the Timbers have made a near-$10 million offer for Tigres centre-forward Eduardo Vargas. The Chile international is a high-calibre player who would be expected to succeed in MLS, allowing the Timbers to make use of the Diego Valeri-Diego Chara window. He would slot straight into the starting XI and provide another counter-attacking threat for a team blessed with searing speed and midfield creativity.

But there is an issue. In fact, there are a couple. Portland have been looking for a striker all offseason. It is their clear goal this winter. But would they not be better served by investing in a wide attacker to pair with Sebastian Blanco and Valeri, playing the trio behind the awkward but effective Jeremy Ebobisse? So signing a centre-forward might not be the smartest move in the first place.

There is more, though. Initially, it was believed that they wanted to get younger in attacking positions. Valeri, their key man, is 32, after all. And their first few targets implied that to be true.  21-year-old Ezequiel Ponce of AEK Athens was their first port of call in mid-January. Then they turned to 21-year-old Julian Quinones, who, incidentally, is a teammate of Vargas.

After both of those proposed deals fell through, Vargas then became an option. But at 29, the Timbers are making a serious compromise on age, something that they were seemingly unwilling to do earlier in the offseason. This feels like a desperation bid, and that is rarely a smart way to build a team.

And among all of this is the price. $10 million for a 29-year-old centre-forward with little resale value is poor business. Atlanta’s excellence in this regard illustrates this. Moreover, Vargas’ scoring rate at Tigres, 27 goals in 92 appearances, is not exactly blow-the-doors-off magnificent.

Don’t get me wrong, I would still expect him to be successful in Portland, and I can absolutely understand why the Timbers want to make this signing. But from a more factual basis, this is an expensive, old, desperate transfer to make at a position that they can work around with quality additions in other areas. That does not sound like the smartest move in the world.