Joe Hart is reportedly a potential target of Inter Miami. Either the rumour is rubbish, which is quite plausible, or the transfer is rubbish. Either way, something is rubbish.
Smart allocation of resources is a critical result of good management. In any walk of life, those that manager organisations successfully take the resources they have, from financial investments to personnel and staff, and invest them efficiently to produce the most positive effect.
This is especially true in Major League Soccer. Where in global football, the rich clubs can spend and spend, as long as they abide by Financial Fair Play, that is not the case in MLS. There is a spending cap and roster designations, all designed to restrict the spending of teams and create parity across the league.
The best teams in MLS are the ones that use the spending power that they are allowed to have to its best use. How can you make the most of the three Designated Player slots? What can you do with the league-given Target Allocation Money and General Allocation Money?
These questions are most important for newly expanded teams, who have an empty roster to fill and the freedom of the league rules to start from the bottom and build upwards. They do not have to tear anything down to assemble their team.
For Inter Miami, then, as they look to build their first MLS team under the investment of David Beckham and an ownership group allegedly willing to invest heavily to build a team capable of winning MLS Cup, correctly allocating the vast resources that they do have is vital, starting with their roster and extending throughout the organisation.
So when rumours surfaced that Inter Miami might offer Joe Hart an escape from English football, colour me shocked, but it was quite startling just how stupid the suggestion was.
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Hart might well command a Designed Player salary. As with Tim Howard in Colorado, another ageing, Premier League stalwart, we have seen what happens when teams use one of their three DP slots on a goalkeeper. It is not a smart way to allocate their resources.
Even if he doesn’t, he will not be cheap. Hart would become one of the highest-paid players in the Miami squad, while playing in goal. Given their need to fill out what is looking like a rather empty squad at present, with holes at every line of the team, using significant resources on a goalkeeper is foolish.
This is even more pertinent when you consider that Luis Robles is already in the house after being signed on a free-agent deal. The New York Red Bulls shot-stopper is one of the greatest goalkeepers in MLS history. He is an extremely astute acquisition for a new team needing experience and know-how. But he is also a very capable starter, so why sign another goalkeeper, for a high cost? It makes no sense.
The reports, then, lead to one natural conclusion: something here is rubbish, either Inter Miami’s idea to pursue Hart in the first place or the reports themselves. Allocating resources well is critical, and someone is doing it poorly here.