Sporting KC Trade Dwyer to Orlando

Sporting Kansas City today made official the rumors that have been swirling for the last couple of days, sending forward, Dom Dwyer to Orlando City in exchange for allocation money. The deal involves the largest amount of allocation money in league history. Sporting Kansas City will get $900,000 in allocation initially ($400,000 in general allocation money, $500,000 in targeted allocation money) and should Dwyer meet certain performance levels, KC will earn another $700,000 in funds. So a total of $1.6 million in allocation money for the club’s second all time leading scorer.

Dwyer’s absence will certainly be felt initially, while he has only scored five goals this season, he was averaging .51 goals per every 90 minutes played over his career with Kansas City, scoring 57 goals in just over 10,000 minutes played in MLS play. The club now has this season’s leading scorer Gerso Fernandes, Latif Blessing, Diego Rubio, and Daniel Salloi to fill the gap, at least in the short term as this trade is likely not the last move that Sporting make this transfer window.

Still it will be hard to replace not only Dwyer’s production, but more so his work ethic as a forward that just bugged central defenders with his high press in Kansas City’s system. His work at the forward position made Kansas City’s high press as successful as anyone else on the field did. In the end that may actually be the hardest thing to replace with Dwyer, his ability to be a pest helped cause many turnovers, something you’re not going to get out of a lot of strikers.

Short term against Chicago this coming weekend may be tough, KC will likely rely on the same front three that took the field against Real Salt Lake (barring a Gerso Fernandes suspension) to out score the league’s leading scorer Nemanja Nikolic and David Accam. Long term, as long as Kansas City uses their boatload of allocation money correctly, the club should be able to make the team stronger. And while making this move to trade away your only proven goal scorer when you’re second in the Western Conference is confusing and frustrating, there has to be a point where they make an offer you just can’t refuse, and the potential for a deal that could bring in $1 million more than the largest allocation trade in league history was one that Kansas City couldn’t refuse.