Question of the Day: Should Sporting KC Bring Back Khiry Shelton?

On Wednesday Khiry Shelton went to his Instagram story to troll Sporting Kansas City fans.

He took a picture of his feet on an airplane and put an emoji of a plane flying around the world to the letters “KC.” Daniel Salloi got in on the trolling of Sporting KC fans on Thursday when he put a picture of himself and Shelton on his IG with the quote, “cheers to our new signing @khiryshelton.”

The night before Sam McDowell tweeted out to “slow down on the reunion talk.”

He went on to say Shelton was just in town visiting friends and former teammates. In The Blue Testament Slack we had guessed that was exactly the case.

Khiry just finished his first season in Germany playing for SC Paderborn 07 in 2. Bundesliga. The team earned a promotion to the Bundesliga for the first time since the 2014-2015 season. Shelton didn’t contribute much as he dealt with an injury and only made two appearances for a mere 21 minutes. Shelton did play for Paderborn’s B-Team in the German fifth division. He had five appearances for them (all starts) and scored twice adding a single assist..

Even if Shelton wanted to come back (if he was out of contract or released from his deal in Germany) and Sporting KC wanted him back, he can’t come back until the secondary transfer window. The window opens on July 7th and closes on August 7th.

My Take

As always with the Question of the Day, we want to hear from you in the comments and in the poll below on if you’d like to see Shelton come back. But it’d be rude to ask it all of you and not weigh in ourselves.

Personally, I’d pass on Shelton. It’s no secret I wasn’t a Shelton guy when he was here and when I started to come around on him, he laid and egg in the playoffs. That’s not the only reason though.

Shelton has now had two fairly significant knee injuries in back-to-back seasons. In 2018 with Sporting KC and nearly immediately after arriving in Germany. Adding to that is the fact that he is unlikely to help with the injury woes since Erik Hurtado should be back from his injuries before the secondary transfer window opens.

Another factor is that Yohan Croizet suddenly looks serviceable at center forward. He played fantastic against the Seattle Sounders and even though he struggled against the LA Galaxy, that was on two days rest.

If you asked me to compare Croizet to Shelton I’d break it down like this. Shelton has the speed advantage. That’s it. Strength I’d say is even. Touch, while not great for either player, definitely favors Yohan. Even though Shelton is taller he can’t time a jump to head the ball to save his life. Croizet has more confidence in front of goal, even if neither of them are prolific goal scorers. And they are both about even on hustle, even if they play different styles. Oh, and Yohan can play nearly every position on the pitch (even if he isn’t fantastic at any of them).

The final issue for me is roster space. There are only three open roster spots. I wouldn’t spend one on Shelton unless the plan is to declined the 2020 option on Hurtado and install Shelton as the second or third option going forward. That said, I haven’t seen enough of Hurtado to know if he’ll exceed Shelton (which I suspect he will).

One final thing is that Peter Vermes does really like Shelton. He even said in an interview the other day before the LA game that the team had a great record with Shelton. That is true, but The Blue Testament has shown that can be misleading.

What do you think? Tell us in the poll and in the comments below.