Player Trends: Who’s Up, Who’s Down?

As Sporting KC attempt to find themselves during the rebuild, we’re tracking individual player trends. Who is on the rise and who may be sliding out of favor?

It’s a period of transition for the club and an opportunity for each player to cement themselves on the roster, or be replaced. The ball is rolling and we’re now able to see if it really was an excellent offseason for Mike Burns.

There are several new faces on the team and it will take time to become acclimated with the league, their teammates, and the Peter Vermes system. So let’s take a look at the progress of a few players and which direction they’re heading:

Trending Down

Erik Thommy

He made the switch to winger this offseason after the addition of Manu Garcia in the Sporting KC midfield. Erik Thommy does have a goal this season, but he’s also a key part of this offense which was almost nonexistent until the comeback against Minnesota. By the way, Thommy was subbed off right before SKC exploded with three goals to secure the point.

Nemanja Radoja

The 32-year-old Serbian is sharing time with Jacob Bartlett at the holding midfielder position. One player is on the wrong side of 30, the other is on the inexperienced side of 20. Nemanja Radoja had several poor passes and bad decisions last weekend, and an athletic Minnesota side exposed his lack of pace as well. If he isn’t playing at a level which simply forces Vermes to keep him on the field, then they may elect to experiment with the youngster this season.

Trending Up

Shapi Suleymanov

The offense as a whole has been disappointing. But Suleymanov is proving to keep the defense honest. He’s a very positive player always looking to go forward, he’s gritty, and I really like his connection with Garcia in the midfield. He’s yet to get on the scoresheet himself, but he’s hit one off the post and created the own goal to make that comeback possible. Shapi is inching closer.

Dejan Joveljic

Outside of his penalty kick goal, Joveljic’s start was rather underwhelming. That is, until he played hero with a beautiful equalizer that secured Sporting KC’s first point since September. The entire team has been out of sorts and a lack of service may have been an issue for the 25-year-old striker. Hopefully his first taste of goal from the run of play will give him a boost of confidence he can ride to more goals.

Who else do you think is trending up or down right now?

This week on Shades of Blue, the players above were among several others we discussed. That conversation is the second segment, starting around the 20-min mark.

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