New Vancouver Whitecaps winger Junior Hoilett says he didn’t hear from Toronto FC about potential move
The Vancouver Whitecaps’ transfer dealings have been creating more than a little jealousy in Toronto in recent weeks.
After they completed the impressive double deadline-day move to sign Canadian international Richie Laryea and Sam Adekugbe, the Whitecaps added their CanMNT teammate Junior Hoilett on a short-term free-agent deal earlier this month.
At that time, one sentiment expressed on TFCLive Twitter and in our comments section was “why couldn’t that be us?” Laryea, obviously, is a Reds favourite that every TFC fan would have liked to see stay with the club if possible after his loan spell from Nottingham Forest expired.
But Hoilett, too, had been touted as a potential Toronto FC signing on more than one occasion in the past.
Speaking to ‘Caps media on Monday, the 33-year-old was asked if TFC had reached out to him regarding a potential move before or after his contract at Reading expired in June and he elected to leave the English club.
“Every season I’ve been linked to them, but no, no, I didn’t get nothing,” Hoilett said, per Har Johal.
He also revealed that a personal phone call from former TFC striker and current Whitecaps front-office staffer Tosaint Ricketts sealed the deal for him to move out west.
“When Tos called me with the opportunity, I was locked in to come here,” Hoilett added. “I’m just delighted to be here.”
Related Read: CanMNT winger Junior Hoilett credits Tosaint Ricketts for decision to sign for Vancouver Whitecaps
And why wouldn’t he be? The Whitecaps are the best Canadian team by a distance in 2023 and look primed for a decent shot at a deep playoff run after coming from behind to win at BMO Field on Saturday night.
Hoilett wasn’t involved in that game, but he’ll be hoping to have plenty of big moments in blue and white over the next few weeks.
Would you have liked to see TFC try to sign Hoilett or was it always a non-starter?
Very surprised that TFC didn’t even reach out to see what it would take to sign this national team stalwart and Brampton guy with a solid pedigree to a short-term deal.
Plus, international slots are always at a premium for Canadian MLS teams so any time you can get a domestic player capable of playing a role, it seems like a no-brainer to investigate the possibility and see if the numbers could work.
I guess Manning and Hernandez truly are clueless Americans completely out of touch with Canadian soccer sensibilities, let alone having the ability to leverage MLS roster rules for our benefit.
Why on earth would we reach out to Junior? How many broken down players do we want to carry? Junior scored only 4 goals in 62 appearances at a Championship relegated Reading side who were much worse then that as they are now in the relegation zone of the English league 1 which is the Third division. Well done Hernandez not to go anywhere near this player, if he were not a Canadian the entire WTR family would be saying the same as I am.
But he IS Canadian. And signing a useful Canadian opens up an international slot.
Maybe he would have come for the minimum to play at home and at BMO where he has national team memories. How do you know without reaching out?
Fully agree with you Jack!
With all these decisions it always boils down to age and dollars required.
As much as I have liked Hoilett’s contributions to the Canada set-up over the years (in spite of him taking his time initially to commit to the Program) the last thing this team requires is another ageing guy commanding dollars better suited to younger players.
I find this story quite pointless. A aging player from a lower ranked league who is out of contract but had some reps with a National team. How many, hundreds, of these players exist?
He was not being pursued by TFC, isn’t playing a role that he would clearly improve at TFC, doesn’t fit a tight salary budget. He is also very well known by Herdman who could have said something weeks ago if he wanted him.
So why is there a story? Because he has GTA roots, not enough. This just invites people to be critical of the front office, or worse, to diss the player.
Give features to Kerr and his development as top scorer playing with high level Euro’s. Or Franklin, picking up where Richie left off and really being a better defender in most situations. Have we looked at Romero in terms of saves vs SJ, or is he improving game to game over when he was signed? Lots of guys in the team now that we could look at without dreaming of some alternate reality that won’t happen with Junior and TFC.
Exactly coach! I mean this team wasn’t going anywhere this season, so why bring someone to take minutes away from young players whom we need to make decisions about going into next year. Will Prince and Cassius be valuable, we know that Sapong needs to be released, but as you said can we get Kerr to a place where he can contribute regularly whether as a starter or coming of the bench. Would he be able to platoon with a skilled guy like Seba next season.
We have gems in Franklin, Kerr, Mbongue, and Mabika who all make less then $100K/yr. If we can develop any of these guys into solid depth pieces or better a starter, then we are well off to the races.
I am fine with giving Herdman until the summer transfer window’s to get the young players some minutes to assess whether they have a future on this team or not. While at the same time we need to figure out whether we can work with Petratta, Rosted, Servania, Sapong, Diomande and Bradley (all making over $500K). Essentially any player making over $300K has to be starter level at this time or they should be moved on unless they are under 23 initiative players who have a very small hit on the cap and we have time to develop them.
I wouldn’t consider Franklin, mbongue or mabika gems they have been disastrous in most games other than a couple of outliers. Kerr might have something about him but we have yet to see any consistency from him for a period of time.
I feel like Kerr has hit his ceiling? However I disagree with you on Franklin. I think he has more potential than what we’ve seen.
Franklin has just learned he’s allowed to enter the attacking half so he’s developing slowly but surely
Thing is these young guys barely take any cap space so you have time to develop them as they still have time to grow with a proper coach.
These four combined cost less then any one player making $500K or more and they don’t eat up any international spots.
If you try with 8 or 10 players like this… the hope is that you find two or three whom you can turn into decent MLS players (if not starters, good depth options). And it would cost you less then 20% of your cap space.
The roster has very big problems but needing a 33 year old fullback isn’t one of them.