Timbers' Coach Takes Dim View of Forward Kris Boyd

It'll be 'very difficult' for Boyd to fit in, says Caleb Porter.

As WW reported live today at 10:30 am, highly successful former University of Akron soccer coach Caleb Porter held his first press conference as the new coach of the Portland Timbers, where he had a few interesting things to say about the future of much-ballyhooed Scottish forward Kris Boyd. 

Boyd was brought in last season with a multimillion-dollar salary and was expected to be the star scorer of the Timbers. He scored only 7 goals during the 2012 season, however, and struggled for minutes during the last half of the year. He scored no goals and logged no assists during the season's final 16 games.

Asked about Boyd, Porter replied at first laconically, stating that "Kris Boyd is obviously contracted to be a member of the Portland Timbers." 

He continued in a much more critical vein. "I will say that after watching him play quite a bit, and I have watched him play quite a bit, Kris Boyd is player that I think will will have a hard time playing the way that we play."

He added that Boyd might work well under coaches with a different system, and that Boyd would have an opportunity to prove his worth, but "with what I want out of my strikers, it's going to be very difficult for him to offer what I'm looking for in that position... Based on what I've seen, and based certainly on what he's shown as a player, it's going to be difficult for him to fit in."

Team general manager Gavin Wilkinson declined comment as to whether Boyd would be traded from the team.

Porter hinted that Timbers forward Bright Dike might be seeing more playing time, and said that he he was inspired by the model of a Madrid- or Barcelona-style soccer academy that could create continuity in the Timbers team, oriented around Porter's fast, technical, possession-oriented attacking game.

He quickly tamped hopes, however, that Portland could immediately expect a Barcelona-like team. "We're never going to be Barcelona," he said. "There's only one Barcelona."

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