Danny Allsopp Leaves DC United

Australian striker Danny Allsopp and D.C. United mutually parted ways after one season for the Black and Red. Allsopp has five goals for DC United, which tied him for the most goals for the team with rookie Andy Najar. Allsopp has 25 appearance and 18 starts.

I am a little sad to hear this. I think Allsopp was a far better striker than his numbers this year suggest. The big Aussie scored one quarter of DC United's goals this year, (DC only scored 21 this year) including 3 game winning goals. Allsopp is clearly not the fastest player on the field, but he does make the important runs, the slashing, outside-in runs to get in a good position to receive the ball. He also moves inside-out in order to open the field for others. Allsopp also holds the ball very well. In many ways, Allsopp is much like Brian Ching and could have played on that level if he had better service and support from the rest of the team. Allsopp might have played a good target man in a 4-5-1 or a 4-4-1-1 formation had DC United had the midfield and wingers to make that happen. No, Allsopp did not find the back of the net with enough regularity to warrant staying, but then the same could be said of the entire team.

So why are the sides parting ways--part of it could be financial. Allsopp was on $180,000 a year for salary and was guaranteed $217,000 for 2010. But DC United is not carrying a huge salary budget and outside of Branko Boskovic, no other player earns more than $200,000. But the departure of Allsopp is likely to be just one part of larger house cleaning at DC United. DC United is looking at a massive off-season turnover of players. Allsopp is not the only striker who is going to be shown the door this year. Jaime Moreno is retiring, Boyzz Khumalo will probably be off-loaded or loaned out, and Adam Cristman will likely be traded or waived as well. That leaves Chris Pontius and Pablo Hernandez left as a strike force. DC United's front office is looking for a head coach and I suspect that coach is going to want to have a say in player acquisition, particularly a strike force. I would also expect that a fair number of midfielders are going to be shown the door as well.

It is likely that Allsopp will return to Australia and play in the A-League. The fact is that circumstances this year were not good for DC United and Allsopp and the fault is not Allsopp's.