Philadelphia Union fans have endured a roller coaster off-season, first with Sebastien LeToux's trial at Bolton, then Monday's sudden departure of goalkeeper Faryd Mondragon. Now it appears that after initially thinking LeToux would wind up staying with the Union, the French striker looks set to depart.
According to Sportsnet reporter Irfaan Gaffar, the Vancouver Whitecaps have acquired LeToux from the Union in a trade that could be announced as early as Tuesday. Gaffar, who works closely with the Whitecaps home TV broadcasts, tweeted about the impending trade on late Monday evening, but offered no definitive details, suggesting that LeToux could join the Whitecaps in Arizona next week, and stating that the trade may not involve any players heading to Philadelphia.
The Vancouver-LeToux link, which was first revealed on Twitter by UK Mirror writer Alan Nixon on Monday afternoon, comes after LeToux's brief trial with English club Bolton ended without him securing a transfer. The Union have been intent on moving LeToux, who is heading into the final year of his MLS contract, and now the club looks ready to do so by shipping him within MLS for allocation money.
A LeToux move to Vancouver would also leave the Whitecaps with a logjam at forward, where the team already has Eric Hassli, Camilo Sanvezzo, 2010 MLS No. 1 overall pick Omar Salgado and 2011 MLS No. 2 overall pick Darren Mattocks. Vancouver would be hard-pressed to keep all four of those forwards if LeToux were acquired, and would have no shortage of interest for the services of each of them.
Philadelphia has enough forwards on the roster to absorb the loss of LeToux from a roster standpoint, what with Danny Mwanga, Josue Martinez, Jack McInerney and Chandler Hoffman, but the Union will now have to turn to that young group to make up for all the goal and assist production LeToux provided over the course of the past two seasons with Philadelphia.
What do you think of this development? Worried about what the Union will do now without LeToux and Mondragon? Which forward do you see Vancouver unloading to make room for LeToux.