Montreal Impact : Who's plan B at defense ?

Aurelien Collin was a perfect fit for Montreal.: a good central defender who can play a physical game and who has a lot of MLS experience. He is also speaks French, something very important in a city like Montreal. He was my first pick for the rebuilding of the defense. In fact, we all thought that Collin was going to be in Montreal

Even Wandrille Lefevre and Collin himself were thinking the same:

@ampC2 après toutes ces rumeurs j'avais commencė a préparer ton casier entre Hassoun et moi . Bonne chance à Orlando gros !

— Wandrille Lefèvre (@wandrillelef) December 8, 2014

@wandrillelef moi aussi...

— Aurelien COLLIN (@ampC2) December 8, 2014

Unfortunately, we have to look other way now when we think of a #1 central defender. So now where are we going to find our #1 defender?

With a lot of connections in South America, especially in Argentina (e.g Ignacio Piatti, Andres Romero), I think that the next defender will hail from the South. A couple of weeks ago, reports , that were later confirmed by the club , were placing Nick de Santis in Argentina doing some scouting.

After looking around , it seem that Mario Yepes will be a great fit for Montreal. Yes he’s not the youngest but from what we have seen at the World Cup, he is still a World Class defender. If he joins the Montreal Impact, he will make the team so much better than last year on defense.

Pearce drafted by Orlando SC

Heath Pearce was not the best defender of the team and his loss will not have a big impact since some players on the depth chart are ahead of him in my opinion. I prefer to see Wandrille Lefevre and Karl W. Ouimette get more playing time as their potential is way more interesting.

But, there is always a but. With Pearce's departure, the Impact needs another defender or maybe two and I’m not speaking of a plan B here. Currently on defense, there is : Hassoun Camara, Eric Miller, Krol, Karl W. Ouimette, Maxime Tissot, Wandrille Lefevre, and Adrian Lopez.

Even if the club manage to sign a top guy, he’s not going to do the job alone!  This is a very thin defense and if one or two players get injured, we are going to be in a lot of trouble. I don’t think the young players like Lefevre, Ouimettre, Tissot or even Miller can play 34 games at the MLS level. Not that Pearce was able to do so but he is an experienced player who knows MLS and was able to help the younger players and the team as a backup player.

Let's just that I would not be unhappy if Krol left, in my mind, he is not a MLS caliber player.

To be competitive, a couple of defenders need to be brought in. The bench will need depth and youth and a healthy competitive will be required. But playing a complete season with such a thin back line is like playing with fire.

That being said, it puts the Impact in a difficult position because recruiting defenders can be hard and nothing is granted in MLS. When I’m looking at the roster, I truly think that we need more than one player to be solid defensively and not just rely on Evan Bush like we did last year.

I hope that the Impact Management team was not going all in at Collin without exploring other options. I’m not optimistic right now because the CCL is in two months and nothing was on the transfer market, not even a small splash.

Collin or not , the fact remains that Montreal needs at least two solid defenders and we missed our first target. So now the question is who’s plan B? Who’s plan C?

Folks , your choices are as good as mine.