Right now, Sporting Director David Lee might not be the most popular person with New York City FC fans.
The expensive new talent he signed in the summer of 2023 and winter of 2024 has yet to prove its collective worth and he's been slow to find replacements for a few important outgoing players.
Designated Player slots remain unfilled and, while Pascal Jansen looks like a solid hire as the new Head Coach, the roster he's working with still feels insufficient for a team looking to seriously challenge for any trophies in 2025.
Jansen's hiring is one of a few positive moves made by Lee so far in 2025, which also include extending the contract of leading scorer Alonso Martínez and adding Australian midfielder Aiden O'Neill before the close of the MLS Primary Transfer Window. The work of the Sporting Director just feels incomplete and as though it's been left too late to make the most out of what remains of the 2025 season.
Moves of consequence
The biggest moves made by Lee so far this season were not player signings. One was hiring Pascal Jansen, plucking the seasoned and no-nonsense coach from Ferencváros in Hungary reportedly at a seven-figure cost to get him out of his existing contract and bring him to NYCFC.
The other big move was a sale, with New York City reportedly receiving a transfer fee of $15 million plus add-ons to sell Santiago Rodríguez to Botafogo of Brazil.
Lee can add Rodríguez to Taty Castellanos as his high-priced City Football Group-via-New York City FC transfer success stories, players that didn't cost much for CFG or NYCFC to acquire, who were developed and then sold for profits when their value peaked.
Santi's sale made business sense but he was also one of multiple notable, significant outgoings from the 2024 version of NYCFC. The Rodríguez sale followed loaning out James Sands to FC St. Pauli in the Bundesliga and Jovan Mijatović to OH Leuven in the Belgian top-flight, as well as permanently selling Homegrown fullback Christian McFarlane to CFG relative Manchester City FC.
Roster turnover is nothing new in MLS or at New York City FC, but the slowness and overall approach to filling these vacated roster spots continues to raise many an eyebrow.
John Baney
Lee did manage to lock down Alonso Martínez to a new contract extension, which might come in handy if the team's leading goalscorer decides he wants to head back to Europe. Martínez's agent claimed in late February, days before Alonso's NYCFC extension was formally announced, that an unnamed Champions League-caliber team from the Eredivisie in the Netherlands was interested in the Costa Rican.
Signing Aiden O'Neill for a reported $2.84 million from Standard de Liége in Belgium also looks like a more-than-solid addition to the midfield, a midfield that also benefited from the progression of Homegrown 18-year-old Jonny Shore, who completed his rise through the team's Academy ranks to become a regular in MLS this season after debuting on Matchday 1 against Inter Miami and never looking back.
Other new Homegrown players have been signed – like Prince Amponsah, Jacob Arroyave, and Seymour Reid – and some Homegrowns have debuted with the First Team, like Reid and Máximo Carrizo in Columbus, plus Drew Baiera in the US Open Cup.
Second-guessing 'The Process'
While improvements have been made and the core of the team's best possible first-choice Starting XI remains solid, Lee's approach to both building roster depth and to utilizing the high-dollar roster slots at his disposal are what raise the questions.
Rather than acquire new, more experienced rotation players, NYCFC leans on young and early-career players like Shore, Carrizo, Baiera, Reid, and Peter Molinari to fill out their MLS roster. With Talles Magno loaned out and Santi Rodríguez sold, the only DP left is Thiago Martins, meaning there remains no high-end playmaker on the team who can replicate what's missing without Rodríguez or even the occasionally dangerous Talles Magno.
Lee rolled the dice recently on U22 Initiative signings but hasn't found success with Jovan Mijatović or Agustín Ojeda (zero goals and zero shots on target so far this season), while Julián Fernández looks improved under Pascal Jansen but still maddening at times and inconsistent with his positive involvements around goal.
The youth, be it Homegrown or imported, have been given the keys to the proverbial NYCFC kingdom by the Sporting Director, but the rest of his roster isn't built to handle the ups and downs that come with a team that wants to go young.
Lee's tendency or preference to sign new players late in the Primary Transfer Window left him with just Aiden O'Neill as a notable incoming this spring, despite the roster calling out for another non-Maxi Moralez option to play as a No 10, and another left-back to cover for Kevin O'Toole, who is injured and is currently being replaced by either center-back Birk Risa, or late Third Round MLS SuperDraft selection Nico Cavallo.
Big summer ahead?
Needs on the roster persist, and the word from Lee has been consistent: Help will be arriving this summer. While saying the team would be "pretty active" in the transfer market during a Q&A with fans shared by NYCFC's social media channels in April, Lee also admitted to a preference to do his transfer deals in the summer.
"It's a more free market in the summer with more player movement, but our focus is to find the right players that can impact our team over the long term, and if those players are available now, then we want to bring those in," Lee said, which proved true in that he did sign Aiden O'Neill on the last day of the MLS Primary Transfer Window in April.
Andrew Leigh
The 2025 team isn't in a MLS Cup Playoffs spot as of this writing and struggles to create or score goals on a consistent basis. Lee's roster management put a decent core in place that has the potential to develop into something more, but there are too many important spots on the roster not filled or not delivering the kind of results New York City needs to improve on their 2024 season or to even match it.
The Sporting Director has done part of the work but his assignment remains unfinished, but I can't give "Incomplete" as a grade, so instead it will just be a middle-of-the-road grade that fits for a middle-of-the-process renovation of the roster.
