New York City FC Sporting Director David Lee addressed his plans for the current and future transfer windows in a new video shared by the team.
There have been expectations of new signings coming and coming soon, given Lee sold Santiago Rodríguez and Christian McFarlane, loaned out James Sands and Jovan Mijatović, has the most available General Allocation Money (GAM) in Major League Soccer, and has Designated Player and U22 Initiative slots available.
The MLS Primary Transfer Window is still open and stays that way until April 23 and Lee is sitting on millions in recent transfer profits, the most GAM in MLS, and has the most roster flexibility in MLS – where are the new signings?
Hudson River Blue Staff
Lee met with reporters in early February and struck a similar tone to the one expressed in these latest transfer comments, which he made during a 24-minute session answering questions supposedly submitted by fans: He expects to sign new players, but wants to give new coach Pascal Jansen time to work with what he has first before they finalize transfer plans.
The Q&A covers a lot beyond the transfer market, like the club's process in hiring Pascal Jansen, the development of NYCFC's Homegrowns, Lee's most important signings, and more, and it can be watched in full here or at the bottom of this post.
Here we're focusing on the quotes from David Lee that are most pertinent to New York City FC transfer dealings, which are presented and dissected below.
Maybe not this window?
"Essentially we go into every transfer window trying to improve the team, and so we still have a little while left of this transfer window. We then have the summer transfer window coming quickly on the heels of when the primary window closes, and so we expect to be pretty active," said David Lee.
This is a departure from Lee's comments to the press in February, when he said in part, "We certainly anticipate signing players before the close of the window," which heightened expectations that a new signing or signings would come into the team before April 23.
This statement for the first time introduces the proximity of the summer's MLS Secondary Transfer Window, which runs from July 24 to August 21, as part of the period of heightened transfer activity Lee expects. It shifted from expecting signings before the end of April to now stretching that deadline out to late August, though Lee continues to project confidence in his current team.
"We've built and developed quite a lot of flexibility in our roster over the course of the winter transfer window up to date, and so we're looking to bring players in that we think can improve the team. We think we've got a competitive roster and a team that we think can compete with anybody in the league. Now we want to add even more strength, even more competition, even more depth."
Oliver Strand
Pascal's picks
One consistent thing between his February comments and those made this week was that Lee wanted to wait for Pascal Jansen to get as good of a feel as possible for his new squad before making decisions in the transfer market.
Lee said of Jansen, "It was really clear early on he wanted to see the players. We've watched a lot of video but it's very different when you get to work with the players day-in, day-out."
"Through my experience, when we have made coaching changes in the past, even players that you may invest in as DPs can have a smaller role under one coach and a bigger role under another. What you don't want to do in MLS is tie up roster slots and contracts in players that maybe don't fit the vision of the Head Coach," said Lee.
Is that a veiled reference to Alexandru Mitriță, the last NYCFC Designated Player not directly signed by Lee? Mitriță joined NYCFC in February 2019 as a club-record transfer signing under Dome Torrent (and old Sporting Director Claudio Reyna), but fell out of the team once Ronny Deila took over, never returning to NYCFC after departing on loan in October 2020.
Lee sounds like he wants to avoid that situation repeating, saying he tried to "Make sure we have flexibility so that we can address needs, address profiles that Pascal really wants in the team."
Summer of movement
Without elaborating, Lee implied he prefers to make his signings in the summer, saying "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."
NYCFC entirely sat out last summer's transfer window, but that at least followed back-to-back windows full of player trades and signings, when they acquired the likes of Julián Fernández, Alonso Martínez, Birk Risa, and Hannes Wolf, to name just a few.
Not signing anyone until later this summer, though, would mean two straight transfer windows without any major incomings – no offense, Greg Ranjitsingh plus various MLS SuperDraft picks – while also parting with some of the team's most important 2024 contributors. That might be a tough pill to swallow if New York City's strong start to 2025 fades over the spring and early summer.
Lee did at least throw cold water on the possibility of imminent player departures, saying "At this moment we're not anticipating any more departures, although these things change quickly in football. We weren't sitting in January and expecting the departure of Santi Rodriguez, for example, but that situation materialized and we had to try and react to the situation...right now no plans for any departures, but we certainly would like to be active over the coming couple of windows to bring in more quality and more depth into the team overall."
Excited about the roster flexibility and very much in the market for more quality and more depth, though it may not arrive until the summer: That seems to be the current state of play for Sporting Director David Lee and his staff.
Summer, not April, is usually when the rest of the soccer world is doing its heavy transfer business, so maybe the available talent will be more appealing to Lee if it's given a few more months.
That knife cuts both ways, though, as while Lee says there aren't plans to sell more players right now, if someone like, say, Hannes Wolf, keeps scoring goals, his talent or that of any other of his successful teammates might lead to another change in tune from the NYCFC Sporting Director.
