Report: Union acquire Chris Pontius from DC United

The Philadelphia Union have acquired midfielder Chris Pontius from D.C. United in exchange for allocation money according to reports from Ives Galarcep of Goal.com. The 28-year-old had been with DCU since 2009, but his playing time has decreased from his 2012 All-Star and MLS Best-XI winning campaign.

Pontius is a MLS veteran that will give Jim Curtin a more experienced option over of the likes of Eric Ayuk and Jimmy McLaughin. Pontius is expected to be depth on the left wing, now a position of need due to the cataclysmic fall of Andrew Wenger. However, Pontius will prove to be a very expensive depth player with a 2015 base salary of $365,000 (although the Washington Post's Steven Goff has put that number at $420,000 for this season). The Union are set to gain some cap space with the likely departure of a handful of expensive players, but this move doesn't seem like one of the moneyball-type moves that we were expecting from Earnie Stewart.

It is still unknown exactly how much allocation money was given up for Pontius, so it is hard to judge this move fully until we get an idea of what was given up. But at the moment, this appears to be a solid move that brings some much needed depth to the Union roster.