M'Bolhi to sit indefinitely; depature likely

It appears as though the Rais M’Bolhi era (if you can call nine games an era) in Philadelphia is over for the foreseeable future – and possibly for good.

During his weekly press conference, Jim Curtin told the media that M’Bolhi’s reign of terror and misery as starting goalkeeper is being put on hold indefinitely, and that John McCarthy would be starting in his place this weekend. I should mention that Curtin did not come out and directly say that M’Bohli has played his last game for the Union, but if you look at what Curtin said in addition to media reports it seems safe to assume that M’Bolhi is gone.

First there was this tweet from Dave Zeitlin:

Curtin is planning to address the situation in today's presser but it seems doubtful Mbolhi will be back here ever again.

&Amdahl; Dave Zeitlin (@DaveZeitlin) April 8, 2015

Then we have the direct quotes from Curtin during the presser

It’s best for the team that M’Bolhi is not with the group right now.

He [M’Bohli] doesn’t seem like himself.

And when asked about the possibility of a transfer:

There are certain things that will be kept in house about transferring players.

The last quote from Curtin is easily the most telling. It is the closest were going to get to Curtin confirming that the team is looking to off-load their once prized goalkeeper.

This is a predictable end to an experiment that was doomed from the start. Few goalkeepers are paid a salary like M’Bolhi’s, and the ones that are have a consistent track record of success at the club level (Nick Rimando, Troy Perkins, Tally Hall, etc.). M’Bolhi may be excellent at the international level, but his club record has been poor and it only got worse with the Union.

M’Bolhi will now be forever enshrined in the growing "Philadelphia Union Hall of Shame" alongside Peter Nowak, the trading of Sebastien Le Toux, the Carlos Valdes Saga (parts I-IV) and Feddy Adu (Fun Fact: Freddy Adu had a longer tenure with the Union than M’Bolhi).

The Union’s problems are far from solved; injuries continue to pile up, the defense is a dumpster fire a serious weakness, and the wing play has been lacking. Moving forward we can hope that we won’t have a goalkeeper costing us games with poor decision making and pouty faces.