Almost a month ago we discussed the whole “Who’s the New Gaffer?” thing and were assured by the RAJ organization that the head coaching search was “down to a final shortlist of candidates.”
Ummm…whatever happened to that?
Today we’re just a day over two weeks out of the Great Carrot Festival in the Coachella Valley, and we still don’t have a head coach.
Oh, and we’re down a keeper, Bella Bixby going out with a season-ending ACL before she’d played a single minute on an actual matchday.
So far the FO seems to be playing moneyball, picking up college and similar young players (most recently nicked a neopro midfielder from the Topserien) but conspicuously haven’t landed any big money A-listers.
I get that. Right now there’s not a lot of leverage. Europe is in mid-season, I’m not sure how deep Agoos and Carr can go hunting in South and Central America or Asia.
And we don’t know if they have or have not, if they’ve tried, how hard, and what happened! As far as we know the Bhathals might have people all over the world with sacks of cash trying to bait CDMs and centerbacks to come and play here.
Or not.
We just. Don’t. Know.
That hasn’t stopped people who talk and write about this stuff in public from pimpslapping the RAJ organization:
We’ve gone over this. The delay replacing Ken was baked in by the semifinal, and the timing that baked in was brutal given the calendar the other professional leagues follow. Coffey went to ManCity for, as far as we can tell, several reasons, some (or most) of them reasons that the club couldn’t rebut, delay, deflect, or deny. Bixby got hurt in training, like many players throughout the history of the sport.
Does that all suck?
Yes.
Is it especially “peculiar”? “Troublesome”? Given the priors, given the events, given the setting…I don’t think so. Frustrating? Fuck yes. Getting a bit worrying with the first preseason kickoff two weeks and a wakeup away? Yepperoonie.
But somehow uniquely weird and unsettling and indicative of fundamental, catastrophic flaws in the RAJ outfit?
I haven’t the slightest fucking idea, but a LOT of this stuff (Coffey, Bixby) is as good an illustration of “sometimes shit just happens” as anything I’ve ever seen.
What kind of bugs me is how Rifer, among some other pundits I’ve been reading, seems to be trying desperately to retcon the Ken Era.
We’ve talked about the “objectively good season” of 2025 and how low the “good” third-place finish bar was. His record over one-and-most-of-another seasons – 48 games – was 21 W, 10 D, 17 L, so about 43% wins. He never came close to a Shield or a star.
Compare that to some other familiar NWSL coaching names. These are the numbers from when I did this at the end of 2021:
Mark Parsons: 67-34-35 (6 seasons), winning percentage, 49.2% – 1 Shield, 1 Championship
Paul Riley: 63-28-35 (6 seasons), 50% (but 61.9% with WNY/NCC) – 2 Shields, 3 Championships
Vlatko Andonovski: 64-39-36 (7 seasons) 46.0% – 2 Championships
Laura Harvey: 76-41-44 (7 seasons) 47.2% – 1 Shield
Ken wasn’t a tire fire, but he wasn’t “objectively good”. His tactics, whatever they were, were as often as not a chaotic mess, his roster choices often inexplicable. Yes, his squads struggled with injuries in 2025. They also dropped points to clubs far more woeful than his own through mismanagement and missed opportunities. He never solved the lack of attacking coherence even when he had players like Caiya Hanks and Pietra Tordin and Reilyn Turner healthy.
So yes. I’d like to have a top-flight manager in the Thorns technical box this March.
Do I see a way to work around how this past (and the previous) season went to make that happen right now most quick smart. No.
And am I longing to see Ken back? Also no.
So.
Maybe we just wait and see what happens, eh?
- Notes on the Silly Season 2.5 Redux: Well…….? - February 1, 2026
- Notes on the Silly Season: Not So Silly Anymore - January 19, 2026
- Notes on the Silly Season, Part WTF!? - January 8, 2026
