I sure wish I knew who was on Merritt's ten-person list of candidates. I hope Paulson and Wilkinson are getting clear on what they are looking for before assessing them.

What kind of personality should he (or she???) have? What kind of experience? Do they need to have MLS coaching experience? Maybe they should have experience coaching in some other (European?) league? What particular skills and characteristics? What is this person's role going to be in relation to Wilkinson? How much say should they have on trades and acquisitions? Are we looking for a tactician? A motivator? A personality manager? A youth-developer? Should he push a certain style of play? Etc.

The biggest thing I would say at this point is that he should have some tactical flexibility. I don't know that the talent level in MLS is so high that you can just hold out for good players who fit into one system, so being able to play a few different systems depending on who is available seems really important. That way we avoid the whole square-peg-round-hole problem.

Your thoughts?