Another MLS year, another Whitecaps Designated Player leaves Vancouver. I'm beginning to think the initials DP actually stand for Departing Posthaste.
Barry Robson and the Caps have parted ways, with the Club and player having mutually agreed to terminate the contract.
The official word from the Club, via Bobby Lenarduzzi, is that <i>"Unfortunately Barry and his family never fully settled in Vancouver, and we’ve mutually decided to move in different directions"</i>. It's hard not to speculate that there are other footballing reasons behind the departure.
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When Robson was announced as joining the Caps in February last year, there was genuine excitement at what the experienced midfielder could bring to the team. He had played at the top levels of club and international football and Martin Rennie hoped he would raise the standard in the dressing room and bring another YP Lee-esque quality to the team.
Unfortunately, once he started playing in July the reality was a player from a different footballing culture who just didn't seem to have what it takes to cut it in Major League Soccer.
Is the game really that different in North America to the UK? Others have struggled. Kenny Miller is another example at the Whitecaps and Kris Boyd at Portland. Maybe it's just Scots!
The sometimes lengthy travel between games takes some getting used to. So do the referees. How you deal with such things, and frustrations in general, tend to shape people's perceptions of you and Robson's biggest struggles seemed to be shaking off the perception of him by some fans and the media.
There were fans the resented him from early on when they saw him as being brought in to replace one of their favourites, Davide Chiumiento. The fact that they play different positions and Robson stated that he was disappointed that Chiumiento had been sold didn't really matter.
Others didn't like his on field attitude and he was plagued by rumours of dressing room disharmony. He was certainly hard to like at times out there.
If you were to ask fans for their lasting impressions of Robson, it wouldn't be his standout performance in the LA game in July or his sweet left foot, instead it would be the constant arm waving, the berating of team-mates, the failure to track back or look interested at times, the sitting on his ass complaining about non calls when the game was going on round about him, sometimes to the detriment of the Caps.
All sadly true and all attributes of a player that will always find it hard to settle into the North American game and win the warm affection of the fans here.
When he arrived in Vancouver he <a href="http://www.canadiansoccernews.com/content.php?3349-Barry-Robson-arrives-in-Vancouver" target="_blank" target="_blank">told us</a>: <i>"I wear my heart on my sleeve. That’s the type of guy I am."</i>
And he did. For all to see.
I can't knock him for that to an extent. I want to see passion and the desire to win. At least he showed he cared.
Some will argue that certain things should be held back till the confines of the dressing room, such as his shouting at team captain Jay DeMerit in Salt Lake. I still feel he was right to berate him for giving away the penalty, but probably chose the wrong place to do it.
People complained he acted like the team captain and he wasn't, but as I've said all along no-one knows what role Rennie sent him out on the pitch to do and how he told him to act.
It's just how he went about things that rubbed people up the wrong way.
Fans in particular can accept such actions if the player himself is without sin. Sadly Robson performed so far below his game on many occasions that it really was a case of pots and black kettles and his actions were clearly born out of frustrations at himself at times.
He was seen and portrayed as dour and surly by sections of the media, but it has to be remembered that he came from a background where the football media are not to be trusted. He wasn't used to be forced to chat to the press pack on a daily basis and less than enamoured by the post match open dressing room, which he never liked or got used to.
I never found him to be hard to deal with personally. He always had time to speak with me. We shared a laugh and joke about a few things. Maybe it was just being a fellow Scot in unfamiliar surroundings, but as his time went on he did start to crack some smiles in the press scrums and come across as more friendly and approachable. Not that such things make as interesting reporting of course.
The DP tag and salary were like a chain around his neck, used to drag him down and constantly beat him with for not performing. Whether this is fair or not, we do need to see more bang for our buck with these guys and in Whitecaps terms, we just simply are not seeing that from any of our past or present Designated Players.
In the end we got 17 appearances and three goals from the "Ginger Pele"/"Ginger Whinger".
Are the Whitecaps a better team now without Robson? At this precise moment, no. There is now a huge gap in the midfield.
Will they be a better team when Rennie brings in a younger, more creative, productive and athletic midfielder in his place? Undoubtedly.
As it stands, Barry Robson was the best midfielder on the Whitecaps books. Yes, older players start to lose it a bit as time goes on, but you don't go from being named the player of the season for a Championship team to being a busted flush overnight.
Given a full season here, I think the fans would have seen the Barry Robson I've watched since his early days playing against East Fife. Unfortunately we only ever got to see some very rare glimpses of that player in MLS.
Something didn't work with the Robson experiment. Whether it was the player, the tactics, the team-mates, the environment or a combination of all of that, we may never truly know.
I had high hopes for Robson at the Whitecaps. I'm sure so did he, Martin Rennie and yourself.
Unfortunately none of us are left with all that many great memories.
It's time to move on, put another DP disaster behind us, and wonder who the next one will be.
Whoever it is and whoever replaces Robson in the middle of the park, they need to be strong, creative and someone to build our team around for several years to come.
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