RSL’s Lagerwey suggests Toronto should have off-season cleanout

Real Salt Lake general manager Garth Lagerwey believes under-fire MLS rivals Toronto FC need to have a clean out in the off-season.

The Canadian outfit sacked both director of soccer Mo Johnston and coach Preki last month as they struggled with a string of negative results and Lagerwey, who took over at RSL in 2007, said a complete overhaul was a good way to go about making a fresh start.

“We replaced 21 of our 28 players in the space of about seven months in two transfer windows - the winter of ’07 and the summer of ’08,” Lagerwey said.

“We felt that this was an organization when we came here in 2007 that had done nothing but lose,” Lagerwey added. “We felt really that a losing culture was entrenched and our first order of business was, yes, we were going to sign players and add talent, but we were also going to get the locker room right and we were going to pick personalities that would be consistent with our philosophy of the team first.”