Ryan Johnston

In their second season as a professional club, Toronto FC is ahead of the curve. Last season it took the Reds six games to register six points, this year the plateau was achieved in a meager four games.

While it may seem inconsequential on paper, the truth is this team needs to take points from teams early, teams that might not be playing up to standard just yet. We saw it on Saturday against Real Salt Lake, and afterwards RSL coach Jason Kreis admitted he was tactically unprepared for the re-shaped TFC squad.

The summer of ’08 is also a busy one with World Cup qualifying and Olympic duty on the horizon. For TFC, this means a handful of players will miss individual games, while starting 11 players such as Marvell Wynne and Maurice Edu are scheduled to miss extended periods of time.

Furthermore, with eight regulars on the other side of 30 years of age, fitness guru Paul Winsper will be working overtime to keep away the tired legs come August.

But John Carver alluded to the bench strength of TFC in his post-game interview on Saturday, pointing out that he looked down the bench in the late stages of Saturday’s game versus Real Salt Lake and had no qualms about inserting any one of the seven players available.

The bench on Saturday consisted of Brian Edwards, Julius James, Kevin Harmse, Todd Dunivant, Andrea Lombardo, Jarrod Smith and Jeff Cunningham.

Finally, I guess only Carver knows the answer as to why Brian Edwards played the season opener in Columbus. Since Edwards’ lone start, Greg Sutton has been nothing short of spectacular.

I spoke with Sutton (which was my first experience having a conversation with a player on an exercise bike) about the bravery he showed in collecting cross-after-cross in the windy conditions on Saturday. I was interested in knowing if thoughts of the concussion, or sustaining another one, entered his mind at all as he dealt with the traffic in his 18-yard box. But before I could even finish the question, Sutton gave a steely-eyed ‘Not at all’ response.

He expanded by saying that the key element of his game was his height and the ability to collect crosses, and that his instincts never allow for him to contemplate the repercussions of a collision.

The TFC ‘keeper is currently ninth in the league with 14 saves in three games.

As Carver likes to say when asked about the performance of a player, ‘That’s why he’s paid the money.’