Toronto FC 's Head Coach Ryan Nelsen is pictured before his team's MLS fixture against L.A Galaxy in Toronto on Saturday March 30, 2013. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young

TORONTO - Ryan Nelsen doesn't mince words when it comes to Toronto FC's roster prior to the 2013 MLS season.

"What we had in pre-season was probably the worst put-together squad in the history of the league," the former New Zealand international said in looking back at the start of his managerial tenure with the underachieving club.

"In the history of the league. It was that bad. It was actually terminal."

That opinion was shared by coaches and others around the league, Nelsen is quick to add.

Nelsen and team president Kevin Payne, who was fired in September, attacked the roster like Jason Voorhees in a "Friday the 13th" movie.

In its 2013 transactions section, the MLS website lists 26 players going out the door at Toronto FC and 27 coming in.

A tangle of poorly conceived contracts exacerbated the roster problem the Kiwi inherited. Nelsen maintains that when he came on board, judging from discussions with others in the league, the only Toronto player that drew interest from any other club was attacking midfielder Luis Silva.

"There was only one and even that was for cover (as a reserve)," Nelsen said in a recent interview with The Canadian Press.

"And now, a year on, there's probably about 15," he added.

Silva is not one of them, unfortunately. "I wish he was," said Nelsen.

Payne dealt Silva to D.C. United amidst talk a replacement was coming. It never quite happened.

Toronto's past contracts were so bad that allocation money was used to pay down bad deals rather than improve a roster framed by the league's salary cap. As a result, the team often found it had to sell its best players to help pay for the bad contract that no one else wanted.

Nelsen says he feels for the seven managers in the six seasons before him. He believes their problems snowballed as the pressure to right the TFC ship intensified.

This season, he said, was time to put on the brakes.

"At some stage you've just got to stop, you've got to stop the bleeding and you've got to take two or three steps back and just go 'Hang on,'" he said. "You take the criticism, you take the hits with it and you take the heartache because you're going to have to. You clean it up and start again."

The 2013 season produced a 6-17-11 record for Toronto, good for 17th in the 19-team league. But where Nelsen once saw little more than liabilities, today he sees a young roster full of assets.

So far, Toronto has parted ways with seven players. It did not pick up options on striker Robert Earnshaw and midfielders Bobby Convey, Michael Thomas and Darel Russell, and strikers Danny Koevermans and Justin Braun and goalkeeper Stefan Frei are out of contract.

"There's going to be changes, of course," said Nelsen. "But the changes that are going to get made are only to come in as starting players for our team, that will start on the majority of teams in MLS. Those are the only players we're looking to bring in."

The franchise, which scored just 30 goals in 34 games this season has embarked on a much publicized search for two marquee strikers.

Nelsen and GM Tim Bezbatchenko, a young brainiac hired away from the league front office and described as "wicked smart" by MLS commissioner Don Garber, are also looking for two or three "hardened" MLS players.

Would Toronto be interested in former league MVP Dwayne De Rosario at the right price?

The 35-year-old De Rosario, Canada's all-time scoring leader, parted ways with D.C. United after the regular season.

"Obviously at the right price is the big key but also it's how you'd see his position on the team. I do know there's a bit of history here as well," Nelsen said, referring to a salary dispute that led to De Rosario leaving Toronto in 2011.

"So there'd have to be a lot of things that have to fall in the right place, but he's been such a good advocate for the league and Canadian soccer to tell you the truth. You'd like to see him keep going."

As the January transfer window approaches, Toronto has been linked to the likes of star strikers Alberto Gilardino, Jermain Defoe, Samuel Eto'o and Gilberto.

Nelsen will only say his wish list is much longer.

"Is the list 50 names long? Of course it is. It's huge. We try and cover our bases."

I can't think of how many players we've looked at," he added. "There's so many.

"What the reality is is you never probably get your No. 1 and you probably don't get your No. 2, you probably don't get your No. 3, No. 4, so you need to have a list."

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