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Harjeet Johal ,

December 9, 2014 Twitter

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VANCOUVER, B.C - The Vancouver Whitecaps made a flurry of announcements on Monday afternoon as they looked to begin to shape and form their roster for 2015. The Whitecaps expansion draft protection list was released, players options were picked up and declined, but the biggest move involved the transfer of Omar Salgado. The 21 year-old has been traded to expansion side New York City FC. The El Paso, Texas native, won't be playing in New York as he is expected to be transferred to an unknown International Club. Vancouver, will receive allocation money and have not made a deal with New York City FC to avoid losing any players to New York in Wednesday's expansion draft. Carl Robinson talked about Omar. "It's the best solution for all of us, the club, for Omar, and me. I hope he now goes and plays where he wants to play which is important for him. If you move a player, it doesn't mean that you think they're a bad player, or they're a bad character. Sometimes situations dictate what happens with players. I wish him all the best." Also on Monday the Whitecaps picked up 9 player contract options and declined 5 player options. David Ousted, Marco Carducci, Paolo Tornaghi, Darren Mattocks, Erik Hurtado, Gershon Koffie, Mehdi Ballouchy, Ethen Sampson, and Andre Lewis could all be back with the club next spring. The fate of Sebastian Fernandez, Nicolas Mezquida, Johnny Leveron, Andy O'Brien, and Mauro Rosales is less unknown. Of these 5 players who did not have their contracts picked up, Fernandez is most likely to not return. The Uruguayan had a hefty contract and Vancouver were not able to negotiate a deal they felt comfortable making with Fernandez and his agent. The 25 year-old is expected to sign in South America. Thanks Vancouver !!!!!!!! 😉😉😉👍👍👍💪💪💪 — sebastian fernandez (@seba_joaco) December 8, 2014 ""When you get a player on loan it's always important, but you are not going to get a good player for free. There's always a loan option price in it and unfortunately that option price was too high for us to buy. We did talk about trying to bring him back on a similar deal but that wasn't possible. Unfortunately we're going to lose Seba and he's probably going to sign down in South America." MLS and the Vancouver Whitecaps also released their expansion draft protection list. The following players will be protected, fall under home-grown player status or Generation Adidas status and thus and can't be picked up by New York City FC or Orlando City SC. Protected players are: David Ousted, Jordan Harvey, Johnny Leveron, Kendall Waston, Steven Beitashour, Matias Laba, Gershon Koffie, Pedro Morales, Erik Hurtado, Kekuta Manneh, and Darren Mattocks. Home grown players consist of: Marco Carducci, Sam Adekugbe, Ethen Sampson, Marco Bustos, Kianz Froese, and Caleb Clarke. While Christian Dean is the lone protected Generation Adidas player. "All decisions were tough. It's like a game of chess, trying to predict what the right way to play it is and the reality is, I've not got a clue what the best way to do it. Obviously it will be taken out of our hands now, but we feel it's the right decision for our club because we protected assets that we've got although we do some assets unprotected." The Whitecaps were unable to protect 9 players and as a result some key names have been left exposed. Each MLS teams can only lose anywhere from 0-2 players in the expansion draft. Paolo Tornaghi, Carlyle Mitchell, Andy O'Brien, Mehdi Ballouchy, Nicolas Mezquida, Sebastian Fernandez, Andre Lewis, Mamadou Diouf, and Mauro Rosales. Carl Robinson talked about the tough decisions he had to make and didn't rule out the possible return of some prominent veteran players. "That's questions that we'll speak to the individuals about once we get past this hectic week. Mauro was a designated player for us last year so we had to make a decision on that. Andy's obviously out of contract, there's a lot of out of contract players. We spoke to Andy and as we go along and get past this busy week then we'll sit down and see whether we can do something our not." The Whitecaps have finally put an end to the transfer gossip and compensation speculation regarding Matias Laba's transfer from Toronto FC. The Argentine defensive midfielder had a stand-out year in front of the Vancouver back-four and Toronto FC will now officially receive cash from the Whitecaps. The Caps gaffer was happy to have this come to and end and spoke glowing with enthusiasm. "I'm very glad, I've very delighted. He's a big player for us, it's like a new signing. I'm delighted to get him last year when we got him in Portland on loan for a season and we've managed to wrap that deal up now. Fantastic signing for the club." The Whitecaps will be part of another busy winter offseason as the club looks to improve on and off the pitch. Carl Robinson is expecting to bring in 4 - 5 players to the Whitecaps. The Welsh manager will leave Vancouver on Friday for Wales, Scotland, England and Europe in a busy month of December. Notes: Sam Adekugbe has been training with the Liverpool FC reserves team since December 1.