2011 Player Rating and Review: Wells Thompson

This offseason, the Burgundy Wave staff will give short reviews on the play of all Colorado Rapids players who received a decent amount of time on the pitch during the season along with a season grade. Starting with Goalkeepers and then moving up the field as necessary from defenders to forwards, today we'll feature Wells Thompson.

Name: Wells Thompson
Number: 15
Appearances: 31 (9)
Stats: 3 goals, 3 assists
Our Wells is an awesome Wells...

If you ever have to wonder just how injured the Colorado Rapids were in 2011, all you have to do is look up at the depth chart and realize that Wells Thompson had the third most minutes of any midfielder on the team. Not Jamie Smith, not Brian Mullan, it was Wells Thompson. Nothing against Wells, he's a perfectly good guy and has flashes of skill defensively mixed in with a goal now and then, but he is mostly suited to a backup role when being played as a winger, where Gary Smith mostly kept him in 2011.

Wells' best game of the season was against the Vancouver Whitecaps when he played defensive midfielder - Pablo Mastroeni's role, essentially - and locked it down. He's plenty versatile of course, he even played left back at one point against the LA Galaxy back in 2010. What he's proven many times is that he's best when he plays defense and is kept off the attack, where Gary kept trying to shoehorn him in a little too often. He can certainly create some decent plays, like his goal against the Sounders, but he's more often than not a non-factor in that regard.

Wells would likely have gotten a higher rating had he gotten fewer minutes in 2011, but for being forced into just so very many starts, he did about as well as we could expect of him and exceeded the call of duty quite a bit as well. It will be very, very interesting to see where he fits in with the Rapids in 2012 under Oscar Pareja.

As long as he never takes another corner kick again, we'll be fine. Dear god, those were... something.

PLAYER RATING: 6.5