Philadel­phia Union man­ag­er Pe­ter Nowak is of the view So­ca War­riors winger Keon Daniel can be one of four play­ers to fill the shoes of Justin Mapp in next sea­son US Ma­jor League Soc­cer. This af­ter Mapp was was snapped up by Mon­tre­al Im­pact in Wednes­day's MLS Ex­pan­sion Draft. Speak­ing on the de­ci­sion to let go of Mapp Nowak said, "I thinks Justin Mapp is a great guy in the lock­er room who brings speed, a strong shot and an im­por­tant vet­er­an pres­ence every time he steps on the field. How­ev­er, Nowak al­so knows one more thing-that the Union have a pletho­ra of younger mid­field­ers that have shown the abil­i­ty to fill his role.

As such, it was with a sense of prag­ma­tism that the Union left Mapp ex­posed for the draft. "It's a big loss," Nowak said on a con­fer­ence call short­ly af­ter Mon­tre­al made their se­lec­tions. "In the year-and-a-half we had him, he was pret­ty good. But we have op­tions. And we'll al­so look do­mes­ti­cal­ly and abroad to strength­en the po­si­tion."

Asked for rea­sons why he left him ex­posed, Nowak cit­ed Mapp's "sig­nif­i­cant" salary, as well as the fact that he's en­ter­ing the last year of his con­tract and is el­i­gi­ble for next month's Re-En­try Draft. The Union man­ag­er al­so point­ed to Michael Far­fan, Gabriel Far­fan, Roger Tor­res and Keon Daniel-all of whom are younger than the 27-year-old Mapp – as at­tack­ing mid­field­ers that can step in­to more promi­nent roles next sea­son in Mapp's place. Short­ly af­ter los­ing Mapp, the Union al­so ac­quired 23-year-old Tan­zan­ian winger Nizar Khal­fan in the Waiv­er Draft af­ter he was re­leased by the Van­cou­ver White­caps. The Union an­nounced the move in con­junc­tion with the re­lease of de­fend­er Juan Diego Gon­za­lez and for­mer T&T na­tion­al youth team goal­keep­er Thorne Hold­er, nei­ther of whom logged any min­utes last sea­son. An­oth­er young mid­field­er who can do big things for the Union next sea­son is Fred­dy Adu.

Nowak was al­so asked about his de­ci­sion to pro­tect the 24-year-old Daniel over some more es­tab­lished play­ers. The T&T in­ter­na­tion­al made on­ly 18 ap­pear­ances in 2011 be­fore re­port­ing for in­ter­na­tion­al du­ty in Au­gust for a Con­ca­caf Group B World Cup qual­i­fi­er away to Bar­ba­dos. Af­ter that, he nev­er re­turned to the Union be­cause of prob­lems with his visa. "We're still work­ing on the visa is­sue," Nowak said. We have good feed­back from peo­ple try­ing to help us in this case. Keon makes a low salary, is still a very young play­er and played very good up un­til he left. He's still a guy, at the end of the day, that we need. And I can tell you we're do­ing every­thing in our pow­er to get him back as soon as we can." With Adu, Daniel and many oth­ers still on the ros­ter, the Union cer­tain­ly have plen­ty of sol­id mid­field op­tions go­ing in­to next sea­son.