What Chris Henderson said after Atlanta United’s offseason roster decisions

Chris Henderson met the media on Wednesday, a day after Atlanta United announced its 2025 year-end roster decisions.

With Tata Martino in the fold after the worst season in club history, the front office’s margin for error is razor-thin. They’ll need to put together a roster that, at the very least, can be much more competitive in 2026. (Let’s be honest: there’s nowhere to go but up.)

Here’s some of what Atlanta’s chief soccer officer had to say:

Atlanta United doesn’t have a ton of wiggle room to sign players…yet

The decisions on Brooks Lennon and Josh Cohen, plus the retirement of Brad Guzan, freed up nearly $1.39 million for Atlanta. Assuming Ronald Hernandez doesn’t return (he’s still negotiating with the club), that could be as much as $1.671 million. That’s not including the $136,967 in leftover GAM for 2025.

While they aren’t completely strapped for GAM, they’ll need more of it. At the absolute minimum, they’ll need a starting right back and a goalkeeper, along with some depth on the wings. Should Noah Cobb be purchased by the Colorado Rapids, that means more needed depth at center-back.

Don’t expect any signings until the club can generate funds on the trade and transfer market, Henderson said.

“We have to evaluate everything in the positions, and as we have those conversations, how much GAM we can create from those trades. If it’s a sale outside the league, can we produce any GAM from those sales? Obviously, there’s thresholds we have to meet before we can start making GAM on certain players,” he said.

Using one of Atlanta’s U-22 slots isn’t out of the question and sounds very likely, too.

“I think the history of Tata and working with U22s has been really good,” Henderson said. “He’s good at developing players, getting them confident. And then you look at it from a roster perspective, it’s advantageous to have a player who can contribute and play, and he’s hitting your cap at $200,000 or $150,000. From a cap perspective, it’s a good category to work with if you can get the signing correct.”

Regarding Jayden Hibbert, and Atlanta United’s goalkeeping situation right now

While Jayden Hibbert performed admirably to close out the 2025 season, that doesn’t guarantee him the No. 1 shirt in 2026 now that Guzan’s retired. That’s a point Henderson mentioned previously and reiterated on Wednesday after Cohen’s departure was confirmed.

“Jayden’s going to compete to be the No. 1, as he did last year,” Henderson said. “We are going to fill both (open goalkeeper spots), and then it’ll be a competition for who wins the (No. 1) spot.”

Jamal Thiare is back – at likely the same or similar budget charge

Jamal Thiare scored five times over 998 minutes of MLS play. That’s a shade over a goal per 90 minutes, part of the reason his option was picked up.

“I think Thiare proved valuable when you look at minutes played and his production, (and striker was) a position where we could have come contradicting profiles,” Henderson said.

That said, Thiare’s budget charge of $730,000 was the 10th-highest on the team, just under the TAM ceiling. It sounds as if it will be about that much in 2026: Henderson noted that it won’t be the same situation as Brad Guzan, with the now-retired goalkeeper reducing his guaranteed compensation by $300,000 when having his option for 2025 picked up.

What’s Atlanta United’s plan with buyouts?

There have been a couple of common names thrown out by disgruntled Atlanta United fans as possible buyout candidates. While Henderson was never going to advertise outright which players — if any — were at risk of being bought out, he at least discussed his philosophy toward the approach.

“I hope we don’t have to use any of our buyouts. That is the goal. If you get your roster right, you’re not having to go ask owners to pay money to buy someone out. So I don’t plan on doing that,” Henderson said.

“That seems to be our last resort, hopefully, if you get things right on the roster.”

How will younger players receive opportunities under Tata Martino?

It seems like ages ago that Atlanta announced Andrew Carleton as its first Homegrown Player, followed by Chris Goslin later. Both were never able to consistently affect the first team under Martino, though Carleton’s reasons for not doing so were largely self-inflicted. Miles Robinson, a 2017 SuperDraft pick, didn’t fully emerge as a starter until Frank de Boer’s arrival.

While that’s not to say younger players never saw the field during Martino’s first stint (see Julian Gressel and Brandon Vazquez), chances for the head coach to showcase them should be more frequent, Henderson said, especially with the evolution of Atlanta’s academy between then and now.

“I think Tata was pretty excited and surprised with some of the talent of the young players coming through, so that’s a good sign for them getting opportunities,” Henderson said. “(At Inter Miami) Tata had no problem playing young players and giving them opportunities, and they all improved with him.

“So I’m excited for that, to see the improvement of our young players, whether they have time in college or not, or they’re just coming straight in as teenagers from our academy, and training with the first team and getting opportunities to play.”