The questions are significant for the Kansas City Wizards as they enter the offseason after finishing without a playoff berth for the first time since 2006 and with their fewest wins since 1999.</p><p>Will technical director Peter Vermes retain himself as head coach, an added responsibility he took on in early August, or make a hire? How different might the roster look next year as the club seeks to improve from a disappointing season? And what issues need to be addressed?</p><p>Two days after the Wizards put the wraps on an 8-13-9 campaign, Vermes sat in a small conference room inside the team&rsquo;s training facility Monday, reflecting on what went wrong and looking forward to how he might begin to fix it. </p><p>It was too soon to speak of many certainties.</p><p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s inevitable that there will be some new faces,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;What the total amount will be, it&rsquo;s hard for me to tell you.&rdquo;</p><p>And he wasn&rsquo;t yet settled on whether he will choose to remain as head coach or hire somebody new. He&rsquo;s still receiving resumes from applicants and expects to have a decision within the next two weeks. </p><p>But this much he was sure of &hellip;</p><p>&ldquo;Make no doubt about it, the one thing that we will be is we will be a team,&rdquo; Vermes said. &ldquo;We will be a team of players that will be fighting for each other inside those white lines for sure.&rdquo;</p><p>The implication being that the Wizards&rsquo; woes this season ran deeper than their well-documented offensive struggles.</p><p>Vermes talked about needing to change the mentality of the squad, about building a culture. He referenced a stat that stuck out to him earlier in the season &mdash; before he replaced former coach Curt Onalfo &mdash; that showed the Wizards were, to that point, winless in games in which they surrendered the first goal.</p><p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s a mentality thing,&rdquo; said Vermes, who also wants to see his team fitter and stronger on the field.</p><p>Tuesday, back in the same conference room, a few players met with reporters to share their own thoughts on the season. Goalkeeper Kevin Hartman raised another issue he felt had hindered the team.</p><p>He used the season-ending 2-2 draw Saturday against D.C. United as an example. When the Wizards scored in stoppage time to tie the score, he felt there were conflicting approaches among the players on the field as to how to finish the game. Some wanted to push for another goal and the win; others wanted to protect the tie, content that would prevent D.C. from reaching the postseason.</p><p>&ldquo;As a group, we need people, including myself, to step up and demand out of everybody else exactly what it is,&rdquo; Hartman said. &ldquo;It has to be a definitive decision that we&rsquo;ve come to, and we need to stick with it, and everybody needs to fight for that one thing.&rdquo;</p><p>As Vermes and the players shared their final thoughts on a wayward season, change was a prevailing notion.</p><p>Just how much of that change involves the roster is still the big unknown .</p><p> The Wizards need to make decisions on four players with expiring contracts, Vermes said, including forward Kei Kamara, who was acquired in September via trade from Houston.</p><p>There will be a limited half-day trading window following the MLS Cup. Then teams must decide which players they will protect in the upcoming expansion draft. The new Philadelphia team will also have the first right to sign any foreign players coming into the league.</p><p>That means any player acquisitions for the Wizards won&rsquo;t likely come until January, Vermes said. How many, he couldn&rsquo;t say. Who was certain to return, he couldn&rsquo;t say.</p><p>&ldquo;I learned as a player that you never make the infinite statement,&rdquo; Vermes said. &ldquo;I was told in New York when I was playing there in the first year that I was a captain, and I would never be traded. That was at the end of the season, and all of sudden the start of the (next) season, after the first day of preseason, I got three-quarters (of the way) into practice and I got called down to the locker room and I got traded. &hellip; </p><p>&ldquo;Things change. And we&rsquo;ll see how that comes because I don&rsquo;t know what opportunities are going to be out there available for us.&rdquo;</p><p>So, stay tuned.