SEATTLE – Saturday night’s 0–0 draw between the Seattle Sounders and Red Bull New York did have some bright spots from the Sounders, but we’re at a stage of the season where points and wins are more important than moral victories. If you’re so inclined, you could look at a 3-game unbeaten run as the Sounders stopping the bleeding of a horrific summer. You can look at the fact that these three draws have come during the longest winless streak in team history.
However you want look at it, the result on Saturday is indicative of the broader decision-making issues the club faces from the front office, the tactics, and the personnel that have plagued them all summer and for much longer.
It is perhaps hyperbolic to talk about the ongoing issues with the Sounders’ front office in the context of this game, but I think it’s appropriate. This was the first match since the close of the summer transfer window. The Sounders front office did well to pony up for Dejan Joveljić. But fans were given the distinct sense that there would be more added to the team, especially in wide areas. To follow up the Joveljić signing with Caden Clark is extremely disappointing and speaks to the problems of how the Sounders make decisions in general.
I am sure the Sounders tried to make signings last week – Sounder at Heart reported as such – but the fact that there’s no clear sense of a plan when it comes to the summer transfer window does in fact matter when the games need to be played. This team wasn’t just an elite striker away from fixing the on-field issues and it’s yet another summer window where ownership and the technical staff haven’t done enough to raise the level of on-field play.
Which leads to Saturday night's match against Red Bull. It was Seattle's first shutout since they beat the Houston Dynamo 1–0 on April 4, ending a stretch of 18 straight league matches without one. That is a positive! Unfortunately, positives here and there aren’t going to cut it at this stage of the season. It feels like the Sounders are trying to cover a king-sized bed with a queen-sized blanket.
Albert Rusnák admitted as much in the postgame media availability.
"We had enough chances to win the game," he said. "We were the better team, but ultimately we’re getting to the stage of the season where I think the points are more important than the performances. We’re starting to run out of games to make that push to get us in the playoffs."
I am not breaking any news by saying this, but the Sounders are not a good attacking team. Only Sporting Kansas City has scored fewer goals (by just one) in all of MLS. This has largely been an issue of match fitness – Seattle has had two DP attackers (Pedro De La Vega and Jordan Morris) miss most of the season. But now, I am actually worried that it is a structural and decision-making issue more than it has to do with the quality of players available at any given time.
For years, Brian Schmetzer's calling card in attack has been getting the ball into the "prime-assist zone" and having cutback passes for attackers to run onto and finish. When it works, it really works. This time last year is evidence of that, when the Sounders were playing like the best team in MLS. The issue Seattle faced on Saturday night and the one they’ve been facing all season in attack is: what if Plan A isn’t working?
To illustrate Rusnák's point about Sounders creating enough chances against New York to score at least one goal, they put up 1.25 xG on 20 shots. My concern is that they aren’t creating enough high-quality chances consistently and that's leading them to taking a lot of bad shots. None of their 20 shots from Saturday night resulted in more than 0.17 xG. Even removing the nerdy stats from the conversation, their two best chances of the game came about an hour apart – Albert Rusnak's chance in the 18th minute and Paul Rothrock's whiff in the 76th minute (which technically didn’t even count as a shot).
Schmetzer also mentioned in his press conference that a majority of the training this week was spent on attacking movements to get Joveljić involved in the attack. That apparently did not pay off because the Sounders looked more fluid against the Chicago Fire than they did against Red Bull. It is perhaps harsh to make these judgements based off of a sample size of two matches, but it is at least interesting to consider. It was also revealed after the match that Morris had a time limit as he's still coming back from injury. He looked great in the first half, but with that time limit in place, he had to be taken off at halftime. Perhaps a better decision would've been to play him in the second half instead of from the start.
At the end of the day, I do believe the stewards of the club when they say they are trying to make things better. I believe Adrian Hanauer in his open letter to fans that he's listening and is actively trying to address the issues with the club. I believe Craig Waibel is trying to make the team better under the budget constraints ownership has for him. I believe Schmetzer when he says that the coaching staff are trying different things in training and with the tactics. And finally, I believe the players are desperate to win games again.
Belief and effort can only take us so far as a club. The powers that be need to start making better decisions to turn this nightmare around. Maybe they already have, but we need to start seeing the results a lot sooner rather than later.
