The Seattle strikers haven't been good, but the Sounders don't need them to be
On the whole, the Seattle Sounders haven’t been very good this season. When they’ve lost, which has happened a lot this year, the easiest thing to point to was their attack and say the forwards needed to score more.
That may be true, but for the Sounders, winning and losing hasn’t necessarily had that much to do with their forwards. The team has been playing better now than they have all year, but their striker force is largely in the same state: Rookie Jordan Morris is their best scorer, Clint Dempsey has been in and out, Herculez Gomez is a non-factor and Nelson Valdez can’t hit the backside of a barn.
Instead, the biggest changes that have turned the tide in Seattle have come from Nicolas Lodeiro arriving in the midfield and a defense that is gradually getting better.
Just look at pre-Lodeiro and post-Lodeiro. Even before the Uruguayan arrived and the Sounders were still at the bottom of the Western Conference table, Morris was still their top scorer even though his finishing needs work and he's still having a relatively good season for a rookie striker. That hasn’t changed since Lodeiro's debut and it hasn’t changed since the Sounders have bounced back within playoff striking difference.
But the arrival of Lodeiro has meant that more players have opportunity to score goals and the team overall is more threatening. Since the No. 10 playmaker has arrived, Cristian Roldan has scored twice; Clint Dempey scored five goals, which is more than he had scored all season before Lodeiro’s debut; and Lodeiro himself provided a new goalscoring outlet and netted three, joining in on Morris’ continued efforts. It’s not that the Sounders don’t need their forwards to score goals, but if other players can produce more and the responsibility is spread around, that works too.
Lodeiro's distribution and his ability to create more freedom for attackers has single-handedly changed the Sounders attack. The Sounders have scored 14 goals in the eight games they’ve had with Lodeiro. In their 11 games prior, they scored just 10 goals, with half of them coming in a very strange 5-0 win over FC Dallas, an anomaly amid a very poor run of form. That's a sharp increase in production.
Sure, losing Dempsey while an irregular heartbeat is evaluated isn’t great for the Sounders. Dempsey and Morris were finally developing some chemistry with Lodeiro pulling the strings and given Dempsey some freedom to roam. And in the Sounders' first match back since Dempsey was sidelined, they suffered a difficult 4-2 loss, their only loss since Lodeiro's arrival. But it doesn’t need to mean the end of the Sounders playoff hopes because coach Brian Schmetzer can expect more from the midfield and make a lone striker system with Morris work.
And just as they’ve been scoring goals, the Seattle defense is looking poised to peak. Roman Torres returned three weeks ago after a year away due to a knee ligament injury, and his impact was immediate. He looked sharper than his time off would suggest and he has continue to make it more difficult to breakdown the Sounders back line, not just with his imposing physical presence, but his smart positioning. The best part may be that Torres should continue to get better as he gets back into the groove of playing. If the Sounders do make the playoffs, that could mean peaking at the right time.
Putting Torres next to Chad Marshall in central defense appears to be the way forward. Brad Evans has been injured lately, but his pairing with Marshall never seemed to click, even as the pair on paper should’ve been adaptable and solid. For Evans, that means he will have to find a new position whenever he is fit again and a return to a role that gives him more freedom may make more sense.
The Sounders do have a very big roadblock in the road to playoffs Sunday. They must face an LA Galaxy team that has lost just once since June and has one of the most potent attacks in MLS. A loss against LA wouldn’t mathematically eliminate the Sounders from the playoffs, but it would make their road to the playoffs rockier than ever.
But the Sounders have generally looked relatively good against LA this year, despite a loss and a draw. Osvaldo Alonso is one of the best defensive midfielders in MLS and he can handle Robbie Keane while fullbacks Tyrone Mears and Joevin Jones have the freedom to push high and add extra numbers to the midfield. If they can push into a midfield that works like it has been lately, it could help the Sounders produce their first win over LA this season.
On top of everything that has started to fall into place, if the Sounders can eventually get their strikers going as playoffs approach too, they could make the sort of unexpected run the Portland Timbers made to the MLS Cup. First, the Sounders need to get there and, even though their striker force hasn't changed much, there's no reason the Sounders cannot finish above the red line. They have enough in the midfield and defense to keep Seattle from missing MLS playoffs for the first time in the franchise's MLS history.
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