30 May 2024
Minnesota United’s six-game unbeaten streak came to an end Wednesday for three primary reasons.
The Loons aren’t getting enough — or anything — from two of its three Designated Players. They don’t command or control the ball, and that falls primarily on the midfield. And MNUFC wingback DJ Taylor allowed a penalty in a second straight match during the 2-0 defeat to LAFC at BMO Stadium.
“It’s a league in which, for us, it’s going to be impossible to go unbeaten for really long periods of time because that’s just not the nature of the league — nor where we’re at,” head coach Eric Ramsay said.
All three of these glaring issues can be viewed as needs for improvement when the summer transfer window opens in July.
While Ramsay’s “where we’re at” comment stands out, he says he’s not letting himself look ahead to potential incoming transfers that could happen as soon as seven weeks from now. He previously told the Pioneer Press he will be a “cog” in the club’s acquisition process, leaving most of that up to Chief Soccer Officer Khaled El-Ahmad and the front-office staff.
“I’m very much thinking about game-to-game and dealing with this group of players in front of us,” Ramsay said on the transfer topic after the LAFC loss. “This is the big thing that’s always at the forefront of my mind. I have a group of players. I need to make sure that every one of them is improving, taking steps to move forward, and I know as a consequence, the team will do so.”
Midfielder Robin Lod, who has four goals and eight primary assists in 2024, has been the Loons’ most valuable player and its frontrunner to be voted an MLS All-Star. He’s fully living up to his DP status.
Meanwhile, Emanuel Reynoso has let his club and its supporters down by remaining in Argentina for seven weeks midseason. He has played only 31 minutes this year, and after his return in early May, MNUFC has since been working on a potential transfer to Club Tijuana in Mexico’s Liga MX. The absence of his skill on the ball and stunning goal creation exacerbate the fact that one of their DPs isn’t even playing matches.
Also, Teemu Pukki’s scoring drought reached 570 minutes on Wednesday. The Finnish forward had a curling shot deflect off a LAFC defender in the 10th minute and he couldn’t connect on a glancing header off a corner kick in the 61st minute. Both chances looked indicative of a slumping player continuing to stub his toe.
“I’m really willing it to happen to Teemu, and I’m sure it’s just around the corner,” Ramsay said. “Obviously, he hasn’t had a huge number of chances (Wednesday), but there has been a couple of moments where he looked like a threat and the ball has fallen to him in the right spots. I’m sure on another day he takes that chance.”
Pukki’s half chances glare because MNUFC produced so little going forward Wednesday. The Loons were shut out for the first time in eight matches and posted their lowest expected goals of the season (0.2), per FBref.com.
“Probably in the same vein to us lacking detail in how we executed the defensive game plan, I think we lacked some precision and detail in the way that we used the ball, and certainly some imprecision as we got to the final third really cost us,” Ramsay said. “We turned the ball over cheaply. We couldn’t sustain the attacks in the way that we wanted to, so that’s obviously an area that we’ll look at.
“But I would also say that the context of the game here (in L.A.) is very difficult and unless you are, as I say, sort of very precise with how you link in the middle third, then, well, we certainly struggle to get enough passes to get the wing backs where we want them and that unfortunately costs us. We never felt like we had enough players on their last line, and you do need a certain number of passes in order to do that, but unfortunately, the ball turned over far too quickly for us in the middle third.”
The Loons are tied for the fewest passes completed (4,359) and have the third-lowest possession percentage (45.2) in MLS this season. That puts a spotlight on their biggest need this summer: a marquee player capable of commanding the game with the ball and influencing scoring chances both directly and indirectly.
MLS is expected to go two routes for roster-building and the Loons are expected to go with the new two-DP path. Pukki is under contract until summer 2025, so the apparent aim would be the goals start coming like they did after a slow start in 2023. That would entail the need to transfer out Reynoso and a buy-down of Lod’s salary to open up a DP spot for such a new player.
That won’t help the Loons on Saturday when their current roster will need to cobble more meaningful possession and goal-scoring chances and conversions against slumping Sporting Kansas City at Allianz Field.. Ramsay said there was “disappointment and frustration” in losing to LAFC on top of giving up a two-goal lead in a 3-3 draw at Colorado on Saturday.
“It’s a very different context playing at home against Kansas (than) it is playing away against Colorado and L.A.,” Ramsay said. “We really want to look in the mirror hard, but also recognize the context is very different. We’ve got to go meet those conditions on Saturday with everything that we’ve got.”