PORTLAND, Ore. – The Portland Timbers have a scoring problem: offensive struggles that are, in fact, the worst they’ve suffered since before head coach Caleb Porter took over in 2013.
The Timbers have been shut out in consecutive games following Saturday’s scoreless draw with the Vancouver Whitecaps at Providence Park, and their goalless streak has reached 191 minutes, the team’s longest since a three-game stretch during the 2012 season that came on the heels of former coach John Spencer’s firing.
Very conspicuous during Portland’s two-game skid has been the exclusion of Designated Player striker Fanendo Adi from the starting lineup. In his place, Porter has opted for Argentine Maximiliano Urruti, and the head coach said after Saturday’s match that he’s simply searching for the “hot hand.”
“Both pretty similar in terms of what they bring, and last year - same thing,” Porter said, referring to his choices of Urruti or Adi that date back to last season. “I want a guy to get hot. I want to stick with a guy. The other thing is tactical: they’re different in their tendencies.”
Porter said he went with Urruti against Vancouver in part to take advantage of his movement against the Whitecaps’ big center, backs Pa Modou Kah and Kendall Waston. Going with the more physical Adi – who came on for Urruti in the 66th minute – would have played more into Vancouver’s desire for a rough-and-tumble 90 minutes.
“We knew Vancouver were going to play a physical game, and we knew Waston and Kah like that kind of game,” Porter said. “They’re up for that game. They want to bang. We saw that even when Waston came to life even more when Adi came into the game. He loves that. So we felt to play a little bit more of a technical, tactical group and use movement and pressing at times.”
Aside from the tactical considerations, Adi has hit a dry spell of his own.
The big Nigerian, who signed midseason last year after a short-term loan from FC Copenhagen, has not scored in five matches since his goal in a 2-1 loss against the same Vancouver team on March 28. He scored twice in Week 2, a 2-2 draw with the LA Galaxy, and has three goals and an assist on the season – numbers Portland clearly expect to improve.
“I’m feeling alright,” Adi told MLSsoccer.com after the match. “It’s just a process. Yeah, the coaches decide on who plays. My job is just to work and do my best out there. Of course, just trying to get back into the rhythm of getting the goals, which is very important for me.”
Porter pointed to a handful of instances against Vancouver and in last week’s loss at Seattle where he felt the finishing should have been better. In Portland’s 1-0 loss to the Sounders, Adi had two missed headers. Urruti missed an open header against Vancouver, a game also marked by a missed penalty kick by Darlington Nagbe.
Adi believes there’s more to the Timbers’ goal drought than just finishing.
“I don’t think there’s anything basically to talk about the finishing,” he said. “You can’t finish when you don’t have the opportunity. You must get the ball in the right place and the right time to finish. So I think of course you have to be in the right position to finish, so we as strikers are maybe not doing enough. But it’s just something we’re going to work on in training and try to improve on.”
Adi said he is not frustrated by his exclusion from the starting lineup.
“I think I was basically focused on the game and just trying to come in and do my best,” Adi said. “For me, I take every game as it comes. I don’t know what is going to happen in the next game, and every minute I just try to do my best.”
Porter said that, like a defender when a team is bleeding goals, attacking players have to be held accountable for offensive struggles.
“Strikers have to score goals; they know that,” Porter said. “I don’t call my players out in press conferences, but attackers know they have to, over 90 minutes, they have to find a goal.”
Dan Itel covers the Timbers for MLSsoccer.com.
