Offseason Outlook: DC United
/By Eric Walcott (@ericwsoccer)
This was supposed to be The Year for DC United. After moving into a new stadium in 2018, signing Wayne Rooney, bringing Bill Hamid back, and managing to keep Luciano Acosta from leaving for PSG, most people had DC among the Eastern Conference favorites for the 2019 season.
Things didn’t quite go that way, though DC did manage to finish 5th in the East and make the playoffs.
There’s a lot of different things that went not quite according to plan for DC, but the biggest disappointment was the attack. After finishing 2018 in great form the attack looked positioned to lead DC to great things in 2019 and it simply fell flat.
| Season | Shots/96 | G/96 | xG/96 | KeyP/96 | A/96 | xA/96 | xG+xA/96 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 3.89 | 0.66 | 0.62 | 2.19 | 0.33 | 0.22 | 0.84 | |
| 2019 | 3.27 | 0.42 | 0.39 | 2.85 | 0.27 | 0.25 | 0.65 | |
| 2018 | 1.97 | 0.33 | 0.2 | 2.01 | 0.49 | 0.28 | 0.48 | |
| 2019 | 2.4 | 0.25 | 0.19 | 1.28 | 0.04 | 0.12 | 0.31 | |
| 2018 | 1.71 | 0.34 | 0.18 | 1.14 | 0.19 | 0.13 | 0.31 | |
| 2019 | 1.35 | 0.2 | 0.13 | 0.85 | 0.1 | 0.06 | 0.19 |
You can see here the significant drop-off in productivity from DC United’s key attacking players from 2018 to 2019. I inserted Lucas Rodriguez as a comparison to Yamil Asad’s 2018 numbers because Rodriguez was brought in essentially to replace Asad’s production. The only attacking player who kept up their numbers from 2018 to 2019 was Paul Arriola who produced 0.32 xG+xA per 96 minutes in both 2018 and 2019.
If DC wants to be better in 2020, actually if they want to not be worse, it’s going to be a busy offseason. Rooney is gone, so is Acosta. Leonardo Jara’s loan from Boca Juniors has expired, and Chris Durkin is off on loan in Belgium until at least June.
Areas of Depth: GK, Defensive Midfield, Wings
Bill Hamid will be back. That’s the big news. It was assumed that DC would figure out a way to make his loan permanent and now that is official. Hamid was very good in 2019 (3rd best in MLS according to our G-xG metric). With MLS veteran Chris Seitz to back him up, DC United are solid at goalkeeper.
With Felipe Martins, Junior Moreno, Russell Canouse, and the possibility of Durkin rejoining the team in June, DC United has plenty of depth at center midfield. Canouse had an up and down 2019 after coming into the season with high expectations (a familiar story for a lot of the team), and even played right back-down the stretch. With Jara not returning, Canouse could see some time at right-back again in 2020, which might test their midfield depth, but I’d expect either Oniel Fisher, Chris Odoi-Atsem or a new signing to get most of the minutes at right-back, keeping Canouse in rotation with Felipe and Moreno for starting minutes.
There is depth on the wings, assuming they reach an agreement to bring Lucas Rodriguez back for 2020. Rodriguez was on loan last season, but all signs point to that loan either being extended or made permanent. With Asad joining late last season, and Paul Arriola being a consistent producer, that’s three solid contributors, though there’s a question to be asked about if any of those players are difference makers capable of taking DC higher than they were in 2019.
Similar to defensive midfield, DC’s wing depth depends a bit on what happens at other positions. If either Arriola or Rodriguez gets moved to the middle to fill Luciano Acosta’s role in 2020, then DC will probably need to add at least a depth option on the wing.
Areas of Need: Attacking Midfield, Right Back, Center Forward depth
Even if he wasn’t nearly as good in 2019 as in 2018, losing Luciano Acosta leaves a massive hole in the #10 role for DC United. There has been talk that either Rodriguez or Arriola could move to the middle, as Arriola did often down the stretch in 2019, but if the attacking trio behind Ola Kamara is Rodriguez, Arriola, and Asad, that attack lacks at least one significant difference-maker. Each of those players is a solid contributor in the attack, capable of star moments, but despite a solid run at the end of 2019 for Arriola, none have proven that they can be the consistent primary contributor.
As far as the attack in general, what DC “needs” this offseason depends very much on goals for the 2020 season. Obviously, every team’s goal is to win MLS Cup. If that’s truly DC United’s goal, I think a difference-making #10 AND an elite winger are necessary. DC has depth on the wings, but not elite-level talent. If they want to fight for the number seven spot in the East and scrape their way into the playoffs, they may be okay with just adding one piece along that front line, but if they want to punch above that level, to significant pieces are needed.
One of the reasons I say that they need two big signings at #10 and on the wing is that in losing Rooney and Acosta, DC is losing its top two chance creators. Ola Kamara is a proven goal-scorer in MLS, so losing Rooney’s goal-scoring might not be devastating, but Kamara is not a chance creator. Rooney led the team in expected assists per 96 minutes in 2019 by a significant margin. Losing that is going to put added pressure on DC’s wingers to create chances. Arriola led DC’s returning players with 0.13 xA per 96 in 2019, which puts him at 38th in MLS among wingers (not great!), which tells me that if DC wants to truly compete in 2019 they need to use those two Designated Player slots they have open to get a #10 and an elite winger.
There is not much to say about the need for a backup forward, but it’s a definite need. Kamara is the clear starter there, and at this point, that’s the depth chart.
As for right back, there are players there, but nobody that is a proven starting-caliber defender. Odoi-Atsem has the potential but is not proven. Oniel Fisher is a fine backup, but if he’s being relied on as an every game starter there are going to be problems.
Fix The Defense, Ben
Whether it’s a specific position that needs upgrading or a tactical shift, something needs to happen to improve DC’s defense in 2020. That may be a surprising claim to make about a team that conceded the second-fewest goals in MLS, but it makes more sense when contrasted with the fact that DC was 19th in MLS in expected goals against. In fact, DC’s 37 goals against, compared with 51.5 expected goals against means DC outperformed its expected goals against by more than any other team in the ASA dataset, which goes back to 2011.
Part of that was Bill Hamid having a great year, some was probably due to bunkering and having lots of bodies between shots and the goal (DC led the league with 5.3 blocked shots per game), but when a team overperforms expected goal metrics by that much there’s a lot of luck involved and it’s almost certainly not sustainable. If DC wants to avoid significant regression defensively in 2020, Ben Olsen is going to have to make some changes.
Other than potentially signing a right-back I don’t see DC making many personnel changes in the back. In Joseph Mora, they’re set at left-back. Steve Birnbaum is locked in at center-back, they just re-signed Frederic Brillant, and Donovan Pines looks promising. Unless Pines is ready for a starting role, an upgrade on Brillant would be the move I would make, but that seems highly unlikely to happen. That leaves it up to Ben Olsen to figure out how to make this defense work. I’ll leave it up to you to decide how much confidence that gives you about whether they’ll be better in 2020.