Offseason Outlook: Montreal Impact

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Here’s what that 4-3-3 might look like.

By Kevin Minkus (@kevinminkus)

Montreal head into the offseason with a lot of open questions. Does Ignacio Piatti stay? Does Orji Okwonkwo return? How will new head coach Thierry Henry try to play?

I don’t know what formation Montreal will play in 2020. Henry doesn’t have enough head coaching experience to be able to pick out his tactical preferences. And Montreal played seven different formations last season while trying to get their best roster on the field. So I don’t know how they’ll line up. I’ve fit them into a 4-3-3 for the purposes of this article, but, who knows?

Areas of Depth

Wingers: If Piatti remains in Montreal, and Okwonkwo returns, Montreal will have a fantastic group of wingers. Romell Quioto is an excellent piece to add (0.71 xG + xA per 90), and is good insurance against either of those two things not happening. Lassi Lappalainen is just 21 years old, and put up a promising 0.41 xG + xA per 90 (which is Jonathan Lewis, Pedro Santos, Ethan Finlay range) after coming to MLS in July. Mathieu Choiniere is just 20, and put up a bit worse numbers, but is still developing. Okwonkwo might be the best prospect of the group. He is also only 21 and recorded 0.46 xG + xA per 90.

Goalkeeper: I hesitate to call this a real area of depth, but Montreal does have three keepers on their roster right now. Evan Bush is the current starter, but the Impact left him unprotected in the expansion draft. He was pretty poor last year - he conceded about eight more goals than expected, 2nd most in MLS. He’s also never been a great passer, and that’s a skill that’s becoming increasingly important among MLS goalkeepers. Clement Diop is the likely backup, and has never been starter quality. 22-year old James Pantemis may be the keeper of the future, but he’ll be loaned to Valour FC for 2020.

Areas of Need

Forward: Maxi Urruti in 2019 was the league’s worst forward in xG per 90, and he still got 2600 minutes. (The usual caveat on his game is that he puts in a lot of effort defensively. He does - he recorded the most tackles in the league by a forward. But Montreal played a low block last year - they didn’t need his work rate up top.) Anthony Jackson-Hamel was a bit better per 90, and also created a bit more, but he only played 600 minutes. Since putting up nine goals and four assists in 2017, his development has really stagnated. Bojan Krkic could maybe slot in here, but he plays much more often as a second forward. So - the team needs a DP forward. They are, unfortunately, paying Urruti a million dollars to shoot the 4th farthest from goal in the league on average (among forwards).

Central Midfield: Saphir Taider and Samuel Piette are both excellent. Taider led the team in total attacking contributions (xG + xA). He was almost double Montreal’s second-highest contributor. But Piette’s backup is really Taider, and Taider’s backup is Shamit Shome (who is good and young and improving). But the Impact could probably use one more defensive mid or box to box mid for added depth here.

Defense: The Impact currently have only 6 defenders on their roster. Their defense was actually pretty good in 2019 in xG (41), but they massively underperformed that in actual goals (59). Some of this might be due to their transition defending. Montreal could not defend when they weren’t sitting deep in their typical low block. As mentioned above, Evan Bush was also pretty poor as a shot-stopper. Outside of those, though, no clear issues stand out. I don’t really know what exactly the problem was.

The team traded their starting left back of the last three seasons, Daniel Lovitz, to Nashville. Which may be a statement of their intent to trust that spot to Clement Bayiha. Bayiha got 11 games in 2019 between the midfield and right back, and generally looked pretty good. And he’s only 20 years old. His likely backup (and also maybe the backup on the left), homegrown Karifa Yao, is just 19, and may be another one to watch for the future. Other than right back, though, the team is very, very thin on the backline. Rudy Camacho will probably start at center back, and he’s fine. Right now it looks like Jukka Raitala will line up next to him, with Jorge Corrales on the left. The team probably needs at least a TAM-level center back. That would give them the flexibility to move Raitala to left back, with Corrales as a backup - he’s really not MLS starter quality.

A cohesive plan for the offense: Montreal has a lot of talented but mismatched pieces in the attack. Their best offensive strategy for the last three or four years has been “let Piatti pick up the ball and run in transition”. But Piatti is aging, and possibly gone, and so it’s time for the team to move toward something more collaborative and sustainable. Quioto and Lappalainen can both play on the left, but if Piatti stays, how do you fit all three on the field together? Quioto doesn’t have to start, but Lappalainen is good enough to. One option is to let Piatti drift where he wants, playing underneath a true forward in the middle. But that’s where Bojan is best. And Urruti should not be a starting center forward. Maybe a better option is to use Piatti as a super (expensive) sub. He can come in at the end of games, when they’ve opened up, and he only has to run for a half hour every week. But he’s a very expensive substitute. This in particular will be a pretty tough problem for Henry. Hopefully Montreal’s FO starts to make some moves that give us a better idea of how he’ll approach solving it.