Real Salt Lake entered this year as a trendy pick to win the West, a young, fun, attack-minded outfit that looked poised to carry their excellent form from the second half of last season into 2018.
Sitting at 2-2-1 after Saturday’s home win against Vancouver, RSL are by no means in dire straits, but they have been a little off through their first five matches. Injuries have hampered a backline that’s been sloppy, while the free-flowing attack that ran over everyone down the stretch in 2017 has yet to click.
Led by Albert Rusnak, Jefferson Savarino and Joao Plata, RSL’s attack wasted opponents in the second half of last year. The club scored 32 goals in their final 15 games, one more than high-powered Atlanta managed in that stretch and second in MLS only to eventual treble winners Toronto FC.
They looked good doing it, too. Rusnak was the key in the middle of head coach Mike Petke’s 4-2-3-1, pulling the strings for Savarino and Plata as RSL scored four or more goals four times in their final 15 games.
They haven’t come close to recreating that form heading into Wednesday’s test at New York City FC (7 pm ET | Full TV & Streaming Info). The Claret-and-Cobalt are near the bottom of MLS in goals, scoring just six times in their first five matches. It’s not simply a matter of poor finishing, either. RSL haven’t looked good on the ball, Rusnak has struggled at times to get involved and the team has had issues creating chances.
“I would prefer us to be playing a bit more positive with the ball, a bit more confident with the ball, but for some reason right now it doesn’t seem that way,” Petke said on Tuesday.
RSL have been candid in talking about the shortcomings in their attack, but they’re not overly concerned about them. Petke and Rusnak said Tuesday they feel the rough sledding up top is more due to execution than any systemic issues, and both feel RSL will right the ship once they get a little sharper.
“It’s just execution, it’s picking the right pass and making the right decision on the ball,” said Rusnak. “Sometimes in the games we just keep going backwards and backwards and then we go all the way to the goalkeeper and then we end up launching a long ball. That’s not the way we want to play and we don’t have players to play that way.”
“We have to combine,” he added later. “Especially at the front, we have players who can combine together or who can get through the defender individually, so I think we should just play a little bit forward more often.”
There were signs on Saturday that they’ve started to turn a corner. After a poor first half, Salt Lake looked solid in the second against the Whitecaps, keeping a solid defensive shape to hold their 1-0 lead and playing much cleaner in the attack before Savarino doubled their advantage in the dying minutes.
That performance has them feeling slightly better heading into Wednesday’s contest against NYCFC, though they won’t have an easy time at Yankee Stadium. NYCFC have given up just four goals in five games this year and RSL won’t have Plata after he suffered an injury in training on Sunday. Corey Baird will likely make his second straight start in place of the Ecuadorian, who was benched on Saturday in favor of the rookie Homegrown Player.
“I was one of the players that wasn’t happy with the way we’ve played, but the more I thought about it, you know last year if we were not playing well, we’d be losing the games,” said Rusnak. “This year there were a few games where we didn’t play our best and we ended up winning; we won against Red Bull at home, the Vancouver one we won. We’re not playing how we want to yet, but on the other side we are winning games so that’s a positive. We just have to implement the things we do in training in games.”
