One game is one thing, three is something else entirely. Louisville City’s performances in two and a half of their four games played has given the faithful some real cause for concern in this young 2019 season. Four goals scored and six surrendered is plainly out of the ordinary for any stretch. Struggling against or even losing to the two worst teams in the table at Slugger is even less imaginable. Celebrating a dominant USL Cup run just a few months ago seems like ages now.
Against Birmingham, Louisville City dominated possession, nearly doubled Legion’s pass attempts, and had their best games of the season in terms of completion numbers in the match as a whole and in the Legion’s half, too, going 80.7% and 70.8%, respectively. They were fairly accurate in creating service from wide areas, 32% on 25 attempts, and created a decent number of shots, 19, and put four on target.
The problem was, despite their paucity of possession, Birmingham still managed to take 13 shots, put five on target, and three in the net. Legion had 18 touches in Lundt’s box, and nine of their 13 shots were taken inside the box. City had 20 touches in the opposing box, to be fair, but were unable to do very much with them when considering how many touches and chances they created. For their part, Opta says Birmingham created eight scoring chances and converted three of them. Louisville City created twelve chances but only put one past the Legion keeper on their own.
Louisville City’s inability to finish their chances is becoming a trend. They’ve certainly been the dominant side in possession for three of their four games. If they converted more of their chances earlier on, then those games change because the opposing defense presses forward more to try and score, rather than sitting back and waiting on the counter.
But that’s not what’s happened. Instead, opposing teams have exposed City’s high press consistently and early, and put Morados behind the eight ball, or taken away their advantage. North Carolina went up 1-0 in the 34′. Hartford went ahead in the 6′. Birmingham took away City’s lead one minute after Rasmussen’s opener, and then took their own five minutes later.
If City’s game plans center around them scoring early, then they aren’t executing the plan. Morados’ desperation to score is arguably leading them to conceding. Giving up three goals to any team, much less a team that hadn’t scored even one previously, is just bad. City’s going to need to figure out how to defend first, and score second. That might be antithetical to City’s usual ethos, but at a certain point the bleeding has to be stopped.
