The Jordan Morris dilemma
By Matt Pentz
The decision to move Jordan Morris back onto the wing paid immediate dividends for the Sounders on Sunday afternoon in Los Angeles.
With Will Bruin making his first start as the lone forward, Morris, Nicolas Lodeiro and Clint Dempsey were freed up to make plays behind him.
Silver shadow. Morris shone out on the wing in Sounders’ 3-0 win in Carson
Seattle’s attack looked as coherent and consistently dangerous as it has all season, battering the Galaxy throughout a 3-0 victory that could have been even more lopsided.
As a short-term fix, coach Brian Schmetzer’s tactical tweak could hardly have worked better. Longer term, though, the personnel swap raises just about as many questions as it does answers.
For as capably as Morris played on the wing during last year’s playoff run, there’s a reason why he started this campaign as the starting forward in Schmetzer’s 4-2-3-1 formation.
Morris views himself as a striker, first and foremost, and that’s where he has a higher ceiling going forward for both the Sounders and the U.S. national team.
“I feel like my best position is up front,” Morris said during the preseason. “I’ll do whatever I need to do to help the team. In the playoffs last year, that was playing out wide and that was totally fine. But if I had my choice, it would be at forward. That’s where I think I’m most dangerous.”
Sure, there are some holes in his game that need mending. Morris freely admits that his hold-up play could use some work, and his finishing touch needs to be more consistent. His skill set works best when he has a partner to work off of – think Nelson Valdez during the final few months of last season – and he’s often looked adrift this year when playing alone up top.
And yet this was always going to be a work in progress.
Patience is a Sounders virtue but wins are also appreciated
The buzzword throughout the Sounders preseason was patience. With barely a month-and-half off between MLS Cup and the opening of training camp, last season’s bruises hardly had time to fade before the new one began. Seattle was going to ease into 2017 – letting veterans show up to camp a few days late, trading early lumps for long-term gains, taking the necessary time to let chemistry congeal.
If any team knows just how slow it can start and still get hot in time for the playoff push, it’s the defending league champion that was 10 points out of the postseason late last July.
It remains uncertain whether the lineup changes will be permanent. Schmetzer’s moves could have been designed to ease building pressure on Morris and give him a much-needed jolt of confidence before reverting to the status quo.
“My philosophy is that you give the veteran guys, the senior guys, the first shot,” Schmetzer said Monday. “Jordy is fully capable of being up there on his own. The group that won a championship was going to get the first crack at it. That’s what we did.”
As uncomfortable as Morris has occasionally looked, the six matches prior to Sunday do not represent that large of a sample size, especially since all but two of them were on the road. As well as Seattle played at the StubHub Center, this is not a vintage Galaxy team. Let’s see how the new look holds up against in the MLS Cup rematch against Toronto a week from Saturday before rushing to conclusions.
Clint Dempsey opens the floodgates against a poor Galaxy side
That’s not to dump a bucket of ice water on a legitimately dominant performance down in L.A. At the very least, Bruin already looks like a shrewd addition. His game does mesh naturally with Dempsey and Lodeiro’s, doing the dirty work up top that allows the playmakers more time to work.
It is to encourage restraint in reading too much into one game – particularly given the potential knock-on effects.
Seattle still has an open Designated Player spot to play with, likely during the summer transfer window. Conventional wisdom was that it would target a dynamic winger to play beside Lodeiro and Dempsey and behind Morris. If the Sounders brass has concluded that Morris’ future is indeed on the wing, however, that changes things.
Schmetzer’s decision to shake up the starting lineup paid immediate dividends. It could make for an interesting and influential next few weeks, as well.
