Analysis: Minnesota United’s attack has become two-dimensional

If you want to know how Minnesota United’s attack is shaping up heading into Saturday night’s game at San Jose just look at the shooting numbers.

Kelvin Yeboah has attempted 14 shots in two games, five more than anyone else in MLS. Tani Oluwaseyi has four attempts of his own. And the entire rest of the Loons squad … has a grand total of eight.

In other words, it’s not too much to say that the Loons’ attack is a two-man game. But it’s also true that, in terms of shot creation, it’s working. While the sample sizes are small, Yeboah and Oluwaseyi together have attempted more shots so far this season than any other two players in the league.

It’s a testament to how much coach Eric Ramsay believes in his two forwards, and believes in their ability to make things happen — if only the Loons can put them in the proper areas.

“We can’t try to be everything,” he said. “What we can do is look at our two forwards, particularly those two, and appreciate that their best qualities are seen most often when they’ve got big spaces to attack into.”

As much as anything, the Loons’ tactical plan is based on creating those spaces, and not just from obvious counter-attacking situations, like when the defense makes a bad pass and one of the forwards is able to pick up the ball for a breakaway.

Minnesota is also looking to create those situations, starting right from when the ball is at goalkeeper Dayne St. Clair’s feet. Against LAFC in Week 1, every one of the goal kicks that St. Clair took was launched at the forwards, standing on the other side of the halfway line.

Though the numbers say he wasn’t 100% against Montreal in Week 2, in several cases, St. Clair only made a short pass to help try to draw the opposition forward. And when they started to press, that’s when the keeper attempted to go over the top.

For Ramsay, this is just a matter of the Loons playing to the strengths of those forward players.

“If you look back at what we’ve created over the course of the last two games, a lot of it comes from being very well set up to play relatively direct from Dayne,” he said. “It’s just a case of me looking at the strengths of the players that we’ve got and making sure that we see those often — and also hide some of the things that perhaps we wouldn’t do so well.”

After two weeks, there’s only one team in MLS that’s had a smaller share of possession than the Loons , and it’s their Saturday night opponent. The Earthquakes play a similar system to Minnesota, and so the match could be a cagey affair.

Minnesota’s goal will be to continue to find ways to create opportunities for Oluwaseyi and Yeboah, and they’re willing to go over the top to do so.

Friday, MLS released some numbers detailing how much General Allocation Money (GAM) each team currently has banked, and the Loons are in third place, with almost $3.9 million to spend.

Though the MLS “salary budget” is quite low, set at just under $6 million for the year, GAM is one of the ways in which teams can exceed their budget. It’s used for transfer fees (for non-designated players and non-U22 players), and for extra salaries above the top of the salary budget.

The numbers are more evidence that chief soccer officer Khaled El-Ahmad has given himself a high degree of payroll flexibility, with the primary transfer window closing April 23 and the summer transfer window not opening until late July. He’s got room for contract extensions, to bring in new players — or just to save money to make moves in the summer.

9:30 p.m., Saturday at PayPal Park

TV; radio: MLS Season Pass and Apple TV+; 1500 AM

San Jose (2-0-0), which was the worst team in MLS last season, is one of five teams in the league to start this year with two victories. Legendary coach Bruce Arena is in charge, and the Quakes forward line now includes longtime standouts Josef Martínez and Chicho Arango, both of whom have a goal this year. The other member of the forward line, Hernan Lopez, is suspended after being sent off last week … The Loons (1-1-0) have taken on Arena only once, in 2022, losing 2-1 against the New England Revolution in Foxborough.