Nashville had a chance to leapfrog Atlanta in the rankings on Saturday night, and that’s exactly what they did. A hectic 4-2 Nashville win sees Atlanta drop into 10th and the last playoff spot.
It was anything but Atlanta’s night. Less than a minute in Nashville were in the lead. Poor marking on a corner kick right from the off meant Atlanta had already dug themselves a hole. An even bigger hole when considering they are yet to win a game this season when the opposition scores first. A struggling to score Nashville team went on to put four past Atlanta. Multiple players on Nashville scored their first goal of the season, and the team as a whole scored two goals or more in one game for the first time this season. In shorter terms a team that couldn’t score magically could when playing Atlanta. That’s not normally a good sign.
The only bright spots were 17 year old homegrown Tyler Wolff getting his first MLS start, a brilliant Ezequiel Barco free kick that was nodded home by captain on the night Jeff Larentoowicz, and a brilliant team move finished off by George Bello, that is arguably the best goal scored all season. The only positive you can really get from the game is that it really can’t get any worse from here. And the positive about that is the team is still in a playoff spot after all these struggles.
Even while being in a playoff spot, it’s pretty clear some sort of change is needed. Something isn’t working and it has carried over from the De Boer reign to the Stephen Glass reign as well. Is it Glass’ fault? Probably not. But at the end of the day he hasn’t caused any improvements versus De Boer in terms of results. There is also the ongoing search for new players, including a DP to replace the recently sold Pity. Atlanta United’s technical director, Carlos Bocanegra, told the Fox Sports Southeast crew that several new faces could be coming within a week. Who those players could be is still unclear at this moment.
I could sit here and talk about exactly what I talked about in the last article, but I don’t want to just repeat the same things. Simply put, a lack of cohesion is causing loads of other problems that continue to pile up. And on top of all of this, today’s first half performance was one with little to no heart or care. Which is a very worrisome sign. However, they did kind of step it up in the second half with Nashville’s goal in the second period coming against the run of play.
It was not Atlanta’s day and the only thing clear in Atlanta is that change is needed. There’s a week until the next game against Inter Miami CF, which means the players have time to rest and contemplate what has happened so far this season and in Tennessee. And hopefully at the same time think about how they can fix it, and most importantly, start fixing it. Because sooner or later, this team is going to run out of time.