RECAP: Bumps in the Road, Quakes Fall to Minnesota United FC, 1-0

PHOTO: San Jose Earthquakes

The Quakes came up empty against a good Minnesota United side. Outside of one lapse, the defense kept United from truly dominating the game.

However, their inability to create quality chances in the absence of López took away any chance at points.

Entering Saturday’s game, the Quakes looked poised to continue their good run of form. Even with López suspended, many thought this offense could survive without the Argentine.

Perhaps if Arena chose to play a different number ten, the Quakes could have at least left with a point. Pellegrino continues to baffle everyone watching him, as no manager has figured him out yet. Additionally, the decision to keep Pellegrino on, despite him adding nothing to the team, killed the chance of a comeback.

While López struggles with recapturing that magic of his first months in San Jose, he is too important to the team. Without another creative force in the middle, the team resorts to just lobbing into the box. They became the same one-dimensional team that lost historically last year.

López returning next week will help the team, but they need to figure out some backup options.

If they continue to use Pellegrino or another striker in that ten role, this Minnesota game will repeat.

If the Quakes want to keep using this same system no matter the absences, which they should, Arena needs to find a way to better replace López. Where that solution comes from is still somewhat unclear, but they can’t keep hoping their strikers replicate the Argentine’s impact.

From the moment Arena released his lineup, concerns slowly crept in. Instead of playing another dynamic creator in place of López, he opted for Amahl Pellegrino.

Essentially, this resulted in a three-striker frontline, with the trio checking into the middle or out wide. In theory, Pellegrino needed to play from the midfield and fill the gap between the midfielders and the two strikers. He failed to do that, pushing Arango deeper and removing the Quakes’ biggest threat.

It seems like the Quakes still don’t understand how to use the Swede. Despite being the team’s top scorer last season, he still doesn’t fit into this team. The current system was built without him as a starter; there is no clean positional fit for him.

Despite some great choices over the first two weeks, Arena struggled with the flow of this game. By the second half, it became clear that the team needed a different look in the middle. However, the manager waited until the last minutes of the game to introduce another number ten.

Tsakiris came onto the pitch when the game was already well lost and after Arena threw more strikers on the pitch. Choosing to sub in Bouda and Judd over the youngster just dug the Quakes deeper in a hole. These moves hurt everyone included and kept the team from establishing any sort of offensive consistency.

For the first time this season, Arena failed to read the game correctly, resulting in a drab attack.

Yes, López’s absence hurt the team, but failing to properly account for it condemned the team to this result.

All the focus on López’s absence is less about the player and more about the role. The Argentine spent the offseason dodging transfer rumors and has yet to find good form.

The lack of a number ten who moves the ball between phases stunts this offense. Too big a gap between the front two and midfield line allows the opponents to force the Quakes to play from the wings. For as good as the midfield pairing of Harkes and Leroux continue to play, which is excellent, their roles are more defensive.

Without a real ten or even another creative midfielder, the wingbacks are forced to become the team’s primary engines. Both Espinoza and Ricketts have been excellent thus far, but this makes the team too one-dimensional.

Every attack boils down to one of the wingbacks launching a ball into the box with the hope that someone is at the end of it. It devolved down to hoping the strikers could create their own space when they kept dropping back to help the midfield killed this team. None of the strikers profile as elite aerial threats, so crossing it to taller defenders neutered the offense.

Having López in the middle puts more pressure on opposing backlines, as the Quakes can cut you up in a multitude of ways. Either the threat on the wings is real, or the Argentine creates play through the middle. The buildup to Arango’s goal last week came from López pulling defenders away in the middle.

With a 3-5-2, most of the creative responsibility falls on the attacking midfielder. Pellegrino doesn’t play like that, forcing the Quakes to play a much simpler game that fell into the opponent’s hands. Not having a diversified attack made a potent Quakes attack useless.

By not playing a more traditional number ten, the Quakes resorted to route one soccer.

Cross the ball in and pray someone finishes the chance. 

Fortunately for the Quakes, this bad performance occurred early on, with the team still in good standing. The team needs to figure out who can replicate López’s role, but there’s still time for it.

Unlike previous seasons, the team put themselves in a good position before issues started popping up.

PHOTO: San Jose Earthquakes