Both D.C. United and Real Salt Lake will be looking to break through after recent attacking frustrations when the sides meet on Saturday night in Washington.
D.C.’s annoyance may be more at perceived wastefulness rather than any true woes relative to the league average.
The Black-and-Red have nine goals in their last five games, and Christian Benteke’s total of eight has him two off the pace for the MLS Golden Boot lead entering the weekend.
Even so, manager Wayne Rooney — who was one of the world’s best attackers as a player with Manchester United and the England national team — feels his side should be doing better.
Perhaps that’s partly due to a narrow 2-1 win at Miami two matches ago, in which D.C. (6-7-5, 23 points) waited 76 minutes to score despite playing up a man following a seventh-minute red card.
“We’re creating some really good chances and it’s been the story of the season really,” Rooney insisted this week. “It’s frustrating at times, but on the positive note of that, we are getting chances and that’s a positive. I’m just hoping we can start to put a few more of them away.”
Salt Lake (5-7-5, 20 points) probably has more legitimate reason to be exasperated after thoroughly dominating New York City FC last weekend but settling for a 0-0 draw.
Jefferson Savarino leads the team with only four MLS goals. And the Claret-and-Cobalt are eagerly awaiting the opening of the secondary transfer window, when they are expected to add former LAFC striker Cristian Arango from Pachuca.
If there’s an encouraging sign, it’s how well manager Pablo Mastroeni’s team has defended since the end of April.
Salt Lake has kept four clean sheets over that stretch, although all of those were scoreless draws.
“The way we want to defend and the commitment to defending has been front and center in this game and, in particular, the road games where you’re always up against it on the road,” Mastroeni said after the draw against NYCFC.
“The one thing that this stretch of time has shown us is that all of the players are capable and all of the players are willing to do the work and play really good stuff.”
–Field Level Media