I should preface this by saying this: I like Fanendo Adi. I think he’s a good player and a good forward.
That said, Fanendo Adi is not a forward of Designated Player quality, and the Timbers should sell high on him and invest in a truly DP level striker.
Since joining the Portland Timbers last season, Fanendo Adi has scored 17 goals in 42 appearances. That’s roughly a goal every two and a half games. Break it down by minutes (he’s played 2600 according to MLSSoccer.com) and Adi is scoring at a rate of one goal every 153 minutes, an even better rate. One might look at those numbers and say that Adi has been a good signing for the Timbers and should rank as a top forward in Major League Soccer.
Portland Timbers Should Sell High on Fanendo Adi
But how’s this for a stat: in 42 games for the Timbers in MLS play, Adi has scored in just 10 of them. So far in 2015 Adi has scored eight goals in 18 appearances, but only scored in five games. In 2014 Adi scored nine goals in 24 appearances, but again, scored in only five games.
For the sake of comparison, look at Octavio Rivero in Vancouver and Chris Wondolowski in San Jose. These are two designated players who, along with Adi, are in the lower echelon of DP salaries, and with similar goal totals to Adi. Rivero’s seven goals have come in seven games, and he’s added three assists, compared to Adi’s one. Wondolowski’s nine goals have come in eight different games. These players are scoring similar numbers, but impacting more games.
To dive a bit further into Adi’s goals, not only does he score them in few games, a not insignificant number of them are goals that don’t actually impact game results. So far this year, four of Adi’s goals have been goals that didn’t play a part in deciding which team came away with the points. Adi’s goals in a 2-1 loss to Vancouver and a 3-1 loss to Houston weren’t enough. His braces in wins over New England and Seattle came in multi-goal victories where the Timbers could’ve won without Adi scoring a second. The same was true last year. Perhaps the best example was Adi coming on as a late game sub and scoring a brace in a 4-2 loss to Seattle.
Adi also has a habit of not scoring when the Timbers need it most. In the first 12 games of this season, Adi scored four goals, not a bad number, but not a “DP you can count on to win you important games” number. Not coincidentally, the Timbers found themselves near the bottom of the Western Conference 12 games into the season.
In 2014, after impressing with two braces in his first five games for Portland, Adi was signed to a DP contract. Following that signing on June 23, Adi went on an eight game scoring drought in which the Timbers won just three times.
The problem, or, one of the problems, is that Adi is a confidence player. Now, all strikers are confidence players to some degree, but Adi seems to take it to another level. When he’s scoring, he’s on fire, and it elevates his all around game, which is huge for the team. But, when the scoring stops, so do all the other things that a striker contributes to on the pitch. The high pressing, the hold-up play, the combinations with other attacking players, when Adi isn’t scoring, it’s like he’s going through the motions on these things, and the team suffers for it.
While I’m not usually a huge fan of match ratings, I do think WhoScored.com’s ratings do a decent job. A glimpse of Adi’s match ratings from WhoScored gives a picture of Adi’s play in games he scores compared to when he doesn’t. Adi’s average rating in matches in which he scores or assists is an eight out of 10, which falls in their “very good” category. His rating in games where he doesn’t score or assist: a very mediocre 6.3 out of 10. Ratings such as these obviously favor goal scoring, hence some of the difference, but in Adi’s case it fairly well reflects his play.
When Adi is scoring, he’s a very good player. When he’s not, he’s average, sometimes worse, and that is simply not good enough for a designated player in Major League Soccer.
The recent rumors of MLS adding a 4th designated player could leave room for the Timbers to keep Adi and also add a higher quality striker, though paying two designated players on a team that lines up with a single forward seems ill-advised. The Timbers would be better served saving that fourth designated player slot for an upgrade in another area. While much of the roster seems solidified at the moment, a top team can never stop looking for ways to improve.
The bottom line is that if the Timbers front office actually wants to compete for an MLS Cup trophy, as they claim to want to do and, to be fair, as a number of moves they’ve made suggests, they need a true top quality striker. That makes this upcoming transfer window the perfect time to sell Adi while his value his high, and invest in a truly elite goalscorer.
Photo by Jeff Gross/Getty Images
