Can Nagbe Lead The Timbers Attack?

Darlington Nagbe has skill, and no one disputes that, but due to his age and his relatively sparse use in the 2011 season, we can only guess at all that he’s capable of. The #2 overall pick in the 2011 MLS SuperDraft, Nagbe was a college star at Akron, and scored the MLS Goal of the Year in 2011 with this stunning double-juggle volley against Kansas City:

http://www.youtube.com/embed/2naoSiNRQ1w

(It’s been a long off-season, and I thought you might want to watch that beauty again. I know I did.)

He scored 2 goals in 28 appearances (21 of them starts), and of his 30 shots, only 10 were on target. He also bagged three assists, but statistically speaking, it was a relatively slow rookie season.

A lot of that comes down less to his ability and more to his positioning. For a good chunk of the season, John Spencer played Nagbe in a mostly midfield role, not forward where he excelled at Akron, and though he put in some nice performances and linked up well with Mike Chabala on the left side, he was not set up to be particularly productive in terms of attack. For too much of the season, Kenny Cooper took the field as the lone striker, and we depended on the relatively slow Cooper to do way too much of the work opening up space up top.

With the departure of KFC and (so far) post-season moves focusing more on defense, Timbers fans are rightly asking where the goals will come from in 2012. Of the 40 goals scored last season, we have traded or otherwise lost the players who scored nine of them (8 for Cooper and 1 for the retired Kevin Goldthwaite). Our only offensive pickup so far this off-season has been our second Colombian designated player, José Adolfo Valencia. A lot is expected of El Trencito, especially with the DP label attached to him, but genetics aside (his father played at Bayern and Atletico Madrid), right now he’s an unknown quantity.

Jorge Perlaza is a great forward, but didn’t prove himself as a great finisher in 2011. He didn’t have a much better accuracy rate than Nagbe, at 12 on target out of 33 total shots. What he does have is some of the quickest feet in the league, so he definitely has a part to play.

The point is, we are not overflowing with goalscoring talent right now. We saw flashes in 2011 of how good Nagbe could be on the offensive end of the pitch. The question remains if he can step up and be a team-leading scorer. If he’s allowed to play where he plays best, up front alongside Perlaza, El Trencito and Eddie Johnson, with some help hopefully from new local boy Brent Richards, we’ll at least find out what he can do. I still hope that there are moves ahead in this off-season to make us a more offensively minded club, but with players reporting to Jeld-Wen Field in three days, time is ticking.