Sporting Kansas City demolished the Portland Timbers 4-1 in MLS action. SKC has struggled mightily with injuries this season but a couple of key additions have seen them begin a strong run of form. SKC played in a 4-3-3 and looked to dominate possession, as they have done for over a decade under Peter Vermes. Portland played in a 4-4-1-1 but they were not able to either maintain possession or prevent SKC from hitting them in transition.
Ratings:
- A1 – Very good, could play higher
- A2 – Strong potential to play higher
- B1 – Good, strong player at level
- B2 – Potential to be a strong player at level
- C – Average for the level, rewatch
- D – Below average in this match
William Agada
Player Profile
- Nationality: Nigerian
- Age: 22
- Date of Birth: 17/09/1999
- Current Club: Sporting Kansas City
- Career: Maccabi Tel Aviv (Y), Hapoel Katamon, Hapoel Jerusalem, Hapoel Haifa (loan)
- Position: Striker
- Preferred Foot: Right
William Agada recently joined Sporting Kansas City after a good but not great stint in the Israeli league. He has absolutely exploded onto the scene with five goals and an assist in his first five games. So, naturally, I was curious about just how legit this goal-scoring form was. I have to say, in this match, he looked pretty effective. Agada was very effective in transition moments in this match. He’s not the tallest striker but he is quite solidly built. This allows him to be mobile while still having the strength to post up on defenders and be a reference point in transitions. Agada sometimes looked a little bit clumsy on the ball but he had a good eye for what pass to play when SKC was moving forward with speed. He created a couple of chances for teammates in transition by finding the right player in space to make the chance happen. He was also very good at getting in behind the Portland defence. He has decent pace and is very good at sneaking in behind defenders by running off their back shoulder. His clumsiness was more of an issue when the play slowed down a little bit and he had to try and beat a defender 1v1. In those situations, it did not look like he was going anywhere fast. His movement was also not as impressive in situations where the play slowed down. With the ball in wide areas, his movement in the box was a bit lacking. It will be interesting to see if this limits his ability to score goals from crosses and cut-backs in future games. But he did react quickly to a loose ball and that helped him to get on the end of dangerous chances off of crosses. His first goal was scored this way but there was also one other good chance that he got by reacting first to a loose ball.
Rating – A2
Look, I’m still a little sceptical of his performance so far. It’s very strange that a player who scored 9 goals in over 3000 minutes in Israel is suddenly a goal-a-game player in MLS. xG overperformance plays a part but even if he were performing exactly to xG he would be getting a goal contribution every game. I saw some deficiencies in this game but overall he was extremely dangerous and looked like he could make a step up. Teams should probably wait a bit before making a move but if we get 10 games into the next season and he’s still doing this I don’t know how you can say he doesn’t belong in a top-five league.