How small is too small of a sample size? How soon is too soon to panic?

Saturday night at Q2 Stadium, Austin FC produced a vintage draw that feels like a loss against the team sitting at the very bottom of MLS’s Western Conference. The dispiriting draw to the Colorado Rapids follows last weekend’s listless 2-0 defeat to the Houston Dynamo which followed a humbling CONCACAF Champions League exit to Haitian club Violette AC.

Setting aside the CCL embarrassment (a difficult thing to set aside, but please try), Austin FC have accrued seven points across five MLS matches. That’s not great, but it’s not terrible. In fact, it’s almost dead average: the Verde and Black currently sit sixth out of 14 teams in the West. But it’s not necessarily the actual results that have Verde fans hearing alarm bells ringing with growing intensity. Austin FC have several key attacking players underperforming.

Emiliano Rigoni, the team’s most recent designated player signing and, increasingly, every Austin FC fan’s least favorite friend of Sebastian Driussi, hasn’t been able to shoot anywhere except straight at the opposition goalkeeper. Marquee offseason arrival, Gyasi Zardes, has allegedly been playing in matches, but you’d be forgiven for not noticing. Even previous-season stalwarts Driussi and Diego Fagundez have been playing below their usual lofty standards – when Fagundez has played at all. It’s difficult to envision a successful Austin FC season that doesn’t involve these four attackers playing at a much higher level.

If Austin FC’s stuttering attack isn’t giving fans heart palpitations, then one look at the center-back depth chart should do the trick. Against the Rapids, that depth chart contained no actual center-backs. With Julio Cascante injured, Leo Vaisanen away on international duty, and Kipp Keller and Amro Tarek still yet to be trusted again after prior misadventures, Alex Ring (midfielder) and Nick Lima (full-back) were tasked with central defensive duties.

Austin FC’s makeshift center-back pairing did have help, though. Nominal left-back Zan Kolmanic played more conservatively than usual, tucked in alongside Ring and Lima, and the trio essentially formed a back three for much of the match. This allowed Jon Gallagher to push forward aggressively on the right. The Irishman was more right wing-back than right-back Saturday night, and of course, he took advantage of having a longer attacking leash by scoring a goal before some fans had even made their way through the beer lines.

Gallagher snuck around a Rapids’ backline that seemed unaware of his presence until the ball hit the back of the net. The fifth-minute goal was initially ruled offsides, but VAR intervened and showed Gallagher had timed his run with the instincts of a seasoned attacking player.

“I’ve played as a winger my whole life so I feel a bring a different element than most full-backs do…I usually have a good knack for where the ball’s going to land and an eye for the goal,” Gallagher said after the match.

The goal came courtesy of a silky Driussi assist, but after Austin FC took the early lead, the Argentine failed to trouble the Colorado defense in the same manner he terrorized opponents last season. Driussi didn’t take one shot from inside the penalty area on Saturday night.

Much has been made about Rigoni and Zardes missing chances this season, but Austin FC’s attack hasn’t been creating chances at the same level as last season. Heading into the Colorado match, per fbref.com, Austin FC had been generating 1.31 expected goals per 90 minutes in MLS play. Last season, Austin FC created 1.50 xG per 90 minutes. A difference of about .20 xG per 90 minutes doesn’t seem like a lot, but it was the difference between Austin FC’s 2022 attack and the attack of the hapless Houston Dynamo.

“There’s a number of things, I think, offensively,” Wolff said of the team’s attack in his post-match press conference. “Consistency in lineup and consistency in performances would obviously go a long way, but we got to push, we got to keep grinding, keep fighting. There’s a lot of competition inside the group. Performances have been okay. I’d say more solid than they’ve been poor.”

After finishing second in the West last season and reaching the conference final, ‘okay’ is a bit of a letdown. A Colorado equalizer that threatened to come for a while finally arrived in the 85th minute via substitute Michael Barrios assisting substitute Kevin Cabral. As Austin FC pushed for a late winner, memories of closing-minute heroics from 2022 were surely dancing tantalizingly in the minds of Verde supporters.

When Austin FC needed a goal late in a match in 2022, you felt they would find it, and they often did. Ask DC United or Sporting Kansas City about the perils of trying to hold onto a second-half lead against the 2022 version of Austin FC. That quiet, confident expectancy seemed absent from Q2 Stadium on Saturday night. A winning goal never materialized and it’s difficult to be surprised. It might still be too early to panic about Austin FC’s 2023 season, but it’s not too early to point out that something feels amiss.

Eric McCoy

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