Atlanta United’s Garth Lagerwey said Deila, Henderson are safe

“We brought Ronny in for the long term,” Lagerwey said. “He’s our third coach in three years. The solution to our issues is not to have four coaches in four years.”

Lagerwey said he will leave it to others to speculate or decide if his job is in jeopardy. Having led Real Salt Lake and Seattle to trophies, Lagerwey was hired before the 2023 season to lead Atlanta United back to the successes it experienced in 2018 and ’19 when it won three trophies.

The club hasn’t won anything since. The closest it has come was last season when it was knocked out of the Eastern Conference playoffs in the semifinals by Orlando.

“No doubt that everyone is going to be accountable, and obviously what we hope is that we can get better outcomes, and we’re going to keep working to do exactly that,” Lagerwey said.

Lagerwey said a cocktail of bad data, bad scouting, bad tactics and bad luck is why Atlanta United’s results are so poor. The team has scored 14 goals — three were own goals — and given up 24.

The club started well. It defeated Montreal, the only team lower than it in the Eastern standings, to open the season. It went 2-2-3 through its first seven matches. If not for defensive mistakes, its record should have been much better. It scored 11 goals and allowed 12.

“We were decent, but you are what your record says you are, and we didn’t get the points commensurate with that,” he said.

And then came a stretch of three matches that Lagerwey said caused him to think that something wasn’t correct.

First, the team lost to New England at home, 1-0. The Revolution had scored only three goals in their previous matches. A penalty called against Latte Lath gifted the Revs a Carles Gil goal. Atlanta United had two goals called back for being offside.

Instead of showing that the New England loss was a fluke, the team was drubbed 3-0 by Philadelphia and 3-0 by Orlando in back-to-back road matches. Lagerwey said the losses exposed some of the issues, such as the lack of more on-field leadership, that the team hopes to fix in the next transfer window.

“So we’ve dug ourselves a hole, and now we got to dig ourselves out of it,” he said.

There is no golden shovel.

“You keep going and you work hard, and you stay optimistic, and you understand that it can’t rain every day and the sun keeps rising every morning,” he said. “We still get to come here. And we have this wonderful facility. We have this wonderful fan base that keeps turning out to support us. We’re very grateful for that. And you know, we hope to reward that over time.”

Lagerwey said he believes that the right leadership team is in place to help the franchise turn around its run.

He and Henderson worked together in Seattle, where they won MLS Cups in 2016 and ’19. Deila, who won the MLS Cup with NYCFC in 2020, was hired in December. David Tenney, who worked with Lagerwey at Seattle, was hired after last season to lead the medical and training staffs. Javier Perez was hired in April last season to oversee the development of players from the academy to the first team.

“I think we have a whole bunch of good pieces right now. As we’ve talked about, we have not put them together in the most efficient manner, but hopefully the silver lining with all this adversity is we’re exposing all the issues, and so now we should be able to solve them with that new leadership group in place so that everyone is invested and aligned in those solutions,” he said.

One of the issues is the lack of scoring.

Latte Lath has five goals. Miranchuk has one goal and no assists. Almiron has three goals and three assists.

When Latte Lath and Almiron were signed, Lagerwey said the idea was that the duo, along with Saba Lobjanidze, would provide runners for Miranchuk to connect with down the wings and in spaces behind defensive lines.

It hasn’t consistently worked. Miranchuk was moved by Deila from attacking midfielder to a deeper role to accommodate Almiron’s move from right wing into central positions. Miranchuk still leads the team in key passes (24) even though those are being finished. Almiron is fourth in key passes (14).

Lobjanidze leads the team in assists (4) but has lost his starting position because of Deila’s switch from a back four to a back five to try to shore up the defense.

Latte Lath hasn’t scored in eight matches, which is an aberration in his career. He is third in key passes (15). Deila said last week that he thinks Latte Lath is ready to break out after having recently finished taking care of some off-field personal things.

Tactically, Deila started the season wanting to play a high press, which is why runners were wanted to take advantage of those higher positions up the field if Atlanta United created turnovers. Because Atlanta United has struggled defending counterattacks, the press has become less coordinated, and those runs have become more infrequent.

Deila has since switched to a more counterattacking style of play.

“The blueprint of having Alexey there to pass the ball, I do still think, is one of the foundational strengths of this group of players,” Lagerwey said. “And if you look at the expected assists, if you look at the key passes, if you look at the chances created, a lot of that still goes through Alexey, and what we have to do is find ways to, again, find the fit that is best for the team. It’s not just best for Latte Lath. It’s not just best for Miggy. It’s not just best for Alexey. It’s not just best for Saba. It’s how does it fit this group?”

The players have said many times they understand what Deila wants. Fullback Pedro Amador did so again Wednesday.

“We have a lot of talent on this squad, and I think we are playing well,” he said. “I think we are creating chances, but just something little has been missing in the final third. Your luck can change very quickly, and we can turn that around.”