Wade Barrett has stated repeatedly that he considers the Houston Dynamo’s season to have started on May 28, the first game he took the reigns of the team after Owen Coyle’s departure.
Since then, the Dynamo have picked up a point per game, a slight uptick from the .92 points per game from the first 12 matches of the year, and made a run to the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup Quarterfinals. The progress in the standings has been slow as the team remains at the bottom of Western Conference table and has only recorded one MLS win, but other areas have shown clear signs of improvement.
One of Barrett’s main focuses immediately upon taking over was to make the team organized and difficult to play against, which the group took hold of right away. After a pair of 1-1 draws on the road against two of MLS’s top attacking units in Vancouver and FC Dallas, the Dynamo have held their opponents to single-digit shot attempts in five of their last six games.
The result? Four MLS shutouts under Barrett, and a current home shutout streak of 491 minutes stretching back to April 15, 55 minutes shy of a club record. The first 12 games produced three clean sheets, but only one game limiting the opposition to less than 10 shots.
“I think it’s a tribute to the whole team,” defender Jalil Anibaba said after the Vancouver match. “We’re all really keyed in defensively and tactically with what we need to do and I think it’s been showing lately.”
The reason the team hasn’t picked up more points with the improved has been a lack of scoring punch on the other end of the field—only five goals scored and shut out in their last three games—but closer inspection shows that it’s not for lack of chances.
The offense has out-shot the opposition 110-83 during Barrett’s tenure, generating double-digit shots in each of the last six games and 15 or more shots in five of those. Obviously the quality of chances has to be taken into account, but in general, getting more chances to score than your opponent is a recipe for success.
The Dynamo know they still have to turn those chances into actual goals to start improving, but are confident that they’ll begin to capitalize on them and start bringing in more points soon.
“Obviously there’s no secret recipe to get out of it, you have to just keep grinding,” Will Bruin said. “Once we get that first one everyone will get the feeling of it again and we’ll be right back on track.”
