Another week in the USL Championship and Phil is back to tell you the four players, managers, teams or events that stood out to him the most from the week that was.

Something’s Rotten in Tulsa

Far be it from me to take the shine off of a 3-0 Loudoun win at home but unfortunately Tulsa’s recent form has been extremely troubling. They’ve now lost their last three USL Championship matches by a combined score of 9-0 and that is not counting a 4-0 pasting by Sporting KC in the US Open Cup. This is a team in danger of entering freefall and it is hard to see where the team is going to find the branch to pull them out of it.

The statistics from Saturday’s loss don’t make for awful reading in that they actually outshot Loudoun overall but for anyone who saw the quality of the chances it will be no surprise that Loudoun put three of them away. What stood out to me was the effort behind the stats. Six of Tulsa’s 13 shots, just under half, were blocked by a Loudoun defender and of the other seven only four required saves. The ease with which Hugo Fauroux dealt with those further cements just how difficult Tulsa found it up top. At the same time, Tulsa did not block a single shot of Loudoun’s and won just six (38%) of their tackles on the night. This gave Loudoun’s 3-4-3 the run of the park and Florian Valot, Riley Bidois and Zach Ryan were more than happy to capitalize on the space afforded. Add in some lax defending particularly on Loudoun’s second where Ryan just takes the ball off of Rashid Tetteh’s loose touch and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.

This Tulsa team promised much early under Mario Sanchez but it is looking more and more like the project is coming apart at the seams. We saw Mario’s son Sebastian start in place of the absent Justin Portillo and his other son Santiago was a late substitution as well. The inability of anyone to make a mark and the underperformance of the likes of Phillip Goodrum, Blaine Ferri, Milo Yosef, Patrick Seagrist and Bradley Bourgeois suggest that something is going on behind the scenes at Tulsa that just does not feel right. Not dissimilar to El Paso this season, the names on the teamsheet and the performances are simply not matching up in Tulsa right now.

Colorado Springs Switching It Up

On the opposite end of the spectrum, you may not have noticed but Colorado Springs Switchbacks have won five USL Championship matches on the spin. The latest win at home against Oakland Roots wasn’t the most scintillating at just 1-0 but it is showing that James Chambers has really gotten to grips with this CS team and is extracting just about their consistent best every match.

*Image courtesy of Colorado Switchbacks*

The goal is a stunner in basically every way, Delentz Pierre, the Haitian Center Back channeling his countryman Mechack Jerome and absolutely smashing a thunderbolt of a shot past Paul Blanchette. That being said, it is born from patterns that CS have gotten very good at repeating. Maalique Foster is found by Koa Santos out on the wing but his pass to Juan Tejada is initially cut out. This is immediately remedied because Tejada, Foster and Zach Zandi all converge and Tejada immediately escapes with possession before finding Zandi. By this time, half of Oakland’s team is on CS’ right side to respond to a potential overload and Delentz has stepped up into acres of space available in the middle of the field. No one is truly able to get in his vicinity before he unleashes and it is this sort of imbalance that CS has exploited in this winning streak.

Now there is a case that any 1-0 could easily become a 1-1 or even a loss on a different day but CS limited Oakland in so many ways throughout the 90 and end the match having allowed just 2 shots on target. Trayvone Reid provided most of the danger for Oakland on the night and they do look a bit renewed in certain ways under Gavin Glinton but CS momentum is carrying them up into the playoff places and they are now in touching distance of the top of the West looking to go even further.

Charlie Dennis, Striker?

Tampa Bay getting a win in Sacramento is a great result on its face. Doing it while employing central midfielder Charlie Dennis as a center forward and creating absolute boatloads of chances made it far more impressive.

Dennis himself was unbelievable in both chance creation and his opportunism on the lone goal that gave Tampa the three points. He created four chances on his own which made up over a third of the passes he completed on the night. Employing him in this way was quite shrewd from Robbie Neilson because it allowed Dennis to find the space in between and behind Sac Republic’s midfield three of Nick Ross, Jared Timmer and Luis Felipe and dictate tempo in the attack from the edge of the area rather than from deeper in midfield. This brought Blake Bodily and Pacifique Niyongabire into play further up the field and took midfield attention off of Josh Perez and Cal Jennings. The stats don’t lie, 20 shots against this Sac Republic team is exceptional and four big chances belies some pretty big missed opportunities that could have turned this match sideways quickly.

Charlie Dennis has been important for Tampa Bay for a long time but this new deployment of him ahead of his typical central midfield role worked a treat for Robbie Neilson who has the team in much better form of late. The one thing you could point to is the lack of chance conversion but they are scoring enough to win and should have seen off FC Dallas in the US Open Cup. He may just be finding the winning formula and Dennis’ versatility could be a big part of that story.

Tyler Pasher Might Be Back

A player who has not gotten a lot of shine recently who, similar to Dennis’ impact for Tampa Bay, absolutely ran things between the lines for Birmingham Legion in El Paso, is Tyler Pasher. He exploited space in and around Locomotive’s double pivot of Eric Calvillo and Liam Rose and used it to great effect.

A goal, two chances created and five shots on the night show that the confidence is just starting to come back into the Canadian’s game and he was supported on all sides by players who were also impressing in a night that immediately set back what Wilmer Cabrera is trying to implement in El Paso.

The cream rising to the top! Tyler Pasher showing his quality to help close out the game scoring a perfectly bended effort into the far side claiming the victory 🎯#sportingtalentagency pic.twitter.com/DnKKggkpmP
— Julian Myers-Antiaye (@officialjmyers) April 7, 2024

While he wasn’t involved in Legion’s goal just before halftime, it was his run off of Liam Rose and into the space behind Miles Lyons which drew Brandan Craig across and freed up the space for Prosper Kassim to latch onto the ball and fire Legion ahead. It was intelligent and it was a similar area where he found space at the top of the box before firing a curler into the top corner past Jahmali Waite. Tommy Soehn will be encouraged by the team nature of the performance but Pasher being fired up and hungry again bodes extremely well for Legion to continue a good run.

- Phil Baki