Hartford Athletic Conclude Hectic Two Weeks With Visit to Monterey Bay
The Latics will be targeting another three points against the California club, who are currently bottom of the table in the Western Conference
Hartford Athletic conclude a busy stretch of five games in 15 days with a visit to Seaside, California to take on Monterey Bay FC. The Latics, who currently sit in fifth place in the Eastern Conference of the USL Championship, will be aiming to add to their success in the preceding four games of this stretch where they’ve added six points in the league and advanced to the finals of the USL Jägermeister Cup into the bargain.
The busy schedule has forced Brendan Burke to rotate his squad quite heavily over the last two weeks, and he’ll have to do so again on Saturday night. Good management of minutes has left the Hartford skipper with a number of good options available. Jack Panayotou, Adewale Obalola, TJ Presthus, Hadji Barry, Beveryly Makangila, Cameron Duke and Josh Belluz were unused during the semifinal against Greenville Triumph. Owen Presthus and Jonathan Jimenez played limited minutes. Emmanuel Samadia should be available again after being away on international duty with Sierra Leone. Some of Hartford’s core will undoubtedly log additional minutes, but there’s more than enough bodies available to put some fresh legs on the field at Cardinale Stadium.
Being able to field a strong enough side to get a result on Saturday is critical. Hartford have only two home games remaining during the regular season, and will play its last three games on the road, including a fixture against Oakland Roots that will be rescheduled due to a conflict with the Jägermeister Cup final. While the Latics have a string of excellent results on the road — nine unbeaten in all competitions —Saturday’s trip represents one of the best opportunities they will have to get points away from Trinity Health Stadium over the remainder of the season.
The reason it’s a good opportunity is that Monterey’s season has gone in entirely the wrong direction. After winning four of its first six league games Monterey has won only two of the subsequent 18 games, and have only 11 additional points to show for it.
Why things have deteriorated so sharply is a little hard to parse. Monterey have been below average — but certainly not dismal — in both attack and defense, and could very easily be a mid-table team under other circumstances. One significant issue is that they have something of a propensity to sputter out, having been shut out 11 times in 24 games in the league while keeping only four clean sheets.
Where Monterey have struggled to get those critical goals, Hartford have — since the start of the summer — by and large managed to do so. Wednesday’s game was the ninth time this season that the Latics have managed 3+ goals in a game (all competitions), the most times they’ve managed that feat in a single season in club history. They’ve done it both with and without Mamadou Dieng — including now three times in five games since his departure — and are undeniably one of the most lethal attacking teams in the USL Championship.
There are absolutely three points on offer for Hartford on Saturday. There are truthfully no easy games of any description in the Championship these days, but as Hartford aims to lock down a playoff place and potentially take a run at a top-four finish and a home playoff game, there’s added incentive to chase another victory.