Photo: Michael Long

What: Philadelphia Union v DC United
Where: PPL Park
When: Saturday, Aug. 10 at 8 pm
Watch: NBC Sports Network
Referee: Hilario Grajeda. Linesmen: Bill Dittmar, James Conlee. Fourth official: Kevin Terry Jr.

Luis Silva looked every bit a top five draft pick in 2012. Five goals and five assists in 22 starts on a very, very bad Toronto team is the kind of return that teams dream of when they are at the top of the SuperDraft. But Toronto FC had a plan that called for buying offensive talent, not developing it. And Silva, after half a season of being shuttled around the midfield, was sent to DC United for allocation money.

Jared Jeffrey was snapped up by Belgian side Club Brugge after he was named the Parade high school player of the year in 2008. But there are no guarantees in soccer, and Jeffrey never broke into the first team. After two years, he moved to FSV Mainz in Germany, where he toiled in the reserve team like so many others with talent that fell just short of class.

New look DC

Ladies and gentlemen, meet the offensive brain trust of the new-look DC United. And honestly, it’s about time. Naming castoffs from the Union’s fallow years at striker was always going to make United more of a punch line than a playoff contender. The remains of the regular season are nothing more than an extended preseason for United, but with places in the 2014 first eleven on the line, Ben Olsen’s team will arrive in Philadelphia with talent and energy for the first time in 2013.

Silva and Jeffrey are the headliners, but the entire United team will seem different this time around. Without Andy Najar to provide width, Ben Olsen has been trying to fashion a more direct system. In Jeffrey, he finally has a partner for Perry Kitchen that is capable of moving the ball quickly from defense to attack. Previously, a wide outlet was required for DC to leave their own half. Now they can move through the middle with relative consistency.

An offense? Really?

Silva is joined up top by Derby County loanee Conor Doyle, giving United a powerful and skilled front line. In a combined 341 playing minutes, the New Two have accounted for a whopping 31 percent of DC United’s 2013 regular season goals. For perspective, Dwayne De Rosario and The Lionard Pajoy, the second leading goalscorers on the team, are both averaging about one goal every 500 minutes.

Nick DeLeon’s return to health has also helped the United cause. DeLeon terrorized the Union a year ago and has been finding his form since returning from injury. DeLeon fits United’s more possession-based approach perfectly, utilizing the skill set of a central midfielder from a wide position. He has excellent positional sense and will remain a thorn in the Union’s side if Philly’s midfielders track him with the half-hearted effort that let Patrick Nyarko plant his flag inside the box before putting Chicago on the board last weekend.

Opening space for Kitchen

The common thread running through DC’s new signings is skill on the ball. While Doyle will look to play the Conor Casey role when he’s on the pitch, the rest of the offense likes to dribble, take people on, and flood the box. A cursory examination of United’s goals against Montreal last weekend shows a team that finally has the confidence to get into the box and put pressure on a defense.

Perry Kitchen is finally being afforded the chance to show his full range of skills as a holding midfielder who can move the ball side to side and contain breakouts, allowing his partner and the wide midfielders to get high up the pitch and bring the fullbacks into play. Comparisons between Kitchen and Brian Carroll are apt on the defensive end, where both cover seemingly endless swathes of ground. But in the other half, Kitchen’s game is more comparable to Amobi Okugo’s, with both players fearlessly putting the ball into tight spaces and using their strength to keep counterattacks to the outside.

Weak on the wing

Larentowicz vs. Philly

It bears repeating that, as go the Union’s wingers, so go the Union. Opposing teams have begun to play very narrow defensively, allowing Philly more space for crosses but filling the box with bodies to prevent a finish.

A quick look at Jeff Larentowicz’s heat map demonstrates how little chasing the big man did last Saturday for Chicago. Frank Klopas recognized that the Union are always willing to settle for a cross, even though that strategy is rarely their best option. Of the Union’s 32 crosses against Chicago, only four were from open play and successful. Beyond Sebastien Le Toux, Danny Cruz led the Union’s wide players with one successful cross (from the end line, on the ground). Sheanon Williams and Fabinho were a combined zero for ten.

Yet the Union failed to adapt. As heat maps from Michael Farfan and Danny Cruz (below) show, Philly simply did not have bodies in the box in open play.

Time for some coaching

Danny Cruz and Michael Farfan vs. Chicago

At some point, John Hackworth is going to have to sit down, put his coaching hair on, and ask himself where on the field he wants Michael Farfan to have the ball. Farfan is undoubtedly the most creative passer in the Union midfield rotation, but over his career he has also been incredibly effective in the final third.

The player that made his name taking people on outside the box has been relegated to spraying balls wide and chasing the play. It isn’t that Farfan can’t do that, it’s just that he is far from a locked in starter in that role; he still struggles to make his own space.

The reason that Hackworth has to sit down and ask this very basic personnel and tactical question is that he has a major problem on his wing. Don’t let the notion that it is fairly fashionable to bash Danny Cruz obscure the facts of the case against him. Cruz’s passing chart against Chicago is stunning in that data so rarely make such a clear argument.

Danny Cruz vs Chicago

Four of Danny Cruz’s passes against Chicago went forward. Only two of his 17 passes in the offensive half went forward. If he wasn’t so good at selling contact, Cruz could have been replaced with a net that sends the ball back where it came from and little would have changed. Cruz also had no successful dribbles.

Prediction: Union 3-1 DC United

For all of DC United’s improvements and the question marks surrounding the Union, Philly is still the better team. Notice that United’s defense received none of the plaudits slathered on their improved offense, while the Union’s back five have shown signs of improvement despite the weaker showing in Chicago. (Should Gaddis have followed the runner on that first goal? Depends on the defensive duties Hackworth gave to the midfield, so we may never know.)

As long as Philadelphia plays tight defense in the middle of the park and forces Perry Kitchen to play deeper than he’d like, they can take the game to United and come away with a victory. But if the Union back off, they will find Luis Silva all too willing to exploit the same space between defense and midfield that Alejandro Moreno bemoaned during the Chicago loss.

The summer transfer window has not necessarily given any team the players they need to run away with the Eastern Conference, but it has allowed the clubs at the bottom to improve considerably. DC United is not going to threaten Philly’s playoff spot, but they, like Chicago, represent the reality of the home stretch in 2013: The teams that rolled over for the Union in the first half of the season will not abide this time around. If the Union are going to hold on to their postseason berth, they will need Jack McInerney to be every bit as good as he was early in the season. And they will need to become a team that can control a game for more than five minutes at a time.

This second requirement means hard choices for John Hackworth. Is he ready to make them?