There was no immediate new-coach bounce when Nashville hired B.J. Callaghan to replace interim manager Rumba Munthali, who was promoted into the big chair after the club had parted ways with Gary Smith in mid-May.
In fact, the early returns were kind of brutal: with Callaghan on the sidelines, the ‘Yotes lost three of their first four games and drew the other. The roster, it seemed, was broken beyond repair.
And now I present to you Taylor Twellman’s take on the situation:
“Not judging anything B.J. Callaghan does until he gets a transfer window or two” is a fine and rational take, and one I largely agree with. Nashville have followed up that four-game winless skid to start Callaghan’s tenure with three unbeaten, and as Taylor pointed out, they’re right back in the race for the Eastern Conference's final Wild Card spot. If they don’t make it, I’m not going to point the finger at the new head coach.
But I think it’s fair to judge the very early returns, and they are mostly good. Here are the three things I most wanted to see from this team under Callaghan, in order from least important to most:
This came slowly at first, but has picked up steam in the past couple of weeks. The big adjustments right now aren’t more possession or a field tilt differential – Nashville under Callaghan, so far, are still aiming toward trading possession and field position for space to attack into. It’s a Gary Smith framework.
Within that framework, though, there are still some notable changes. The big one is they’re more patient when they have the ball, as their direct speed in attack is slower, and the average time of their possession sequences has climbed from the bottom third of the league into the top third. As such, they’ve collectively become a much more effective progressive passing team through midfield.
The change once they progress through midfield and get into the final third is even bigger, and if there’s one number that sums it up (or comes close), it’s final third coss percentage – as in, what percentage of their total passes in the final third are crosses?
That number was 22.2% pre-Callaghan, easily the highest mark in the league. It's down to 17.7% since he’s taken over, which is still high, but not egregiously so. During this three-game unbeaten run, the number’s dropped further down to 14.7%. That’s almost exactly mid-table.
Not all crosses are bad. But most are, and crossing as much as Nashville did before Callaghan’s arrival was a recipe for an inefficient attack. Changing the final third attacking patterns is a good and promising step in answering the most important question in the game: How do we plan to score goals?
There was always going to be limited data for this one because of Nashville’s roster construction, which is more tilted toward veteran players than any other in the league. But so far, that limited data suggests Callaghan is willing to trust young players in a way Smith could never really bring himself to.
- Patrick Yazbek, signed this summer on a U22 Initiative deal, has started four of the five games for which he’s been eligible.
- Julian Gaines got his first start of the year this past weekend and performed well as an attacking wingback.
- Jonathan Pérez, acquired on loan from the Galaxy (with an option to make the loan permanent), has quickly earned rotation minutes, even starting – and picking up a secondary assist – this past weekend vs. Cincy. They have badly needed a third heat in attack, and Callaghan has given Pérez license to cook at least a little bit.
There is no way up the standings for Nashville, this year or next, without a more aggressive approach to player development than what they’ve shown thus far in their MLS existence. Callaghan seems to understand that, and that should allow general manager Mike Jacobs a lot more freedom to shop for young, potential difference-makers this winter.
They need that freedom because they have three DPs – Walker Zimmerman, Hany Mukhtar and Sam Surridge – who are all under contract on big salaries for at least 2025 (Zimmerman), and longer, in the case of Mukhtar and Surridge (both under contract until 2026, with a team option for 2027).
Which makes the next point – the most important one – obvious.
Nashville are married to these guys for the next two years. No matter how much player development Callaghan does, it’s Hany and Surridge who are the centerpiece of what comes next.
As I wrote in last weekend’s column, Surridge has scored three goals in the past two games, with two of them off direct assists from Hany. For the third, he finished off a break Hany started:
The underlying numbers aren’t exactly jumping off the page just yet – Surridge has been Hany’s most frequent passing target in just one of the past three games, comprising the whole of this little unbeaten streak – but there just seems to be a better awareness of each other’s final third movements. The presence of other attackers out there (Pérez, Jacob Shaffelburg, Teal Bunbury) who are oriented around the DPs seems like a healthy change on top of that.
The ideal outcome, then, is the DP No. 10 and DP No. 9 click together and form the kind of partnership that can elevate the whole team. As with everything else here, it’s too early to tell if the problem’s been solved, and if Nashville stumble down the stretch here and miss the Audi MLS Cup Playoffs, nobody should point the finger at Callaghan.
But the good news is it’s clear the problem has, at least, been identified. The ‘Yotes are playing better ball and the two attacking DPs have been central to it. I don’t think you could’ve asked for much more over the first seven games of Callaghan’s tenure than that.
