Andrew Wooten’s lack of Union playing time due to fitness, and also tactics

It wasn’t surprising that Andrew Wooten’s Union debut two weekends ago came as a substitute, but it was surprising that he didn’t play at all in last Saturday’s win over the Chicago Fire.

This was chiefly a tactical decision, manager Jim Curtin revealed earlier this week, but not only that. Wooten hadn’t played in a competitive game for two months when he took the field at Real Salt Lake on July 14, and late July is when most European teams -- including Germany’s SV Sandhausen, the club Wooten came from -- begin their preseasons.

“He’s working to build fitness, to build sharpness,” Curtin said of Wooten. “His time is coming, and it’s getting closer, but we didn’t decide to play him last game.”

The tactical side of it, Curtin said, related to his team not producing the kind of service to forwards that suits Wooten’s attacking style.

"Andrew's strength is finishing in the box," Curtin said. "When he gets service, he finishes his chances, and it wasn't a game where we were getting a lot of opportunities. ... He will score and take one of those chances on teams that are sitting back and we have them under duress."

On Saturday, the Union visit a Montreal Impact team with a long history of sitting back and being good at it. This year’s squad, though, is struggling. The Impact are below .500 (9-11-3, 30 points), have an ugly minus-11 goal differential, and are above the playoff line only because six teams have been worse for most of this year.

Montreal is eighth in points per game, though, and its only win in five games this month was a 1-0 edging of lower-league York9 FC in the Canadian Cup on Thursday. The Impact goal came from star playmaker Ignacio Piatti, in his first game since suffering a knee injury in late May. The Union will certainly have noticed that.

Back to Wooten, though. When the times come for him to start -- and they surely will -- who should Curtin take off the field? The little-and-large pairing of Fafa Picault (5-foot-8) and Kacper Przybylko (6-foot-4) can be a matchup headache for opponents, and Picault is a relentless defensive presser.

Would it be better to go with a twin towers approach of Wooten (6-foot-1) and Przybylko? Or would Curtin risk dropping a player who has nine goals in 16 games this season?

When asked, Curtin threaded that needle with what was probably the right answer: he’ll make decisions based on practice work and matchups.

“If we’re going to get a lot of service into the box, Andrew’s skill set and his qualities will come to the top in those types of games,” he said. “Kacper’s probably more that guy, too. If it’s a game where we’re looking to counter and get in behind, you can know that Fafa’s perfectly built for that."