After three consecutive double-digit scoring seasons, Mikael Uhre faces a contract year and his critics

It’s understandable that teen phenom Cavan Sullivan is the Union’s biggest story entering the team’s 16th season. But there’s a case to make that he shouldn’t be.

What about a player who has hit double digits in scoring every season he’s been here and is about to start a contract year?

That’s Mikael Uhre, for all the critics he has — not just among Union fans, but within the team’s walls. Yes, they’re there, too, because of the striker’s streakiness.

But the big-picture numbers speak louder. Uhre’s 37 career Union goals put him No. 6 on the club’s all-time scoring chart; with one more, he’ll tie C.J. Sapong at No. 5. Two after that would total 40, where Kacper Przybylko stands at No. 4. Then comes Julián Carranza at No. 3 with 43.

Sure, Uhre could have hit all those marks by now if his glaring misses had been finished. It’s why he quite publicly landed in former manager Jim Curtin’s doghouse last May. Though Uhre later emerged from it, Curtin remained a critic later in the year.

When Uhre finished last year with 13 goals, matching 2022 for his best scoring year here, it was time to send a question back to his boss. Would you really turn that down — and his 20 assists over three years?

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Curtin acknowledged on a few occasions that no, he would not. But there would have been a real discussion about it in the Union’s front office had Uhre’s stats not automatically triggered his contract option for this year.

This is the landscape in which Uhre stands as he begins his fourth campaign in Chester. What does he think?

“I just do my thing and keep focusing on what I can do,” he told The Inquirer. “All of that other stuff, I’m going to leave that to my agents and let them deal with that. And, yeah, I don’t think I’m the one you should be asking that question.”

Uhre spoke politely but firmly, as has always been his nature. No one questions that he’s a nice guy, including fans in the River End who adopted a chant for him from his native Denmark.

They’d like to sing it more often, of course, and he’d like to help them. He said his target for this season is “my best year yet,” which statistically would mean surpassing the 13 goals he scored last year and in 2022. His high-water mark for assists was eight in ’22, with seven in ’23 and five last year.

Uhre had a good stretch in June last year, then suffered a groin injury that sidelined him from three games. After he returned, he played some of his best soccer of the season, including four straight games with a goal from late August into September. But he didn’t score in the last four games, and the Union missed the playoffs for the first time since 2017.

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It has not helped perceptions of Uhre that he held the title of the Union’s most expensive player ever from his arrival until Bruno Damiani’s signing this week. But a big-picture view again is needed here.

Uhre’s $2.8 million transfer fee and $2.04 million salary (as of last year) are par for the course in MLS. In the three offseasons since his arrival, 80 players spread across 26 clubs have commanded higher transfer fees, including Damiani’s $3.4 million. On the salary count, 45 players earned more last year than Uhre did.

The customer service line for that subject is separate, and fans can call it some other day. Right now is about Uhre, and his phone is disconnected from the chatter.

“No, I don’t really think about that,” he said. “As I said, I really try to let my people outside the field handle that so I can focus on playing. Obviously, there’s going to be noise, and there’s going to be all of that, but, yeah, I’m brought here to play, not to think about if I’m expensive or not.”

Damiani hasn’t been here for long, so Uhre hasn’t had much time to build chemistry with him. The Union’s traditional two-striker setup makes chemistry especially important, and Uhre is looking forward to what Damiani can bring — even though it obviously means competition for his starting spot.

“He’s definitely here to make us better, and better than we were last year,” Uhre said. “I welcome the competition. It’s always fun and good to have great competition, because that means you’re going to be putting everything you have in there, and also making the trainings better.”

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Uhre already has strong chemistry with Tai Baribo, formed last year during Baribo’s breakout stretch. That helps new manager Bradley Carnell, as he doesn’t have to assemble a starting striker unit for Saturday’s season opener at Orlando City (7:30 p.m., Apple TV). It’s already built, even if there’s a little rust from a longer-than-planned offseason.

“I felt like me and Tai complemented each other really nicely, and I feel like we’ve been trying to build on that,” Uhre said. “Obviously, it’s also a new system and new ways of playing. … Also, if you take Danny [Gazdag] in behind, so the three up front — I feel like the chemistry is definitely still there. I think we had some good games last year, but I also definitely think we have some things we can grow on.”

Uhre’s opinion of Carnell started with praising his clear messages in practice.

“He’s a good coach — he has his things that he wants to do,” Uhre said. “I’ve had coaches of that style before, where it’s really clear what you should do, and what [to] not. And then also, he seems like a good guy, a guy you can talk to, and he also wants to hear our vision and our version of what’s going on.”

There was a sense last year, among outsiders and insiders alike, that the Union got away from some of the things that drove their historic successes from 2019 to 2023. Uhre disputed that charge, but he understood why it’s out there.

“I know that when the season comes up, all the points are counted and so on,” he said. “But I also felt like we had, definitely, games last year where we should have had three points, and we let it slip away. It’s tough to say that we just abandoned all our principles last year, because I don’t think we did that at all. But I think sometimes you need a breath of fresh air, and I feel like that’s what we’re getting.”

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How good does Uhre think this year’s team can be?

“I feel like if you ask me that after the game on Saturday, it would be a little bit easier to say,” he said. “I felt like we had some good things in the [preseason] friendlies, but we also had some things we could work on. Obviously it’s a new system — there’s new things you have to get used to, there’s new ways to pressure, and stuff like that — but I feel like as we get further along, it’s really starting to click.”

Uhre didn’t mind setting a bar for himself as part of that: “I would love to get more than 15 goals.”

Doing so wouldn’t just make for his best season with the Union. Sixteen goals would take him to a specific milestone: tying Sébastien Le Toux for No. 2 on the club’s all-time scoring charts.

If that happens, one can only wonder what his critics would say.

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