MLS champs Crew add to potent attack

Less than twoweeks since winningMLS Cup, the Crew has already strengthened its attack for next season.

The Crew has signed forward Bradley Wright-Phillips, a two-timeGolden Boot winner inMajor League Soccer, for the 2021 season, two sources told The Dispatch.

Wright-Phillips, 35, was a free agent at the conclusion of the 2020 season after spending one season with Los Angeles FC as the primary backup striker. He scored eight goals with six assists in 18 games (14 starts).

In coach Caleb Porter’s first two seasons in Columbus, he has played five different players to backup starter Gyasi Zardes but hasn’t found a reliable option off the bench. Reserve forwards Fanendo Adi and Krisztian Nemethcontributed just one goal in 15 appearances and 361 minutes in 2020.

By adding the English striker, the Crew believes it has found that starting-caliber goal-scorer to supplement starter Gyasi Zardes ahead of next season when the club tries to defend its MLS Cup championship.

The length of the deal and Wright-Phillips’s salary is unknown. Per theMLS Players Association’s 2019 salary database, Wright-Phillips

made $1.2 million. But as a primary backup toGyasi Zardes, his salary is likely to be far less. MLSPA did not release salary data in 2020.

Since coming over from Charlton Athletic in the English second division and signing with the New York Red Bulls in 2013, Wright-Phillips has become one of the all-time great goal-scorers in leaguehistory.

Wright-Phillips has twice made the MLS Best XI and has scored 20-plus goals in three seasons. He’s sixth on the league’s all-time scoring list with 116 goals, in addition to 34 assists in 213 career appearances (178 starts).

In seven years with the RedBulls, Wright-Phillips led the league in scoring in 2014 and ‘16, was selected twice to the MLS Best XI andwon three Supporters’ Shield as the main offensive weapon for New York, but he has never reached MLS Cup. The closest Wright-Phillips came to reaching the final was in 2015 and ‘18, losing in the conference finals to the CrewandAtlantaUnited.

After falling out of favor with the Red Bulls in 2018, he signed with LAFC and was a reliable second option at the No. 9 position off the bench. He will fill the same role for the Crew and likely will startwhen the club has to rotate lineups in weeks with midweek games.