Lexington SC fell on Saturday night 3-0 to South Georgia Tormenta FC to move the club to 1-1-3 on the USL1 league season, remaining in 6th place in the league table with 4 points. The result is Lexington’s 3rd straight league match loss and the 4th across all competitions.

The match saw multiple debuts for Lexington SC, with Austin Causey making his 2024 debut due to Amal Knight serving his red card suspension and questions surrounding Nico Campuzano’s form as of late. Anthony Patti made his USL1 debut, and his only other appearance for LSC was in the Open Cup match. Lastly, Lexington’s newest signing, Daniel Chica, made his club debut in this one.

Now, I will not get into the meat of this one; Lexington fell behind early in the match, allowed a goal in the 8th minute, and then gave up a penalty in the 26th before Tormenta put the cherry on top in the 81st. Lexington’s attack once again looked short, with only 8 total shots in the match and only 1 being on target. The time has begun to start raising questions about whether the team assembled by Coach Powell and Stockley was a way of throwing money at the roster or if the shortfallings of the club resulted from the lack of consistency within the starting XI. As everyone knows, the talent on this roster is deep, from the returners from 2023 to multiple international players to guys with USLC and MLS experience – so what is the problem? It comes down to chemistry or, more specifically, the lack thereof.

Now, through the first 3 league matches of the season, this was to be expected, in all honesty, with the amount of roster turnover and with the Open Cup match being the 2nd of 3 matches in 9 days. However, what is leading to much of the problem is the need for more consistency among those chosen for the starting XI and even the bench. As of the time of writing, 22 out of 25 players on the roster have appeared, within 18, with Erick Ceja-Gonzalez, Eby Ackon, and Michael Agboola; the latter two have been dealing with injuries being the 3 that have not, and Kimball Jackson to be the only player to appear within the 18 but not see playing time yet.

To go even deeper, across all 6 matches this season, we have yet to see Powell put out the same starting XI. A few factors have come into play to affect that – the Open Cup, Yankam going on international duty, Knight’s red card, Diouf picking up an injury, Liadi coming off a minor injury, and a few small others. However, here lies the problem, especially when we look at each positional group. Each group has had stellar moments and bad ones thus far this season, but never all within the exact same match outside of the Chattanooga game – the sole win of the season. This was my biggest fear when looking at this roster, as there are a lot of guys capable of starting. We are seeing how the coaching staff has to deal with all the talent while not having it all at their disposal for one reason or another – which is not an excuse for some of the performances we have seen but merely a factor in them. The last “problem” for myself and other fans with the team’s performance so far has been a handful of players’ lack of energy on display. There may be a mix of reasons for this, but Powell and his staff need to get the eleven players on the field to compete and fight for a full 90 minutes if they are going to turn around this recent skid.

We will see what changes will be made and how this squad bounces back in front of a home crowd as Lexington returns home to host USL1 newbies Spokane Velocity on Sunday, April 14th, at 4 pm EST at Toyota Stadium.