After cleaning house and finding cash to splash, the Union are out to chase the playoffs

Jay Sugarman made it crystal clear on Thursday that the Union’s last-place standing in Major League Soccer’s Eastern Conference was not what he signed up for.

But it wasn’t in a way where Sugarman, the club’s principal owner since its inception, hinted at plans of selling the club like fans have chanted for much of this season. The team has a 1-10-4 record heading into the FIFA World Cup break.

In fact, when asked directly if that were his intention, he expertly deflected before later saying the club’s newly announced sporting director, Jon Scheer, has a hypothetical $10 million more to chase redemption during July’s summer transfer window.

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“Jon and I have talked about if we spend $10 million and $8 [million] of it is transfer [fees] and $2 [million] of its salary, or $2 [million] of its transfer, [and] $8 million of it is salary, it’s still $10 million,” Sugarman said.

It was Sugarman’s first appearance since announcing several staffing changes on Wednesday, most notably the firing of manager Bradley Carnell and removing Scheer’s interim tag as sporting director, which confirmed the exit of former sporting director Ernst Tanner, who was serving a league suspension for “substantiated” claims of misconduct and abuse.

Tanner will not return after league-mandated sensitivity training, which was set to conclude on June 1.

Neither Sugarman nor Scheer elaborated on whether the $10 million Sugarman suggested was a real sum or, in fact, hypothetical, noting only that there are “resources” at Scheer’s discretion.

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“What resources does [Scheer] need to make this team what we want it to be?” Sugarman continued. “How it’s spent is really the technical staff’s decision. I don’t pay a ton of attention to where it goes if it’s salary vs. transfer fees. Look, we know what it takes to succeed. We’ve been a successful club for the past six years. This is something we know how to do. … This year we just really struggled to execute.”

Scheer, who had previously served as the club’s director of academy and professional development, has a busy seven weeks ahead. He has been tasked with looking at a pool of talent and evaluating what’s already in the locker room. His top priority, though, will be conducting what the club called a “global search” for its next manager.

Sugarman even noted publicly that major change is not what he’s looking for out of the team’s next manager.

“I think a coach who comes in with a wildly different philosophy is probably a stretch here,” Sugarman said. “We want to continue to do what we’re doing. We just want to get better at it. And they may have strengths or weaknesses in any particular pillar, but … if they come in with a wildly different viewpoint, I’m not sure that’s really productive.”

This next person would also make the third coach Sugarman has to foot the bill for, as the club is still paying former manager Jim Curtin’s buyout and is still obligated to Carnell at least through the end of the season.

But it was a rare time when it didn’t seem like Sugarman cared about price tags. On Thursday, he acknowledged two truths: the timing of the Union’s misfortune, when all of the eyes are on American soccer ahead of the World Cup, isn’t exactly fortuitous, and the last four months have been “painful” to watch.

“Look, losing is terrible, it’s really devastating,” Sugarman said. “So, we go back to basics, we go back to what we’re doing right. What are we not doing right? How do we get better?

“I don’t approach this as telling our technical staff what to do. I ask questions about why, [but] I’ve never once told them to sell a player. But I do ask questions like, ‘Why are we doing this?’ And I feel really angry at myself that, walking in for this year, we didn’t ask harder questions.”

Sugarman paused and added: “This was an important year. This is a year we really wanted to stand out. So this is really painful to be in this position in a year where the eyes of the world will be on us, and we had a chance to really tell the Philadelphia Union story in a way that I don’t think it’s been told. We will be back there again. I have no doubt.”

In assessing what the Union needs during the transfer window, Scheer didn’t hesitate: goals. At the break, the Union have scored just 18 goals across 15 league matches, while allowing 30. In the offseason, the Union signed Ezekiel Alladoh after a club-record transfer fee of $4.5 million.

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However, since his arrival, the 20-year-old has struggled, going from a player in which much was expected to one that Carnell referred to as a “project,” the club was still developing.

Milan Iloski, who has been used as a hybrid forward-midfielder, leads the team with seven goals.

But he needs help, and according to Scheer, it’s coming.

“Look, it’s very clear that we need pieces,” Scheer said. “We’ve identified key ingredients that we’re looking for in our additions [and] in our signings. Whether that be leadership, whether that be weapons off set pieces, whether that be a piece for the backline that is left-footed to give us versatility in terms of how we build and how we attack.”

And on the attacking part?

“I can also say that we feel we need another attacking piece to give us a different look, a different skill set, especially in and around the goal to help complement the pieces that we do have.”

The World Cup in Philly

Nine nations will compete in five group stage matches this summer, plus two more in a knockout game on July 4. Here’s what you need to know about those countries — and what those fans need to know about Philly. Click here for more.