Sporting KC’s Khiry Shelton hears your concerns about scoring, points to winning record

Khiry Shelton has heard it all. He knows he’s become a target of some fans’ ire.

They say the lanky 6-foot-3 Sporting Kansas City striker is miscast in his role because he’s a striker who “doesn’t score goals.” Some national pundits have suggested the club bring in someone with proven goal-scoring prowess.

A portion of this concern is understandable. Strikers are so synonymous with scoring that it’s hard to envision a team being successful without an ace racking up goals from that position.

But as for Shelton himself? He chuckles at the criticism.

“I find it funny,” he said, “because I’ve been hearing it for a lot of my career.”

Pressed about how the naysayers make him feel, Shelton takes the high road as he continues.

“I take it as positive criticism that just adds more fuel to the fire,” he said with a shrug. “But I’m going to continue what I’m doing, because it works. And I think there is enough proof there to show that it does work.”

He has a point. In games since 2018 in which Shelton’s been Sporting KC’s starting striker, the team is 18-9-6, with 64 goals for, 41 against. That’s good for a 1.81 ppg total, which extrapolated across a 34-game season is 61 points.

And that would be best in Major League Soccer’s Western Conference through four of the last seven seasons. What’s more, in two of the three seasons that wouldn’t rank first — 2018 and 2020 — Sporting KC has topped the Western Conference standings.

Bottom line, it’s winning that ultimately matters most to Shelton, not whether he’s a goal-scorer on the stat sheet.

“There are strikers who score tons of goals, but they’re not winning,” Shelton said. “We do well.”

Well is a bit of an understatement.

But how is Sporting winning so many games with Shelton up top, when he’s contributed a meager five goals and four assists in that span? Start with his defense, an area in which he says he’s improved.

Sporting KC coach Peter Vermes has said he sees the striker as his team’s first line of defense — “the tip of the spear,” as he’s wont to say. And sure enough, Shelton’s quite effective defensively.

“I’ve actually been able to win tons of balls for the team in specific areas because of Peter’s ideas and our defensive shape,” Shelton said. “Knowing the idea of what Peter wants, every year I’ve grown more comfortable with it.

“I’m still trying to find the little ins and outs of things to be even better, so maybe I can use less energy defensively and get into the attack and be able to score goals when need be.”

Defensive work is almost sacrificial, especially when collisions with goalkeepers can land a guy in the hospital for a day (this happened to Shelton last August against LAFC). He’s willing to sacrifice himself to win a ball or a 50/50 challenge.

Shelton says he was too selfish in his early playing days. But for this, we have to go way back. Back to when he played youth soccer. He’d dribble non-stop, scoring tons of goals. But parents kept telling him to pass the ball, to find ways to bring others into the game, so he did.

“My game switched,” he said. “It went from scoring goals to making a final pass or combining.”

Today, Shelton’s link-up play is routinely some of the league’s best at his position. No sequence better showcases how he’s able to open things up than his assist to former Sporting teammate Gianluca Busio in a first-round 2020 playoff match against San Jose.

Shelton made a sacrificial run at the near post, on a pass where he had no chance of scoring, knowing it would draw the defenders his way. His back-heel pass — instead of a shot on goal — went straight to Busio, who proceeded to momentarily win the game for Sporting KC.

We know how the next few minutes played out — eventually Sporting advanced in a shootout. But they don’t get there without that run from Shelton.

Such moments continue to win the hearts of teammates like Sporting KC captain Johnny Russell.

“His work rate, his link-up play, the space he creates for people like me and Daniel (Salloi) to get in behind him and pick up pockets of space around him — he’s so invaluable to our team,” Russell said. “I know a lot of people focus on the stats, but I wouldn’t change the way Khiry is.

“We all love having him in the team, and I’m sure this year he’s going to add the goals, as well, because he deserves it. And he’s such a valued and important member of what we’re doing here.”

This story was originally published March 4, 2022 at 5:26 PM with the headline "Sporting KC’s Khiry Shelton hears your concerns about scoring, points to winning record."