When LAFC named Marc Dos Santos head coach this winter, the reaction was lukewarm at best. On Sunday night, the club fired him, the first time in their short history that it has made a coaching change midseason. Results alone don’t explain the decision, however.

“Marc has given a great deal to this club over the years, and we are grateful for his commitment, care and contributions to LAFC,” said President of Soccer Operations John Thorrington. “We wish Marc and his family all the best moving forward.”

On paper, this season is not a disaster, yet. Even after winning just two of their last 10 matches, LAFC is sixth in the Western Conference. It reached the semifinals of the Concacaf Champions Cup before losing to eventual champion Toluca, and it put together a solid Leagues Cup run. Plenty of clubs would happily take that.

But the numbers underneath tell a different story. LAFC ranks 24th in average possession, 23rd in the highly coveted ‘field tilt’ stat, a complex set of numbers to show which team is the protagonist in any given match, and 26th in passes per defensive action. Strip away the jargon and it means the team gives up the ball, drops deep and hopes to hit teams on the counter. The attack is middling, 15th in goals and 14th in expected goals, and the style behind it is hard to call ambitious.

Frustration with that approach didn’t start this year. Fans had been voicing fair criticism of the conservative attacking mentality for several seasons under Steve Cherundolo, and his departure at the end of 2025 was supposed to be a chance to reset. The club ultimately turned to Dos Santos, Cherundolo’s lead assistant, who had the locker room’s support and the respect of the building and as a result, the team leaned even harder on transition play. Supporters who had been waiting for a more expansive, front-foot LAFC watched the side move in the opposite direction, and by this past weekend the front office had run out of patience too.

What makes the lack of punch in the team truly staggering is level of talent that was at Dos Santos’ disposal. This is the club that paid a league-record fee for Son Heung-min and employs Denis Bouanga, one of the best players in MLS. Bouanga has 14 goals and eight assists this season, while Son has six goals and 13 assists, tied for the league lead. Yet too many of the best moments came from individual brilliance, the kind of off-script play few other players in this league can produce, rather than from a system designed to create them. When a team’s week-to-week highlights look like they happened in spite of the tactics, the coach probably isn’t getting the most out of the squad beyond it’s stars.

The midfield tells the same story. Timothy Tillman, Mark Delgado and Mathieu Choiniere should be running games at this level, but they started only six matches together. Center back Eddie Segura was regularly used at defensive midfield or left back, positions in which he simply has not shined. There are just too many situations in which Dos Santos was looking to mitigate risk instead of taking a game to the opponent.

Time is also a factor for LAFC now. Son is 34, Hugo Lloris is 39, Ryan Hollingshead is 35 and Aaron Long turns 34 before the playoffs. This window won’t stay open forever, and with six regular-season games left, the club chose to make a change now instead of waiting for the offseason.

That brings up the bigger question for John Thorrington and the front office. LAFC’s last two hires were promotions from within: familiar, respected and safe. Has that approach has now run its course? If LAFC really wants to be one of the league’s true super-clubs, the goal can’t be finding someone who organizes a tidy defensive shape around great players. It has to be finding someone whose ideas make the team better than the sum of its stars.

It’s an obvious suggestion, but Wilfried Nancy is the kind of coach who fits that description. At Columbus, he built a fluid, possession-heavy and tactically sophisticated team that won the 2023 MLS Cup and the 2024 Supporters’ Shield. His sides controlled games instead of just surviving them, and that is exactly what has been missing in Los Angeles.

To be clear, Nancy isn’t necessarily the only answer, and whether he’d be available or interested is a separate matter entirely, but the point is the type of hire. A club that pays record fees for global stars needs a manager with real pedigree, a proven tactical identity and the authority to install it in a locker room full of big names. Continuity and internal goodwill are nice, but those characteristics have failed the club as of late.

As of Monday morning, LAFC hadn’t named an interim coach. Whoever steps in will have six games to get something out of a stagnant season, but the real decision comes after that. LAFC has spent years telling everyone how ambitious they are, and their next hire will show whether they mean it.