Four games, no wins, no goals
Almirante Brown 0–1 Acassuso on September 26. That scoreline is the week, and it is worse than it reads: it came at home, against the bottom side in the table, and it stretched the run to four Primera Nacional matches without a win (1)(3). The last three of those produced zero goals. A 1–0 home win over Deportivo Madryn on August 30, then 0–0 at Central Norte, 0–0 with Ferro Carril Oeste, then 1–0 away at Chaco For Ever, then Acassuso. One goal in five matches. Sixth in Group A on 46 points from 31 games, and the Reducido place is no longer comfortable (1).
Montenegro said it plainly
Andrés Montenegro did not dress it up. "Me voy amargado y enojado," the coach said after Acassuso, admitting the defeat hit him hard (2). His diagnosis was that the team has stopped being itself: "Volver a las fuentes y ser ese equipo intenso y agresivo" (3). Read that again. A manager four rounds from the end of a season saying his side needs to go back to the start is not a tactical tweak, it is an admission that the identity the squad was built on has slipped.
Julián López was blunter still, and he is a forward with nothing to show for a month: "No podemos poner excusas en nada" (4). No referee complaints, no schedule complaints, no bad-luck story. When your striker refuses the excuse, the coach has nowhere left to hide.
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The problem is the goals, not the shape
Look at the actual sequence rather than the mood. Three clean sheets in that five-match stretch, meaning the defensive structure has largely held. Central Norte 0–0, Ferro 0–0, and a single goal conceded at Chaco For Ever before Acassuso. The failure is at the other end: four matches without scoring, and Montenegro's own words point at intensity and aggression rather than organisation (1)(3).
That is the harder thing to fix in a week. You can drill a back line into shape. You cannot coach a team into wanting the ball in the box, and Almirante Brown have not wanted it for a month.
What to watch
San Telmo away at Isla Maciel on Sunday, round 32 of the zone (1). Then San Miguel at home on October 11 and Colón in Santa Fe on October 17, all inside a fortnight. Three matches that decide whether this team reaches the Reducido with a functioning attack. Montenegro's forwards have one job: score once, and find out whether the rest of it is still there.
