LA Galaxy 2021 Player Postmortem: Augustine Williams

Augustine Williams is a forward who I think a group of LA Galaxy superfans have been hoping would make it to the first team for some time. Joining LA Galaxy II in 2019, he had a stellar 2020 campaign for Los Dos, and the striker seemed like the kind of player who may have earned his shot at MLS level.

In context, it makes even more sense: Starting the season, the Galaxy first team had only Chicharito and Ethan Zubak as pure strikers on the first-team roster. We know that Chicharito was going to take the lion’s share of minutes if he was healthy, and he did, and to his credit, Zubak started the season well as a sub/second striker playing off the Mexican superstar. But lack of striker depth was a glaring concern entering the season.

And in the end, Williams did get a shot, signing a first team contract in April, and making his MLS debut in July, with Chicharito out injured and the team playing through some major absences during the Gold Cup.

Here were Williams’ statistics with the Galaxy first team in 2021:

Williams got some run in a few games, playing at least 20 minutes in four games off the bench, but it didn’t seem like Greg Vanney thought he was ready to be a regular contributor.

The biggest indication of this came in mid-August, when he was sent on loan to San Diego Loyal FC for the rest of the 2021 season. I imagine San Diego approached LA about the player, and perhaps were willing to pay a few bucks for a loan, but this was a surprise move around the USL Championship. Los Dos hasn’t been afraid to loan out their players to rival clubs in the past, so it’s not totally unheard of, but it was surprising to see Williams get his chance and then get shipped out right away.

So in addition to the seven games played in MLS, Williams played six games in 2021 for Galaxy II, where he didn’t score, and then scored six goals and three assists in 12 appearances for San Diego. All in all, he played 25 games across three teams and two competitions, but that can make for a choppy season, too, which we saw to an extent.

Based on Williams going on loan, my guess is the 24-year-old won’t be retained by the Galaxy for 2022, but we’ll see what happens. I really liked him in 2020 with Los Dos, and think he still has a lot of potential, but we’ll see what the future holds. I think if nothing else, he’ll pretty easily find a USL team if he needs to, but time will tell what Williams’ path will be from here.

What do you think? Leave a comment below.