Detroit City FC signs winger Cy Goddard to bolster offense

Detroit City FC's men's side has called in a reinforcement with good pedigree for the home stretch of its inaugural season in USL Championship.

The club on Tuesday morning announced the signing of winger Cy Goddard, a former Tottenham youth academy player who spent his most recent season with the Central Coast Mariners of the Australia-based A-League.

Goddard's deal includes a team option for 2023 and a team and player option for 2024.

Goddard, 25, played in 20 games with the Mariners last season, tallying a goal and three assists. Prior to his stint in Australia, Goddard played with Mumbai City FC in the Indian Super League.

Goddard holds citizenship in both the United Kingdom and Japan and previously made appearances on the Japan U16 team.

It's unclear when Goddard will make his debut with the club. DCFC (9-8-4) has a break this coming weekend and returns to action on Aug. 6 at Tampa Bay.

Injuries on the backend to Devon Amoo-Mensah (knee) and Stephen Carroll (hamstring) would lead one to believe that club was seeking depth on the defensive half. However, Le Rouge is clearly more concerned with providing a solution to the lack of scoring that's occurred over the last few months.

Besides, while it'll be near-impossible to replace the production of Amoo-Mensah, DCFC has shown a pretty good ability to plug and play at center back this season. Michael Bryant has been reliable in his appearances. Once Stephen Carroll returns to the starting lineup, they'll have both Bryant and Abdoulaye Diop available to play center back if any one of Carroll, Matt Lewis or Karl Ouimette can't go.

Offense is where Le Rouge truly needs help if they want to make noise come playoff time. They rank 19th across the league in expected-goals (xG) with 1.4 and 11th in expected-goals-against (xGA) at a mark of 1.42. Over their last nine games, they're averaging just 0.78 goals per game and have scored two or more goals just once — this past Saturday against New Mexico, a 2-2 draw.

nbianchi@detroitnews.com

Twitter: @nolanbianchi