Minnesota United is on an eight-game unbeaten run and has given up only one goal in the past four games combined. Unfortunately, the Loons also have gone four hours of game time without scoring a goal of their own, and so the talk is less about what's going well — and more about what needs to improve.

"I'm really happy with the principles that sit behind what we're trying to do with the ball and the way in which we're trying to create chances," coach Eric Ramsay said. "I feel like we can create chances in organized moments and unorganized moments, attacking transitions and set plays, and I would say we're a relatively complete team in that sense — but now the dynamic has shifted a little bit."

Early in the year, the Loons were able to draw the opposition forward, sit in a compact defensive shape, and then have big spaces for forwards Kelvin Yeboah and Tani Oluwaseyi to run into when they won the ball back.

Not surprisingly, after Minnesota's success with that plan, the opposition is turning the tables on the Loons and doing the same thing to them.

Suddenly, it's the opposition that's sitting in compact defensive shapes. It's the Loons struggling to play through the middle of the field, to create chances, to find spaces for attack.

The improvement, therefore, is going to have to come from going wide with the attacks — something the Loons did with some success several times in Saturday's second half.

"Teams will work so hard to defend the space in behind, they'll work so hard to stop the balls into the two number nines' feet and the combinations off that," Ramsay said. "Inevitably we're going to be able to attack the side of the pitch, and we have players in those situations that can be really, really dangerous."

The best chance came from center back Carlos Harvey, who came on as a second-half sub. Harvey made what's becoming his trademark, an overlapping run down the outside, and swung in a cross that just barely eluded Oluwaseyi — when any more of a touch would have been a guaranteed goal.

As teams focus on stopping the traditional Loons attackers, it will increasingly fall to players such as Harvey to make the difference.

At least one player wasn't about to criticize the attack, though. "I'm not going to stand from that far back and tell better players what they could or should have done," center back Michael Boxall said with a smile.

A shoving match instead of a soccer match

Everyone knew Saturday night that Minnesota was going to have to ignore the referees and just play, no matter what the calls were.

Well, they knew that about the Timberwolves, at least. Turns out the Loons needed the same advice.

Abdou Ndiaye was refereeing only the third MLS game in his career, and it quickly became apparent that he was going to struggle to be consistent.

Wil Trapp got a yellow card for a tackle on which he kicked only the ball and not the opposing player. Nicolás Romero got shoved into the advertising boards, then shoved Logan Farrington in return; Romero got a yellow card, while Farrington got nothing.

"I think there was definitely a lack of consistency, which is tough for the players then to know what's a foul and what's not and how physical you can be," Loons goalkeeper Dayne St. Clair said. "And of course, so when you're on the field you're going to push the limits and it's on the referee to kind of take control and set the tone."

The lowlight might have come in the last five minutes, when the Loons were awarded a free kick at the top of the Dallas penalty area. It took several minutes for the kick to even be taken, because every time Ndiaye turned his back, an FC Dallas player would start another physical confrontation with a shove or two.

Twice that involved a Dallas player shoving Morris Duggan repeatedly, for the crime of standing in front of the goalkeeper's sight line. Both times, Duggan eventually got fed up and shoved the player back — and both times, Ndiaye took time to walk over and admonish only one player: Duggan.

It left St. Clair regretful. "I thrive in those moments," he said. "Unfortunately, some of those moments were a little bit too far away from me to get involved."