Lehi » Not so long ago, Javier Morales was working wonders for Real Salt Lake.

The midfielder from Argentina was leading the team to its first Major League Soccer playoff appearance last season with his sublime play-making (he "practically willed" it to the postseason, the team said in its annual media guide) and convincing team officials that they should make him a cornerstone of the franchise by signing him to a four-year contract extension that kept him the highest-paid player on the team at $200,000 this season.

General manager Garth Lagerwey called Morales the "perfect prototype" of an RSL player, and the most important acquisition of the team's dramatic overhaul. Coach Jason Kreis praised him as the central figure in the team's success, and everybody was disappointed that Morales was neither voted a league all-star nor seriously considered for the most valuable player award, despite his six goals and team-record 15 assists.

Now, all of that seems pretty far away.

Whether he is the chicken or the egg in the situation, Morales has yet to enjoy the same kind of success this season, and RSL has strained to rediscover the magic that delivered it to the MLS Western Conference final seven months ago. And while Morales acknowledged he hasn't played to his satisfaction, both he and Kreis agreed that the club's disappointing season can hardly be laid at his feet.

"For me, I need to play better," he said through a translator, though his English is improving. "But at the same time, we're a team -- not individuals -- so as a team, that level needs to be raised."

Nobody would mind if that started happening when RSL plays at the Los Angeles Galaxy on Saturday; the team has yet to win on the road this season and is riding a seven-game winless streak.

Morales is expected to return to the lineup after missing his second game of the season for disciplinary reasons -- he was suspended once for throwing an elbow, and again for yellow-card accumulation -- that hint at an increased frustration on the field, perhaps the main reason he's not playing his best.

Clearly, teams have targeted Morales for some rougher treatment, hoping to disrupt his choreography by making him one of the most-fouled players in the league. And Morales has strained to deal with it well, piling up five cautions in 10 games this season, the same number he had in his first 39 games with RSL.

He also has scored only once, with but three assists -- far behind his pace of last season.

"It's not an excuse that the league knows me and is marking me more," he said. But "the frustration can build if I'm not finding the ball, when I'm not finding the time with the ball, then the mental control -- any athlete will lose that as they get frustrated during the game."

No doubt, Morales was among the players that owner Dave Checketts had in mind last weekend when he said that RSL's best players haven't been playing well enough to win. Yet that illustrates exactly the point that Kreis has been making all along, that it's not just one player who has been struggling.

"It's a little unfair to pick out any individual players right now and say, 'This player's not playing well or not playing as well as last year,' because collectively, we're not playing as well as last year," he said. "It's a difficult and dangerous thing to single out anybody. It's a collective. There aren't many guys that are playing up to their potential.

"The question for me is always, 'Well, how is everybody else doing?'" he added. "Is everybody else playing well, but it's only Javier? No, that's definitely not the case. A lot of what Javier does relies on everybody else to keep the ball and do things simply and play with confidence. And those things, still it's a struggle a little bit to put together."

Indeed, RSL sometimes has inexplicably strayed from its preferred short-passing game, and Morales acknowledged that part of the problem has been an inability to maintain possession.

But while some have speculated that Morales hasn't worked as hard defensively as last season, fellow midfielder and captain Kyle Beckerman -- who also will return from a yellow-card suspension against the Galaxy -- still praises Morales as committed and unselfish.

"A lot of guys who have his talent wouldn't, they wouldn't play defense, and would point the finger, 'Well, we're not doing well, so I can't,'" Beckerman said. "But he's not like that."

At least, having a week off has helped Morales recharge, and team officials have said they still believe that the core group of players that they kept together after last season can turn the season around. Maybe with a fresh Morales, it's ready to start the project.

"We just need to get better," Morales said. "Getting a good positive result on the road will be something that will lift the team and lift everybody individually, so we can get out of this funk."