Archives for September 2018

Distractions

NYCFC’s PPG before the Vieira to Arsenal rumor 2.43
NYCFC’s PPG since
– the Arsenal rumor 1.43
– the Nice rumor 1.53
– Dome took over 1.47
– Eloi first took the field 0.60

This Bad Run

The projected final point total went down by 13. Last year’s slump was either 11 points and 2 wins in 9 games, or 7 points and 1 win in 7, depending on how you define when it started. The team PPG dropped in the 7 games from 1.852 to 1.676 for a 0.175 (math seems off due to rounding) reduction.
This year the slump to date is an easily identified 9-games (so far) with just 7 points and 1 win in the 9 games. The team PPG dropped in the 7 games from 2.048 to 1.667 for a 0.381 reduction.
Last year’s slump coincided with injury to Villa, the team’s only reliable goal scorer in the second half of the season. This year, the slump has a multitude of arguable causes, which both diffuses responsibility yet should be more damning.

Vieira, Torrent, and the Blame Game

NYCFC played 15 games under Viera and now has 15 under Torrent. The Viera schedule included 8 Away and 7 Home, and the Away games included SKC, Portland, LAFC, Red Bulls and Atlanta. NYC also faced Atlanta at home, which was the toughest Home matchup given Atlanta’s Away record this year. Dome’s schedule has had 8 Home and 7 Away. The toughest matchups were Away to Seattle, Columbus and Philly, none ranked higher than 4th in their conference.

NYC under Vieira lost 3 games, earned 28 points, scored 30 goals and conceded 20.
NYC under Torrent lost 5 games, earned 22 points, scored 22 goals and conceded 19.
The idea that losing Herrera had no effect on team defense but killed the team’s offense is counterintuitive at best.

You can blame it on Viera jumping ship, Dome unable to pick up on the fly, or bad luck.
You can blame it on the rain, blame it on Rio, or you can blame it on me Terry, it don’t matter to me now.
But the team scored 27% fewer goals against a much, much easier schedule since Dome took over, and won 21% fewer points.

The Company We Keep
Other teams with one win in the last 9 games, or worse.
Chicago* (one win in eleven) 20
Houston (one win in twelve) 18
New England (one win in twelve) 16
Orlando (one win in twenty) 21
Honorable Mentions
Minnesota** 17 and San Jose 23, both one win in eight games.
The other number next to each team is their place in the Supporters’ Shield standings.

* Hey, we play them this week. Maybe there’s hope.
** Hey, we play them this week, too. OTOH, six of their last 8 have been Away and we play them in Minnesota.

Playoff Seeding Update
Three point lead on Columbus; four point lead on Philadelphia. All three teams have 4 games left.
Columbus
NYC has 1 more win. If they tie on points they likely end up tied on wins as well. NYC currently has a +12 GD advantage.
Philadelphia
Teams are tied on wins. If they tie on points the Union likely ends up with more wins. NYC currently has a +15 GD advantage, FWIW.
Schedule
Home games in CAPS:
NYCFC plays CHICAGO, Minnesota, DC United, PHILADELPHIA
Columbus plays PHILADELPHIA, Montreal, Orlando, MINNESOTA
Philadelphia plays Columbus, MINNESOTA, RED BULLS, New York City

The Columbus schedule is easiest. The NYC and Philadelphia schedules are close in difficulty, with the advantage to NYC since they play each other in the Bronx (or maybe Queens). But it is best if the Union is disposed of before then. Best case scenario is if NYC can beat Chicago midweek, and Columbus beats the Union on the weekend. That’s a 7-point lead over the Union with 2 games for each before the H2H on decision day. Then, if NYC can just draw 1 of the 2 Away games, the Union would need to win both of its home games, including against the Red Bulls, to have a shot. A win and a draw for the Union in those games would leave them 4 points back going into the last game. If NYC could win one of its Away games (plus the best case scenario) then it will have clinched over the Union. Basically, any combination of NYC wins and Union losses that adds up to 3 will clinch*** 4th Place for NYC, and that almost has to start with a win over Chicago on Wednesday, and if so, it could wrap up by Saturday.
Maybe I will go Wednesday night.
*** Technically, DC, Montreal and New England have to be dealt with also, but the scenarios where any of them survive while the Union is eliminated are quite unlikely.

Apart from everything else, I really wanted 60 points this year, regardless of where the team finished. And it seemed so likely for so long.

Short update with no NYCFC action this week.

NYCFC has just 6 points in its last 8 games. The last 8-game stretch as bad or worse than that was in the club’s first season, 2015, when they finished at 1.08 PG overall. For those wondering, the first 8 games of 2016 earned 7 points.
NYCFC has 33 points in its last 23 games. To find a 23-game stretch that bad you also have to go back to 2015. You can select the first 22 games of 2016 plus the last 1 of 2015, which yielded the same 33 points. If you want a 23-game run in one season, you have to go to the last 23 games of 2015, which generated 30 points.

So it is fair to say this team has had both its worst medium length run of games and worst extended run since its first season, which until now has seemed to be an aberration which never again needed to be revisited. NYCFC has never been so bad for so long since Kreis and a hideous roster forced on us by rules that were abandoned immediately afterwards.

But it is also fair to point out that the team’s best 6-game run this year came at the very beginning, which lends itself to corresponding longer runs of poor, or at least mediocre play. Historically, this team has previously always had its best run around midseason.

Best 6-games of 2015 – 13 points games 14-19
Best 6-games of 2016 – 15 points games 14-19
Best 6-games of 2017 – 13 points games 15-20
Best 6-games of 2018 – 16 points games 1-6
(A note about all such streaks- there is often some wiggle room to choose the best 6 on either side of a 3-4 game core).

I don’t think there is any reason why the best streak happened in games 1-6 this year instead of the usual time. So maybe that’s driving the perception of 2018. Yes, you can point to the coaching instability and transition, which coincidentally started with the Arsenal rumors after Game 7 as the reason for the falloff (and I have so pointed), but that also cannot be the reason why the club had its best ever 6-games just before those rumors started. The club could easily have been its regular pretty good self during those early games, instead of its best ever 6-games.

It is also interesting that the club had its best ever second-best-non-overlapping-6-game-run in 2018. Games 16-21 (right around mid-season again) earned 15 points, which is also as good or better than the first best 6-game sets of all prior seasons. The second-best-6-games in 2015-17 earned 9, 11, and 13 points in order.

One more thing: the team’s PPG in the games left after you back out the best-6 and next-best-6 is as follows:
2015 0.68
2016 1.27
2017 1.41
2018 1.06

This is a bit unfair to 2018 because it has only 17 games instead of 22 after excluding that pair of 6-game sequences. Maybe the club does get better in the last 5 games left and this improves. But for now, it is fair to say that in 2018 there has been a greater disparity between the best and worse, and more of a roller coaster effect, than any year after 2015, which is pretty much an outlier that I think most agree can be ignored for purposes of interesting comparisons.

Here are the charts. NYCFC is down to 6th in PPG, though just barely behind LAFC.

Remember when 64 points seemed a more than reasonable goal? Now it is the best that can be done.

The rolling 5-game PPG tells an ugly story.

Columbus has an opening to catch NYC. Philadelphia has an outside shot. If the Union wins both extra games – which is by no means a gimme – it is still 3 points back. The DC-Montreal-Revs race looks like it could come down to the final weekend.

Final note: NYC has the hardest remaining schedule except for Colorado. NYC’s H/A adjusted opponents’ PPG is 1.60. NYCFC’s weakest Away Game opponent is Minnesota at 1.92 PPG. They also face Montreal 2.00 PPG and DC 2.20 PPG.

1. NYCFC started the season with an unbeaten 5-0-2 run of 7 games for 2.43 PPG. Since then, they are just 9-7-4 in the most recent 20 games, for 1.55 PPG, which would be just 52.7 points if done over a full season. A playoff team, but worse than last year. Still, the first 7 games count, and you should not discount them just because of timing. Remove any club’s best 7-game stretch from the season and they look much worse.
2. NYCFC started the season with an unbeaten 5-0-2 run of 7 games for 2.43 PPG. Then the Patrick Vieira to Arsenal rumors started. Since then, the team’s PPG is 0.88 lower than it was before Patrick became distracted. The club never really recovered.
3. NYCFC started the season with 1.91 PG through 11 games, of which only 4 were at home. It was a brutal schedule to begin, and NYCFC managed 2 Away wins, plus impressive road draws against Atlanta and LAFC (with a clinker in Harrison mixed in). Still, they were poised to start a run through the easiest part of their schedule when the Vieira to Nice rumors started on May 15. Since then they earned just 1.69 PPG despite playing 2 more Home than Away games.
4. Patrick Vieira had the club playing well through the first 15 games before he left. The team PPG was at 1.87, and his last game, though only a draw, was perhaps the best game the team played all year, thoroughly dominating Atlanta in Yankee Stadium in all areas except finishing. Since then the team has tread water under new coach Dome Torrent, earning a respectable if mundane 1.67 PPG.
5. NYCFC dominates at home, benefiting from an extreme home field advantage due to the uniquely small field. Conversely, they flounder away, where they concede 3.85 times as many goals per game as they do at home [0.54 GA/g Home, 2.07 GA/g Away].
6. NYCFC started extremely well, but then settled into a pattern of winning at home while struggling on the road, until a series of ridiculous travel games, injuries, and red cards, cursed them to a streak of 5 points in 6 games, and facing 2 upcoming games with further players unavailable due to international call-ups. For the first time they are lower than they were after the same number of games in 2017, and also are at risk of finishing below their point total from the year before, which has never happened to date. The circumstances are a combination of bad luck, possibly poor training methods, and poor roster construction over-reliant on injury-prone players and mid-range national team roster fillers more than any issues regarding the coaching staff or player performance.