Four games left in the MLS regular season for NYCFC, and fans of the team are hoping it can turn things around. Yet they’re not really doing poorly. They’re just not doing as well as we hoped they would. The BlueBirds’ high point was after Game 19, which saw them win game 4 of a 4-game win streak. The PPG at that point was 1.58 for the year, and after a terrible start, saw them go 7-2-2 over the next 11 for 2.09 PPG over that period. Over the most recent 11 games they are 4-3-3 for 1.36 PPG.  That is a drop, but it’s not terrible. It’s 0.01 worse than what Philadelphia — sitting right behind them in the standings — has done all year.  It qualifies for the playoffs in both conferences.  But it is obviously a big falloff from that high.  NYCFC fans convinced themselves — I think — that the team was better than it was, that the early start was a combination of new players, a new system, and bad luck, and that the 11-game run after that was the new reality. But sports is often a series of streaks that can have no particular relationship to cause and effect. NYCFC had a bad start, a great mid-season run, and is now playing in between those two poles. At the end of the day you  are what your record says you are, and right now NYCFC is a third place team.  That doesn’t mean they will not rise or fall in the next four games. They still have a chance to make a run higher, or drop further.

NYC is tied with NYRB on points, but sits in third while the Red Bulls are in second because of the second tie-breaker which is Goal Differential. The Red Bulls lead that by 13 points.  The Red Bull Wedding is not by itself the difference makes at the moment.  If the Red Bulls won that game 1-0 their GD would be 6 and NYCFC would be at 5, so NYRB would still be ahead.  But NYCFC would be in striking distance so it still has a significant impact.  NYCFC has to finish ahead of the Red Bulls on points to finish ahead of them. It does not help that NYRB has 3 of its last 4 games at home where the team won 10 of 14 tries this year.  NYCFC will probably need to win at Home and Away to finish ahead of them.

Playoff Clinching Update: Dallas FC  became the first team to clinch a playoff spot this weekend. By my calculations NYC can do so this weekend. A win alone will ensure NYC finishes ahead of Chicago and Columbus. DC and Orlando play each other, and NYC clinches over the loser, or clinches over both if it is a tie. So a tie does the deal and has NYC finishing ahead of 4 teams for a playoff clinch. Similarly, a New England tie or loss to Columbus has NYC clinching ahead of New England.

Teams NYCFC has never beaten:

• Columbus
• SKC
• RSL
• Dallas

Three West Conference teams that NYCFC has only played twice, and Columbus. NYC is 0-2-2 0.50 PPG against Columbus. NYCFC hosts Columbus on the last day of the season. Columbus had 3 wins in its first 22 games this year (one of those against NYCFC) and now has 3 in its last 6. Great.

The East Conference Playoff line is holding down at 40-41 points.

The what-we-need-to-do chart did not lose any possibilities this week, but it will take 4 wins to keep 57 a possibility.

Splits:
Home Record 6-3-6 1.60 PPG
Away Record 6-6-3 1.40 PPG

East Record 7-7-7- 1.33 PPG
West Record 5-2-2 1.89 PPG

Charts Keep Rollin’
Finally, thanks to commenter FootyLovin for the following. Here is a chart comparing the 5-game rolling PPG average for NYCFC for 2015 and 2015.  He thought of it, inspired by my 4-game block chart. I did switch to 5-game rolling because I think it’s a better measure than 4 games. I only used 4-game blocks to have more data points in the other chart.

Just wow at the similarities. The team is clearly better, but the season path has so many points of equivalence.

Well hell, nobody wants to read this but here it is.

First, it’s looking more and more like it will take 43 or even 44 points to finish in 6th place. We’re projecting to 35-36, and at some point, as Parcells used to say, you are what your record is.

Second, we have gone to hell since we started playing our transfers:

From our low point after the RSL game we got 13 points in 6 games. Then transfers came in, and wow. Blame the players, blame Kreis, blame chemistry, blame better opponents. These have been a crappy 5 games.

All of the following are Win-Lose-Draw
6-2-3 45 points
6-3-2 44 points
5-2-4 43 points
6-4-1 43 points
5-3-3 42 points
5-4-2 41 points

Right now these all seem out of reach. The remaining games:

How we got here. The lines mark the season low point and the game when transfers started playing.

Bad week. Even Chicago won. Here are the East Conference PPG Standings:

We’re closer to Chicago behind us than Orlando ahead of us. Worse, the projected Sixth Place PPG has moved up, with New England at 44 and Orlando outside and looking in at 42. That’s a mechanical projection and definitely not definitive but certainly not good. Anybody who is still predicting that the playoff line will be at 40 or lower has to start wondering when the line will move big that way.
This page
http://www.sportsclubstats.com/USA/NYCFC.html
says we have an 18% chance at making the playoffs overall. It also says if we finish with 42 points our chance of making the playoffs is in the low 30% range, but if we get 43 points that jumps to mid 50%. So the target for “barely likely” to reach the playoffs is right at 42-43 points, consistent with my earlier guesstimates. Also 45 points has us with an 88% chance and 46 95%. Again these are consistent with my guesses.

To do to get there with 12 games remaining.

To reach 45 points we need to get 1.75 PPG over the remaining 12.
To reach 43 points we need to get 1.58 PPG over the remaining 12.
To reach 42 Points we need to get 1.5 PPG over the remaining 12.

6 W 3L 3T gets us to 45 points
6W 4L 2T gets us to 44 points
5 W 3L 4T gets us to 43 points
6 W 6L 1T gets us to 43 points
5 W 4L 3T gets us to 42 points
5 W 5L 2T gets us to 41 points

This is completely unfair, but since Iraola and Angelino, our first transfers showed up, we are 1-2-1 for 4 points in 4 games. Keep that up and we’re dead soon. In our last 10 games we earned 17 points for 1.7 PPG. Keep that up and we get 44 points.