Archives for July 2018

NYCFC did not play this week but just about all the other teams that NYCFC fans care about did. The top 3 other teams in the East won, though Columbus hardly causes any worry any more. In the West, Dallas earned a tough road point in Houston, Portland dropped 2 points at home and LAFC dropped 3 in spectacular fashion in Minnesota.
The net result is the East has a 3-way tie on PPG, though NYC can leapfrog Atlanta if it wins its 2 extra games, and RB can leapfrog both if they win all their extra games. All three East leaders have a better PPG than anybody in the West, but after that the West exceeds the East. Compare the East playoff line of 43-44 to the 48-49 projected in the West. This is a major reversal from this time last year, when the 5th place East team had a better PPG than the 2nd place West team. In fact, this time last year, the East won every same place matchup from 1st through 9th. Right now, the West wins 4th through 9th. The 3 best teams are in the East, but it gets real thin after that. There are probably 2 playoff spots in play after Columbus in the East.

That makes it hard to start dropping teams from contention in the East. If anything, DC might force their way onto my chart if they can make a run based on all their home games, though Rooney’s going to have to stop giving the ball away. Philly can’t put the ball in the net. The Revs still can’t win on the road. Toronto are getting players back but have a lot of teams to climb over.
In the West, Minnesota just climbed to within one win from the playoff line with 4 wins in 5, including a a 3 win week like NYC just had. But they now get 6 of the next 7 away before enjoying 5 of the last 7 at home. The Galaxy have quietly solidified a playoff claim with no losses since May. Portland has not lost since April. Barring a collapse by one of those teams, RSL, Houston, Minnesota, arguably Vancouver and charitably Seattle are fighting over one spot.

Well that was a hell of a week. 9 points in 7 days (though 3 of those points are reflected in the prior update).
Red Bulls and Dallas won their games. But Atlanta, LAFC and Portland all dropped 2 points, the first two at home. Dallas and NYC now top the league with 2.0 PPG. Atlanta continues the odd trick of performing slightly worse at Home than Away.

The gap between the top 3 in the East and the rest is growing. In the West, 4th place SKC is slipping and is now nearly halfway between 3rd place Portland and the Galaxy in 5th. It is very likely that a team in the East will get more than 60 points and not get a bye. There is a decent chance of that happening in the West.
Three wins in a row makes for pretty lines:

The current trend has the team finishing with a point total in the high 60s. It’s necessary to remember, however, that they have now played 2 more Home than Away games. That is the most imbalanced in favor of Away they have been or will be all season. It is also the most imbalance from now to the end. After getting even with the next 2 Away, the schedule never goes more than +/-1 the rest of the way. Still, remember that of the remaining 16 games, just 7 are Home and 9 Away when reviewing this:

Here is the East line graph:

Villa has started 10 of NYCFC’s 20 games to date. He did not play in 7 and came in as a sub in 3. The club record when he starts is 5-3-2, 1.70. When he does not start the record is 7-1-2, 2.30. Of the non-starts, the record is 5-1-1, 2.29 when he does not play at all.
His starts are evenly split 5 Home 5 Away. His non-starts are 6 Home 4 Away. This does give an advantage to the non-start record, but even if you add one win to the record when he starts and delete one win from games he does not start, to compensate for the schedule disparity, then the record without him is still better, by 2.22 PPG with to 1.82 PPG without.
I do not think this proves that the team is better without Villa. You need to adjust for opponent quality, who else was injured, and your own eye test. But, I am fairly certain this demonstrates the team can succeed very well without him, which is not something anyone is likely to have believed until very recently.

This will be a low text level update for the week. The graphs will have to do except for a couple of quick points.

• Dallas gave us a big boost beating Atlanta midweek, but I was disappointed by Atlanta’s result in Philadelphia. The Union played quite well, I thought, but did not finish some good chances. Atlanta has a very easy schedule remaining and Away at Philadelphia was actually one of their tougher remaining challenges as the Union has a big H/A disparity in performance.
• If David Villa plays every minute from now to the end of the season it will be still less than last year and average 69 minutes per game overall.

Mini-midweek update because last night messed with the top of the PPG standings:

Dallas now tops the league after beating Atlanta, and RB tops the East.

A commenter in the recap of the Dallas-Atlanta game on the MLS site asked if Atlanta has beaten any teams above the red line. They have, but it led me to ask how the really top teams have fared against each other. I drew the line at the top 7 PPG teams — all with a PPG of 1.70 or higher.

RB 4-0-0 3.00 Remaining 3H2A
POR 2-1-3 1.50 Remaining 1H2A
FCD 2-2-2 1.33 Remaining 1H2A
SKC 1-1-1 1.33 Remaining 3H3A
NYC 2-2-3 1.29 Remaining 2H0A
ATL 1-3-3 0.86 Remaining 0H1A
LAFC 0-3-2 0.40 Remaining 2H2A

The Red Bulls record is impressive, even given that 3 of the 4 have been at home. They are quite fortunate in that they play all the top West teams at home this year: Dallas, LAFC, Portland, and SKC. Atlanta has not done well but has just one such game left in Harrison. LAFC has no wins against top teams. SKC still has 6 to go.

Hello and welcome to your schedule-driven nickname-heavy midpoint update.

NYCFC started its existence with a 6-game Away winless streak. It then never again failed to win for 6 straight Away games until this weekend. Both six game streaks consist of 4 losses and 2 draws. In between, NYCFC went 19-20-9 Away for 1.375 PPG. NYC’s Away PPG for 2018 is 1.00.

Third in the conference. Sixth in the league by PPG. The Wizards and the Golden Wings are within easy reach. The Burn and the MetroStars have effectively the same record and are a bit more of a stretch, with the difference being the Bluebirds have 2 games coming up with Taurine Pushers that can decide that 1-on-1 race, while the Celestes are done with the southwestern Toros. The Five Stripes have opened a gap and hopes of catching United-C probably depend upon them having an Away slump.

Halfway through 2017 the Gotham Blues had 30 points and fans were excited. Halfway through 2018 the Robber Barons have 31 points and fans are distressed. Progress!
This is the best first half performance for Las Palomas in their historic history to date.
Dividing the season into rough quarters of 9-8-8-9 games, 2018 tied for the worst second quarter of the season for the Blue Notes at 1.375 PPG. That’s the same as 2015, except that in 2015 1.375 PPG was good for this team.
As noted in the prior post, City is currently on a 6-game Away winless streak that matches its worst. Right now the Tenants have an Away record of 1.00 PPG, which is basically league average (0.99) and their worst since 2015. With 8 Away games left, a realistic hope would be to get 11 points 8 games (1.375 PPG) to bring this season’s road performance up to the neighborhood of its historic average. For reference, and we can hope but certainly not expect to match this, the Squatters’ best 8-game Away stretch was 5-2-1 (2.00) in 2016, including a 4-0-1 (2.60) stretch. That was done against tough competition, too. The Home PPG of the teams in the 8-game run was 1.79, and the opponents’ home PPG in the 4-of-5 game core was 1.91. Which probably is a hint that a road streak has more to do with your performance than the quality of the opponent. The home PPG of NYC’s remaining Away opponents is 1.62.

So, getting to 70 is tough to imagine, and even 65 is very hard at this point.
Remaining schedule strength, based on opponent H/A PPG:
ATL 1.27
FCD 1.45
LAFC 1.28
NYC 1.31
RB 1.50
SKC 1.43
The league PPG to date is 1.39.
I know, every one of you is thinking, but Mark, the Swamp creatures’ opposing PPG is inflated because they play the Blue Hawks twice at Yankee Stadium, where City Actual has a league best 2.75 Home PPG, and yet the Ruby Bovines always beat the Ceruleans. Thanks for reminding me. Their adjusted opponent PPG excluding the Cyans is 1.34, which is not that tough, so the 718s better take care of business themselves.