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NYCFC Weekly Update May 23, 2016

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  1. t seems I haven’t put up the PPG chart in a bit. I think I didn’t do it when we were in regular first place because we were never quite in PPG first place and I was hoping we’d make it after the next game. Well, after 1 point in our last 2 games, which is not good but not disastrous, we are back where we were the last time I did put up the chart: 4th place. That was after the DC win. Since then we had the great Portland win, the Toronto tie with our B-team, and the fiasco against RB. And almost nothing changed:

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    Philly in first, NYC in 4th. Orlando 5. RB 6. DCU 7. All the same.
    The Canadian teams flipped 2 and 3, and 8-10 squiggled a bit but who cares.
    So again. after the most momentous week in team history. After the biggest high and lowest low we are pretty much in the same place, which is pretty good but not great.

    Plus I can’t believe nobody said this yet, but how weird, amazing, glorious, and hideous is it that we had what was likely NYCFC’s best win ever and certainly it’s worst loss in the same damn week. With a Tie in between. For balance.

    You will notice the projected playoff line has moved up a lot from 34 to 42, which seems a lot more normal. Coincidentally, it is exactly where it was last year the first time I put up a PPG projection when the Revs were in 6th with a 41.82 projected points.

    I should probably remind everyone what I also said then which is that this projection has a very low confidence level and to the extent it points at anything it is the better than 50% line, meaning if you’re above it there’s a sort of 50% chance you’ll make the playoffs. I myself think the line will be between 42 and 49, which is based on a combination of history, hunches, and numbers. If I’m right we’re not really safe at our current level and need to get better because I think the rest of the East will improve. As a guide to what that would mean for us, here’s the current chart of what NYC needs to do in its remaining 21 games to reach some likely point totals.

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    Chin up everyone.

 

How Real Is the Home/Away Issue For NYCFC May 2016

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  1. I think Home/Away is very real. From 2013:
    “Since 2008, 100 different MLS squads have taken the field and 96 of them have played better at home than on the road (measured by goal differential). The average home team over the past five and a half years has a positive goal differential of +0.47 goals a game.”
    Home Field Advantage In MLS
    Next from 2014: measuring more than 1700 MLS games excluding draws, the Home team won 67% of the time. None of the other major US team sports reached 60%.

    Finally, my own stats from earlier on the blog:

    Between 2011-2015, only 7 teams have had a winning Away record.
    Between 2011-2015, only 5 teams have had a better Away record than Home.
    Note: 2011 is when the league went to a 34 game schedule.

    I don’t disagree with the importance of quality of opponent. But Home and Away is real, and easier to measure, especially early in the season. Who knew Colorado and Philadelphia would be any good? If we succced by continuing our pattern this team will be a true anomaly.

 

Comparing NYCFC’s Home/Away Record to MLS History

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  1. Some Notes On Home and Away Records
    We are 1-1-4 at Home and 3-2-0 Away for 1.17 and 1.80 PPG respectively. This is not normal.

    As noted in a prior post, getting 6 road wins (since MLS went to a 34 game schedule in 2011) has always put a team in the top 4 road record in the league. We need to get only 3 road wins in our last 12 road games to get that. That’s great. The rest of this post is potentially worrisome, but not catastrophic. We have both a winning Away record and a better Away record than at Home.

    Since 2011, only 7 teams have had a winning Away record.
    The average total points for teams with a winning Away record is 61.
    Six of the seven made the playoffs. in 2014, Portland had a winning Away record but only 49 points, and came in sixth, which was below the playoff line then. All of the others made the playoffs and 3 won Supporters Shield.
    Having a winning Away record is usually a sign of a very strong team.

    Since 2011, only 5 teams have had a better Away record than Home.
    The average total points for teams with a better Away record is 46.
    Only two of the five made the playoffs.
    Having a better Away record is usually a sign that you screwed things up at Home.

    So far, at 1-1-4, we have screwed things up at Home. After Toronto, we have another long 4-game home stand, and need to keep up with our improved results. I do not think we have to have a winning Away record to make the best of this situation. We can do well with a strong Away record and an improved Home record.

 

Home and Away Problems for NYCFC in 2016

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  1. Discuss: Do NYCFC or DC United have a better shot at the playoffs?

    “1. It’ll take about 48 points to make the playoffs in the East
    2. Each of the last two years only one MLS team has finished with a .500 or better road record. We’ll be charitable & pretend NYCFC (1-2-0 through 3 road games) are that team in 2016, finishing 6-6-5 (23 points). That means they need 25 of a possible 51 home points.
    3. Through six home games, NYCFC have taken just 7 of 18 points on offer.
    4. Even with a best-case-scenario road performance, NYCFC would have to win six of their final 11 home games to make the playoffs. Currently they’ve won just once in their first six.”

    That’s Matt Doyle’s analysis, which on the math is in line with mine above where I said we need 11-12 wins, although more negative than I’m leaning now. Also in the article, Simon Borg says we make it because of Lampard and Nick Rosano signs on to Doyle’s math.

    Doyle also says “[P]eople don’t seem to appreciate how disastrous this spring has been for NYCFC.”

    Matt Doyle’s math analysis above got me thinking more about our H/A situation. The MLS home advantage is considerable and trouble for us.

    Since going to a 34 game schedule in 2011, just 22% of teams have won as many as 6 away games in a season. You can basically assume 4 teams will do it every year. 5 teams did it in 2012. Of the 21 teams to win 6 or more, 12 won exactly 6 and 9 exceeded that.
    Unless the playoff line is lower than the expected high 40s, we need 12 or 13 wins overall. We are sitting on 2 wins with 11 home games and 14 away remaining. For us to get 5 wins in the remaining away games would put us in the top 4 road teams in MLS this year, and still means we have to win 5 or 6 of 11 at home to make the playoffs.
    I agree with the belief that we are better than our record, but are we that good?

    Our best 11 game home stretch ever is 5-3-3 from Game 11 against Chicago on May 15 last year (a draw) to the win against San Jose on September 19 in Game 30.
    If we improve on that by one game, to go 6-2-3, that is 21 points from the remaining home games. Adding our current 10 brings us to 31.
    To get another 17 and hit 48 we need to go 5-7-2 on the road, which, again, probably puts us in the top 4 road teams in MLS. The math gets much easier if we somehow win 7 or more road games, which happens 9% of the time, and would almost certainly make us one of the top 2 road teams in MLS this year..

    Our next 3 games are on the road, and we better start winning.

 

2016 MLS East/West InterConference Play Round 6 Week 7

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All records, etc are from the standpoint of the Eastern Conference.
All Records are in standard MLS format W-L-T.

  1. Round 6 – Week 7
    Three games all held at West stadiums
    East Record 0-3-0

    Season To Date
    East Record 4-12-5
    At Home 3-2-3
    On Road 1-10-2
    Goal Differential -11
    East Points 17
    West Points 41

    It’s getting ugly for the East in road interconference games. Only 1 win and 2 ties in 13 tries. That’s 5 out of a possible 39 points, while the West nabbed 31 points in those games.
    This terrible performance by the rest of the East is basically why NYCFC is sitting in the last playoff spot, — barely by the second tie-breaker — with a 1.0 PPG. The bad news is that 29% of the interconference games held in the west that don’t involve NYC have already been played compared to 19% of the total league schedule so we have been getting an outsized benefit from this anomaly. NYC will have to win a few games out West to really take advantage of it.

 

MLS East/West InterConference Play 2016 Week 1

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  1. Recently I was disappointed not to be able to find any information on the record of the two conferences in head-to-head matchups last year. I decided to just do it myself this year. Each 10 teams in the East play each 10 in the West once which works out to 100 games and that’s not too hard if you tally as it goes.
    Since we’re focused on the East, all records, etc will be from the standpoint of that conference.

    All Records are in standard MLS format W-L-T.

    Week 1 – 6 Games
    East Record 1-3-2
    At Home 0-0-1
    On Road 1-3-1
    Goal Differential -5
    East Points 5
    West Points 11

    One week. Small sample size. Significant imbalance home/away. I wouldn’t read much into this yet.
    Next week 0 interconference games. On average there should be 3 each week.

2015 NYCFC Weekly Updates Aug 9

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Well hell, nobody wants to read this but here it is.
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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:
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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:
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How we got here. The lines mark the season low point and the game when transfers started playing.
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2015 NYCFC Weekly Updates Aug 2

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