Would like to add that Medina did score 9 goals in 21. That might also speak to the presence of Maxi and Taty...
MLS - June 24 - Portland (Away)
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His hustle resulted in some goal opportunities that would not have been there if he was just going through the motions.
There are many fair criticisms of his play and his status as a DP, but he busted his ass every time he played
Fantastic is a bit of a stretch for Medina but he certainly tracked back and put in a shift. Going by challenge statistics Pelligrini is both a more active defender and wins more of his challenge attempts.
Medina Challenges per 90 (attempted, won, %)
2018 - (1.75, 0.45, 25%)
2019 - (2.56 0.61, 23.8%)
2020 - (2.06, 0.42, 20.6%)
2021 - (2.20, 0.44, 20.0%)
Pelligrini Challenges per 90 (attempted, won, %)
2023 - (3.63, 1.00, 27.6%)
I watched the all goals video from 2021 last night and yes, much credit to Jesus. The guy we loved to hate and hated to love…
He had a lot of really good moments including a sweet back heel for an assist.
I just have to add, watching that 2021 all goal videos, what a fun season... it's easy to forget when from where we are standing we have to look back 12 games for a win. (wow i was high after that Dallas match. too many shrooms)
It ended up being a bitter sweet review but I recommend if you need a bit of joy. Medina (feeling like an apostle of Jesus now) plays no small part along with some GUDI! golazo's and nice assists.
It ended up being a bitter sweet review but I recommend if you need a bit of joy. Medina (feeling like an apostle of Jesus now) plays no small part along with some GUDI! golazo's and nice assists.
It’s also easy to forget that we totally sucked for most of August and September, including a 510 minute goal scoring drought. Also IIRC Taty at one point went 9 full matches without a goal and folks were questioning him as an effective striker. I’m sure that wasn’t in the highlight reel.
IMHO that it still the worst/most frustrating/underachieving period in team history, because the lineup was so strong but they couldn’t put it in the net.
I may sound like a sourpuss pointing this out, but my point is that things in this league can turn very rapidly. Which is why I haven’t turned away.
Yeah in reflection I am harder on Jesus than I should be, he carried a lot of baggage being the first "underwhelming" DP. If he's on a TAM deal most fans probably think pretty highly of him, which is very unfair of me and others. We were pretty spoiled with Villa and Maxi as big-time DPs. Even Lampard and Pirlo brought a lot of hype even though it didn't come with much on-field impact. Signing Jesus as a young player from a low-tier league for barely above the DP cap just felt bad at the time.
Given some of our DPs that came after, Medina may be one of our better DPs in the history of the club. What would be the rankings:
Tier 1 - True Difference Makers
- Maxi
-Villa
Tier 2 - Solid contributors, above average consistent starting players
- Medina
- Santi
- Martins
Tier 3 - Talented but didn't play enough or stay long enough to have a real impact
- Pirlo
- Lampard
- Mirti
Tier 4 - A talented dancing turnover machine that can be bothered to help with the press
- Magno
i think about our bad patch that season all the time when i think about our performance now. things can turn around. player performances can change. it just needs one spark and things can snowball in the right direction.
at least we aren't losing every game. we're getting a point. just a matter of time before we start taking 3 and looking good while doing it. we just need depth and losing martins didn't help the situation.
magno assessment is a bit unfair. he's a winger and when paired with a competent striker, he was highly productive. when forced into a new #9 role, his production dropped and there's no reason we should expect otherwise. even this year, he's either playing a #9 or he's on the wing with a false 9. he has better games when segal is in there as a true #9 but obviously since segal isn't seen as a major threat, his (magno's) space is still limited.
does he dribble too much sometimes? sure. so do santi, parks, and morales. he needs the right environment to flourish though and you can see on his face he's just as frustrated with his performances as we are. the kid (as well as others) needs some confidence. he could press a bit harder/smarter though. i can agree with that
Maybe harsh and it's certainly not an ideal setup for him but I can't get past his lack of effort. Watch how many times each game Gabby or Santi start to spring forward on the press only to look over at Magno doing his half-assed jog press and just realize that there is no point. He also rarely crashes into the box to try for put-backs anymore, which is odd because he got a number of goals that way in his first season. I forget which game it was but a cross from the right bounced all the way through the box and if Magno who was playing LW at the time had crashed the back post it would have been a goal but he was instead standing around in his dancing space 20' from the goal.
Yes, the lack of a #9 likely hurts Magno's game more than anyone but his lack of effort this season because things aren't going his way is extremely disappointing. Lack of confidence to me is not an acceptable excuse for lack of effort, especially when the rest of the team is struggling just the same for results and still giving it their all each game.
I have the impression (key word impression, always willing to be illuminated that I am wrong) that Magno's dancing is beneficial to the defense as it gives them time to get numbers back.
I've heard it said a number of times that statistically Magno is tops in the league in success of taking on defenders/dribbles (whatever it's called) but man that seems like an incredibly empty stat right now.
Maybe Magno would be ideal on the soccer version of the Harlem Globe Trotters?
In '21 I said if I was building a team I'd pick Magno over Taty. Really doesn't seem like that aged well... but who knows, maybe it flips again. God I hope so.
The difference between previous slumps and this one is both length and how utterly anemic the attack is. All numbers per game and excludes own goals:
The 2021 slump was 10 games and 1.20 xG and 0.90 Goals
Over 2018-19 there was a 19 game slump with 1.38 xG and 1.16 Goals.
2015 full season 1.30 xG and 1.41 Goals.
Over the last 33 games, NYCFC's xG is 1.10 and 1.06 Goals. In 2023 the xG is down to 0.99 and 1.00 Goals.
Magno's super talented I think he could be amazing on another team that plays a different style, in an offense that has players to make space for him and really doesn't rely on having offensive players press. I actually expect him to do well at whatever team he lands on next assuming it's a good fit for his play style. Or maybe we find another Taty who will make the space Magno needs for success and who will press with such ferocity it won't matter that Magno really doesn't join in.
Currently, though Magno is a terrible fit for our roster and what this team is trying to do. Every other player in our attack is built to play a quick pass and cut style and then press aggressively when we turn to ball over. Magno does not fit that style and his production suffers as well as the teams. Best case whoever at CFG picked Magno for our roster thought he would adapt his immense talents and grow into our style, worst case CFG didn't care about fit at all and just wanted a roster spot within the org to stash a talent.
the thing is, as a team, we have not been great with transition. our counter attack is generally cut off by our own lack of effort or inability to make a play than by the other team stopping us. granted, we have played some very good transition teams who not only send players into the attack in numbers, but get back behind the ball to defend very quickly.
at times, magno stalls because he's waiting for people to get forward. if it doesn't happen, what can he do? he's not the paciest so he's not going to fly past anybody. we simply don't send enough people into the box. at times magno is guilty of this himself. but based on my very accurate and scientific eye test (
) we just haven't been very good in transition this year, either going forward or getting back on defense. don't get me wrong, i think magno can improve his game in a lot of ways even with how we are playing right now. he could and SHOULD step things up. especially if he has the balls to say he wants to be one of the best players in MLS...
If you stretch the 21 slump to ten games yes, but we have never had a 510 minute goalless streak before or after. It felt like crap until the Gudi wondergoal. Far worse than this, IMHO because we had no capacity to improve our situation. We have been in contention in most of our matches this year and we still have money and cap space to maneuver. If we go through the window without acquiring a striker I will be upset. Until then I’m being patient.
In 2015 we scored a ton but we couldn’t defend. Different era and this squad is far closer to turnaround than that one could ever have been. Put 2015 Villa on this team and we are probably top 2-3 in the east.
Neither of us is wrong or right but boy do we look at things differently. For me, the goalless streak was hard to take but I never thought it would just keep going. Before the streak NYC scored 1.89 goals per game over 24 games. And then nothing changed except the ball didn't go in the net. The scoreless drought was a random cluster of bad. Not that I expected (and certainly did not predict) a Cup, but I did expect the team to resume scoring close to 2 goals a game again because it was a team that was more likely to score 2 than 0 in any given game. And they did score 2.11 goals a game in the final 10 games including playoffs. And I claim no special foresight for that. Anyone who both watched the team and looked at the numbers could see. Everyone should have expected that NYC would start scoring again. That was a team that scored goals regularly.
That's not true of NYCFC in 2023. This is a one average goal per game team. NYCFC has never been this punchless for so long. It's not a blip, cluster, slump, or bad luck. It's 33 games of legitimately the worst offense this team has ever produced. The total goals are low, as are the xGoals and shots taken. Every metric, every eye test, says this is a bad offensive team. In the 2021 drought I went into every game expecting multiple goals. Now I've spent months expecting maybe a goal every game until at least July and the team has lived up to that. If we score 4 against Montreal I still expect 0 or 1 the games after that because that's what this team is.
I agree with you there is hopefully a predictable change point with the window. But when it was April and there was 12-16 games to the window and no rational reason to expect anything but boredom and dissatisfaction for 2-3 months, that didn't help. Even now I have to make myself care about every game until new players show up because this team has a bad, boring offense. And with the stupid 5 week break I'm still facing probably 2 months before maybe it improves.
I personally will always take an inexplicable 510 minute goalless streak from a good offensive team over 33 games of a demonstrably bad offense. I would have thought almost everyone would, but apparently it's just my preference. Interesting.
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