New England - Postmatch

[JayH]

Even when we were winning, streaking, and "at our best", we didn't look much better than we looked last night in the opponent's half (with the exception of our abysmal ability to finish). Even when we won, we still complained about Maxi's finishing, looking better without Villa, Villa slowing down, winning in spite of Wallace, winning in spite of Berget's lack of touch and introduction to the league (remember the "Burger" shaming), winning in spite of PV's mismanagement of personnel, winning in spite of Lewis sitting on the bench, winning in spite of the team kicking field goals. We were never that great when we won (see, many). We were probably at our best when we tied (see, Atlanta and LAFC). We were not necessarily at our worst when we lost (see, last night). During some of our most "dominant" wins, we were rescued by Isi, awarded opportune PKs, and scored late goals after controlling the game.There are many factors involved including luck, variation, schedule, injuries, coaching transition, the front office shitting the bed this window, poor play, poor subs, etc. I don't yet have confidence in Dome, and the fact that Amagat sees the field makes me seriously question his judgment (and moreso our FO), but Dome is not the sole driver of our recent results.

 

[mgarbowski]

Imagine you roll a die 30 times, and at the end you've rolled each face exactly five times. But then you notice that your first 10 rolls were all fives and sixes. You decide to exclude that short streak because it's clearly not representative of the distribution of the die's faces. Now you're left with 20 rolls, 67% of your dataset, that are all numbers one through four. Did cutting out the unrepresentative streak improve your overall picture of the die's distribution and what its average roll will be? Are the 20 later rolls the die's true form?

Obviously soccer's more complex than a die, but that's kind of how our season's gone. In March and April we didn't play that well but got lucky. In May and June we played better, if a little inconsistently, and got mostly fair results. July was the best soccer we've played all season and our results were if anything not quite as good as they should have been.

Since then it's been a mixed bag: we played very well at home against Vancouver and New England, decently in weird red card games against Toronto and RBNY, and badly on the road to Philadelphia and Columbus. The actual performances have been more or less what you'd expect given opponent strength and H/A. But we got unlucky results in the games where we played well, okay results in the ones where we played okay, and deserved results in the ones where we played badly. I could run the numbers for expected points, but you get the idea: we were never going to take that many points from a tough run of games, but not winning the easy ones where we outplayed our opponents made our overall results look worse than they should.

Here's my takeaway: I think we're a very good team whose 1.71 PPG is now almost exactly in line with our expected point production over the course of the season. I think we'll finish third on the table and have a good shot in the playoffs. And I think we're going to be even better next year.

I see your logic. My problem is that you've devised an explanation in which everything has perfectly balanced out. It very rarely works that way. If you start a series of coin flips, or a sports season, with an extraordinary run of good luck in the first 20% of the test then you should expect to perform as expected for the remaining 80%, and that 20% bounce will inflate your figures for full run. The same goes for a bad start in the other direction. There is no reason to expect that your luck in the remaining 80% will counterbalance the extreme results of the first 20%. What you should expect is that the 80% will break evenly within itself. Once the 20% is in the books, reverting to the mean does not mean you have an offsetting course correction. It means you should expect to perform essentially as appropriate going forward. And what is most unlikely is the scenario you believe we have had, in which the remaining 80% not only breaks the other way but does so in an almost perfectly fine-tuned fashion to offset the original 20% such that the team's current 1.71 PPG is just about where it was always meant to be. It happens, some limited percentage of the time. But I'm not going to assume it happened here. Just because randomness can explain a lot doesn't mean you ignore obvious causes of performance change. I'm left deciding if this team is not as good as I thought or has the coaching instability had an effect.

Early in his career, but after he had won some tournaments, and even (I think) some majors, Tiger Woods famously hired a new swing coach, and for a few months he did worse than he did before until he integrated the new training into his swing, and then he improved and did better. I could explain that randomness is rampant in life (true) and conclude that the course of events had nothing to do with his new training, or I could just accept that his new training and swing methods had a clear and obvious effect.

You seem to be taking the long way round the block to prove that changing coaches mid-season had no effect.

 

[Gotham Gator]

I see your logic. My problem is that you've devised an explanation in which everything has perfectly balanced out. It very rarely works that way. If you start a series of coin flips, or a sports season, with an extraordinary run of good luck in the first 20% of the test then you should expect to perform as expected for the remaining 80%, and that 20% bounce will inflate your figures for full run. The same goes for a bad start in the other direction. There is no reason to expect that your luck in the remaining 80% will counterbalance the extreme results of the first 20%. What you should expect is that the 80% will break evenly within itself. Once the 20% is in the books, reverting to the mean does not mean you have an offsetting course correction. It means you should expect to perform essentially as appropriate going forward. And what is most unlikely is the scenario you believe we have had, in which the remaining 80% not only breaks the other way but does so in an almost perfectly fine-tuned fashion to offset the original 20% such that the team's current 1.71 PPG is just about where it was always meant to be. It happens, some limited percentage of the time. But I'm not going to assume it happened here. Just because randomness can explain a lot doesn't mean you ignore obvious causes of performance change. I'm left deciding if this team is not as good as I thought or has the coaching instability had an effect.

Early in his career, but after he had won some tournaments, and even (I think) some majors, Tiger Woods famously hired a new swing coach, and for a few months he did worse than he did before until he integrated the new training into his swing, and then he improved and did better. I could explain that randomness is rampant in life (true) and conclude that the course of events had nothing to do with his new training, or I could just accept that his new training and swing methods had a clear and obvious effect.

You seem to be taking the long way round the block to prove that changing coaches mid-season had no effect.

This is true, but perhaps his point includes the thought that how a team looks is meaningful. With the exception of finishing, we bossed the game last night. We held possession and created chances and just couldn't finish. It happens sometimes. And yes, we were playing a poor team, but we were also missing half the roster. I think we looked much worse in many of our recent games, including victories over Toronto and Orlando.

DC United will tell us a lot more.

I think your analogy to Tiger's swing coach is probably a good one. Let's hope so. We need to integrate what Dome is trying to do quickly, and missing a bunch of players right now isn't helping.

 

[mgarbowski]

This is true, but perhaps his point includes the thought that how a team looks is meaningful. With the exception of finishing, we bossed the game last night. We held possession and created chances and just couldn't finish. It happens sometimes. And yes, we were playing a poor team, but we were also missing half the roster. I think we looked much worse in many of our recent games, including victories over Toronto and Orlando.

DC United will tell us a lot more.

I think your analogy to Tiger's swing coach is probably a good one. Let's hope so. We need to integrate what Dome is trying to do quickly, and missing a bunch of players right now isn't helping.

If you think we bossed on offense last night but not against Toronto, well, I don't know. NYCFC created more good chances in Toronto than any away game this year except Orlando. It felt bad because we also gave up far too many good chances against a team down a man.

My eye test tells me this team has lost the plot close to goal. Our system still gets us in there, which is why the xG numbers can be good. But I don't think the issue is the shot-taking is suddenly askew. It's how we get the guys -- and the ball -- into those positions. We're still getting them there, but it's not as fluid as under PV and that is driving the poor shot-taking. And maybe it's just an adjustment and Dome's system will pay off in 2019.

But if so then this team has had 2 seasons -- out of just 4 -- made appreciably worse by 2 assholes who decided to come or arrive in midseason instead of fulfilling their obligations, and I'm in no mood to be forgiving to anyone involved.

 

[Kjbert]

Every year, there is something special about the game that makes you give up on the season.

OVER HERE

 

[Jock]

As for the jury being out on Eloi? We hired him for 9 games. One third of them are in the books. He was thrown out of the first, suspended for the second, and he led to the losing goal in the third.

Ehh..... what?

How did he give the goal away last night?

I checked the highlights a couple of times and don't know what you mean - they show a long ball not being dealt with by our defence. As I recall from being at the game, Maxi lost the ball on the left hand side which was what gave them possession in the first place.

 

[Ulrich]

I hate advanced stats for soccer - it works for Baseball and football because the metrics deal with a start/stop type of game associated statistics which are quantifiable as additive or subtractive stats, but Soccer is free flowing and the only real stats that matter are goals for and goals allowed and W/L. As such, we are trending down, in a very bad way, during a stretch against supposedly the easiest portion of our schedule.

I quickly graphed this using a W as 1.5 points, a Tie as -0.5 and a L as -1.5, because a .500 team would earn 1.5pts a match (neutral Zero) which places wins and losses evenly on each side of the line and a Tie does not even equate to an “average” result (1pt instead of 1.5pts). Hence we have the following graph for the regular season:



A nice trend up at the beginning of the year, followed by a very average team, then another upward trend followed closely by a spiral downward.

mgarbowski has already pointed out many of the variables to the season that correspond to these 4 zones (Clicking out of the gate, PV transfer saga, Dome with the new car smell/home stand, the team falling apart/injuries/etc). Another loss Saturday will place us at the bottom of our “Average” horizontal run (indicating a mean accumulation of 1.5pts per match) which means we’re right back at being an average team (at best).

 

[LeeNYCFC]

Dome's having to use different players (sometimes making the same kinds of mind-boggling choices Vieira did), has lots of players out injured or playing injured, and has gotten next to nothing out of Villa as he's stepped up his decline. He may not be a good head coach and his profile wouldn't have been my pick, but I don't think it's fair to compare him negatively to Vieira.
We played horrifically 0-4 at Portland, we had many nights under PV (which I would document if MLS stats weren't so frustrating to accumulate) where we massively out-shot the opposition and struggled to score, and we frequently looked woeful with our buildup, finishing, or both. Frankly the most fluid we looked was the stretch when the fat latecomer himself was able to bang goals in off every part of his body. Outside of that, we've asked Villa to work miracles and otherwise lacked any clinical edge in the box.

 

[Christopher Jee]

Bet.

Figuring out whether we played "like this" for the rest of the season is sure to be contentious.

 

[Gotham Gator]

If you think we bossed on offense last night but not against Toronto, well, I don't know. NYCFC created more good chances in Toronto than any away game this year except Orlando. It felt bad because we also gave up far too many good chances against a team down a man.

My eye test tells me this team has lost the plot close to goal. Our system still gets us in there, which is why the xG numbers can be good. But I don't think the issue is the shot-taking is suddenly askew. It's how we get the guys -- and the ball -- into those positions. We're still getting them there, but it's not as fluid as under PV and that is driving the poor shot-taking. And maybe it's just an adjustment and Dome's system will pay off in 2019.

But if so then this team has had 2 seasons -- out of just 4 -- made appreciably worse by 2 assholes who decided to come or arrive in midseason instead of fulfilling their obligations, and I'm in no mood to be forgiving to anyone involved.

Just to be clear, my opinion on Toronto was about struggling to put away a game while up a man rather than not being able to create chances.

 

[roxfontaine]

If mgarbowski is in here kicking over furniture... things are bad.

 

[NickA]

Amagat is garbage. That was a Dome move and that should show he has no clue what type of play MLS has. He was unprepared or ill advised for this. Blame the team more than him. They want to keep it CFG, so there's not many options, so what can you do. It can't be easy to move to a new country, league, team mid-season to start your coaching career.

As much trash as Berget got here, we miss him. He's a game changer...not a finisher, but game changer. We look like little kids in the box. We are crossing balls to no one. We don't have the height or strength.

I don't even know what formation we are trying to play half the time.

It's a mess.

 

[LionNYC]

Does anyone know what the hold up and check was for at 90+2'? Honestly, that lasted like 90 seconds and nobody inside the stadium had an idea what was happening.

 

[Schwallacus]

Does anyone know what the hold up and check was for at 90+2'? Honestly, that lasted like 90 seconds and nobody inside the stadium had an idea what was happening.

Ref's wife thought he was skipping over their dinner date, so she kept calling him until the assistant ref finally gave up and forwarded the call. At which point the main ref informed his wife he had to work.

 

[Gotham Gator]

Ref's wife thought he was skipping over their dinner date, so she kept calling him until the assistant ref finally gave up and forwarded the call. At which point the main ref informed his wife he had to work.

But not for much longer.

 

[Revfugee]

Ehh..... what?

How did he give the goal away last night?

I checked the highlights a couple of times and don't know what you mean - they show a long ball not being dealt with by our defence. As I recall from being at the game, Maxi lost the ball on the left hand side which was what gave them possession in the first place.

Reviewing the highlights:
I don’ t think Amagat’s a good addition and should have been behind JLew on the depth chart, but let’s get real. Blaming Amagat for the goal is delusional. He didn’t figure in the play in any way positive or negative. Sands and Tinnerholm didn’t close Fagundez and Penilla (Look at Sands’ body language after the goal — he knows it) and SJ fluffed it like Saunders. SJ coughed up a terrible rebound (and did it again a few minutes later).

Villa went wide on two volleys in the second half, at least one of which would have gone in on a normal night. Maxi fed him perfectly on both.

Back to Sands: in addition to letting Fagundez behind him and not closing him on the above play, he scuffed at least one clear shot and went wide on a totally free header. He generally showed well but he doesn’t get a pass on these.

This loss is all about an abnormal failure to finish. We should have scored at least three times.

New England has to be feeling like they dodged a bullet, but they are still on the road to nowhere. We bossed them with three key players out and one playing hurt, but got unlucky.

 

[mgarbowski]

If mgarbowski is in here kicking over furniture... things are bad.

I do get this way every now and again. It passes.

 

[roxfontaine]

We should have scored at least three times.

So should have NE...

 

[JayH]

Kanye's shoe size.

I was amused that my summer Yeezy slides got the meme treatment. They sure are comfortable.

 

[NickA]

On a positive note...thought Castellanos looked like the only capable offensive weapon for most of his time out there.