NYCFC Season Discussion 2023: We Know What We Are, But Not What We May Be

Who Is Most To Blame For The Failure Of The 2023 Season?

  • Nick Cushing

    Votes: 7 41.2%
  • David Lee

    Votes: 7 41.2%
  • Brad Sims

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Marty Edelman

    Votes: 1 5.9%
  • CFG

    Votes: 2 11.8%

  • Total voters
    17
I will add a request that non-TR members please don't ask for a summary, highlights, bullet points or anything. I've never seen such a strong assertion of confidentiality that did not involve an NDA.
Well now I really want to know lol. But won’t ask. I will ask though, is there a timeline for when said information will become public?
 
I posted about it earlier today but deleted the post immediately. Figured it just doesn't make sense to post about it.
Wrong answers only
 
They've finally signed a true replacement striker. Not much is known about him, but he shows a lot of promise. His name is Cick Nushing.
Wild that we tried to get Clint Dempsey first though
 
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NYCFC's maximum point total is 48. The maximum wins is 12.

Everything below is from the perspective of the other team clinching over NYCFC.

Cincinnati has 57 points and already clinched over NYCFC.
Revs have 48 points and 13 wins and clinched over NYCFC by virtue of first tie-breaker.
Orlando and Philly can exceed 48 points with a win tomorrow and can clinch even if NYCFC wins.
Columbus has 45 points, can reach 48 tomorrow and has 13 wins, so it can clinch even if NYCFC wins.
Orlando and Columbus play each other so at most only one of them can clinch tomorrow if NYC wins also.
Atlanta has 42 points and 11 wins and can't clinch tomorrow even if NYC loses. Minimum 3 results* away.
Nashville has 40 points and also is minimum 3 results away.
Montreal and DC are both a minimum of 5 results away, meaning at least 3 more GameDays. NYC and DC play in Game 33.
------------------CURRENT PLAYOFF LINE--------------------------------------------
Chicago and Charlotte are both at least 6 results away from clinching over NYCFC. Chicago plays NYC on Decision Day.
RB and Miami are both 7 results away. RB could in theory get 2 results tomorrow. Miami plays NYCFC 9/20, which is NYCFC's 4th game from now and Miami's 5th.
Toronto is 9 results away.

Every team in the East except RB and Toronto is capable of finishing ahead of NYCFC even if NYCFC wins out. Probably they cannot all do it because some play each other, but individually any of them can.
Both RB and Toronto can clinch if they win out, including head to head over NYCFC even if NYCFC wins all of its other games.
If NYC beats Miami and Miami and NYCFC each win all their other games, Miami will finish ahead of NYC.


* Results means total minimum combination of that team's wins and NYCFC losses.
 
Remaining games: vs. Orlando, vs. Toronto, at Miami, at DC, vs. Chicago

We've only had 6 / 30 multi-goal games this season. I think we maybe pickup 5 points tops in the next 5.

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Remaining games: vs. Orlando, vs. Toronto, at Miami, at DC, vs. Chicago

We've only had 6 / 30 multi-goal games this season. I think we maybe pickup 5 points tops in the next 5.

View attachment 12996

The biggest thing to be tracking is the Jason Kreis line at 37 points. NYCFC needs 6 points in its final 5 games to tie the Kreis line and 7 to beat it.

I don’t see it happening. Probably something like 1 win, 2 draws, 2 loss - 36 points and officially the worst season in NYCFC history.
 
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The biggest thing to be tracking is the Jason Kreis line at 37 points. NYCFC needs 6 points in its final 5 games to tie the Kreis line and 7 to beat it.

I don’t see it happening. Probably something like 1 win, 2 draws, 2 loss - 36 points and officially the worst season in NYCFC history.
If 2023 and 2015 tie at 37 points 2015 will have more wins. I don't know if it's worth considering tiebreakers for such a dubious competition but if so advantage 2015.
2015 and 2023 currently tied with 31 points through 29 games, but took very different paths.

2015 started awful, with 8 points in the first 13 games, then had a rather strong 18 game stretch of 1.61 PPG, and then lost the final 3. That 18 game string only raised the season PPG to 1.19 because the start was so awful.

2023 started fine with 1.67 PPG through the first quarter season (9 games ) but has just 8 points in the next 20 for 0.80 PPG. I forgot that the team won 13 of the first 15 available Home points before getting just 8 of the next 27 Home points. I remember now that I thought the question would be if they could improve the Away form. :rolleyes:

2015 had 41 goals and conceded 48 after 29 games; 2023 has 28 goals and conceded 36. 2015 offense and 2023 defense is a decent team.
 
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Mostly Dead Is Slightly Alive

Screenshot 2023-09-22 at 6.56.28 AM.png

The Line for Nine keeps going down. At the season quarter mark it was near 46-7 points. Last time I posted it was about 42 and currently it's 41. If NYCFC were in the West things would be much bleaker, though the East is handily beating the West this year 33 to 26 with 20 draws. The difference is the PPG gap between 1st and 9th is 0.83 in the East and 0.37 in the West.

The paradox of this table is that this close to the end of the season with more data to rely on, it is less reliable because a couple of teams going on 5-game streaks can shift it completely. Chicago had 17 points after 17 games, then collected 15 of the next 18 points, followed by 1 of the next 18. Streaks start and end with no warning.

Screenshot 2023-09-22 at 7.09.31 AM.png
Two wins and two draws gets 42 points. I'd say that's the minimum to have a shot, and might need more especially if Miami keeps making a run. Miami already has 2 more wins than NYC despite being 3 points back and 2 games in hand, so they will only need to tie on points to finish ahead. NYCFC leads the league in draws so it's unlikely to win any tie-breakers against anyone. Maybe against Charlotte who has just 1 fewer draws and currently a worse Goal Differential.

Narrratives
After Leagues Cup, Cushing either subbed Talles for Bakrar or played Talles not at all until 6 games in. He did this because he is stubborn and perhaps too dumb to realize Talles played best when paired with a Center Forward and also because Cushing is too defensive minded. When he finally played them together Talles headed a ball with more authority than he has done all year and this proves Cushing was wrong to keep Talles on the bench for most of the post-Leagues Cup stretch.After Leagues Cup, Cushing either subbed Talles for Bakrar or played Talles not at all until 6 games in. He did because Bakrar had to gain fitness and he wanted a striker available to sub in for him when gassed and also because Talles underperformed all year and needed tough love to wake him up. When he finally played them together Talles headed a ball with more authority than he has done all year and this proves Cushing was right to keep Talles on the bench for most of the post-Leagues Cup stretch.

Chances
Before Leagues Cup, NYCFC created 1.04 xG on 10.5 shots per game, and scored 1.00.
After Leagues Cup, NYCFC has created 1.55 xG on 14 shots per game and scored 0.83.
Clinical
In the six games since Leagues Cup, NYCFC has underscored its xG by an average of 0.72 goals per games. Bad finishing, bad luck, failure to be clinical, call it what you want. The xG creation went up by 50% and shots increased by 22% yet goals scored went down by 17%.
NYCFC has played 291 regular season games all time, which generates 287 5-game rolling averages. Of the 10 worst such 5-game rolling averages for goals compared to xG, 4 of those 10 worst have happened since Leagues Cup this year. This is undisputedly the worst stretch of finishing shots in NYCFC history.
Confirmation Bias
The last time someone on the forum said NYCFC failed to be "clinical" in a forum post was more than a month ago, because the consensus settled on a different narrative.
 
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Good stuff.
The paradox of this table is that this close to the end of the season with more data to rely on, it is less reliable because a couple of teams going on 5-game streaks can shift it completely. Chicago had 17 points after 17 games, then collected 15 of the next 18 points, followed by 1 of the next 18. Streaks start and end with no warning.
Reminds me of an exercise I did in business school that demonstrated that randomness leads to much more streakiness than people think.*

Two wins and two draws gets 42 points. I'd say that's the minimum to have a shot, and might need more especially if Miami keeps making a run. Miami already has 2 more wins than NYC despite being 3 points back and 2 games in hand, so they will only need to tie on points to finish ahead. NYCFC leads the league in draws so it's unlikely to win any tie-breakers against anyone. Maybe against Charlotte who has just 1 fewer draws and currently a worse Goal Differential.
This is something that hasn't been noted enough. We are unlikely to win because of MLS's unusual (I would say ridiculous) first tiebreaker.

In the six games since Leagues Cup, NYCFC has underscored its xG by an average of 0.72 goals per games. Bad finishing, bad luck, failure to be clinical, call it what you want. The xG chance creation went up by 50% and shots increased by 22% yet goals scored went down by 17%.
NYCFC has played 291 regular season games all time, which generates 287 5-game rolling averages. Of the 10 worst such 5-game rolling averages for goals compared to xG, 4 of those 10 worst have happened since Leagues Cup this year. This is undisputedly the worst stretch of finishing shots in NYCFC history.
This squares with what I had pointed out on other threads - that we had started a solid run of getting the higher xG in most of our games, but we had not improved our results.

Confirmation Bias
The last time someone on the forum said NYCFC failed to be "clinical" in a forum post was more than a month ago, because the consensus settled on a different narrative.
What narrative is this? I think there might have been several, but I do think some people were noting that we were not having good luck.

Narrratives
After Leagues Cup, Cushing either subbed Talles for Bakrar or played Talles not at all until 6 games in. He did this because he is stubborn and perhaps too dumb to realize Talles played best when paired with a Center Forward and also because Cushing is too defensive minded. When he finally played them together Talles headed a ball with more authority than he has done all year and this proves Cushing was wrong to keep Talles on the bench for most of the post-Leagues Cup stretch.After Leagues Cup, Cushing either subbed Talles for Bakrar or played Talles not at all until 6 games in. He did because Bakrar had to gain fitness and he wanted a striker available to sub in for him when gassed and also because Talles underperformed all year and needed tough love to wake him up. When he finally played them together Talles headed a ball with more authority than he has done all year and this proves Cushing was right to keep Talles on the bench for most of the post-Leagues Cup stretch.
Bravo! Only a good lawyer could have come up with these two narratives. It's like something from a 1L Torts class.



___
* - Okay, for those interested, here is the experiment. In a class of about 60 people, the professor went one-by-one through the room asking people to say "heads" or "tails" and wrote each response in order on the board. Then, he handed everyone a nickel, had them flip the coin, and wrote down each outcome in the same order on the board. The streaks in the actual coin flip were much longer than the streaks in the simulated one, which was established mathematically (teaching such mathematics being the point of the exercise).
 

Blue City Radio backs this quote up.

Multiple replies say Magno isn't a striker. The problem is it isn't just Cushing: Lee and CFG think Magno is a striker and that's where he should develop. It could, however, be that Cushing is on his own in refusing to play dual striker. I don't know. Or they could be committed as an organization to not playing him as a winger any more to force his development as they prefer.
 
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