There is nothing in our players’ histories that supports this.
NYCFC Season Discussion 2024: The Definition of NYCFC is Doing the Same Thing Over and Over and Getting the Same Result
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More on the Cushing or Lee debate. Neither can fix a failure to convert chances, and the failures of Bakrar and Wolf to convert shots into goals are together the single biggest point of failure for this team. Since coming to MLS Bakrar has a net -6.60 Goals minus xGoals, with -4.12 just in 2024. The next worst over 2023-24 is Bernardeschi at -4.70. Wolf in just 2024 is -2.20. All a coach can do is train them and give them schemes and plays that let them generate opportunities. On the field, the players have to make it happen.
What if Baktrar and Wolf scored the 4 and 2 goals they should have this season based on xG? Well, I checked the game logs and gave them each a goal in the games where they had their highest xGs of the season: 4 for Bakrar and 2 for Wolf. I did not manipulate it such that the goals were distributed to get the most benefit. The result is the loss to Portland becomes a tie (+1) and ties with Miami and Atlanta become wins (+4). The remainder of their hypothetical goals do not change results. The team record would be 6-4-1, with 19 points, in third place, same record as Toronto but ahead on the second tiebreaker of GD.
What could Lee or Cushing have done to make this happen: run more shooting drills in training? I'm not even sure Bakrar and Wolf can control it.
Let's go back to Daniel Salloi and his Goal minus xG differentials:
2018 +3.44
2019 -6.54
2020 - Covid and he barely played
2021 +4.59
What happened in 2019? Did Salloi and Vermes take stupid pills? Why didn't they just do what had worked in 2018 and then again in 2021? We like to pretend there's a meaningful level of control over this. But there isn't. Again, NYCFC ranks 9th in xG generated, and 27th in Goals Scored. With this young roster I think being 9th in xG is solid. And if anyone here has a fix for consistently converting xG into Goals, well, you know more than anyone in the world, because nobody knows how to fix that. That's not a Cushing problem, just like 2019 Salloi wasn't a Vermes problem.
Should Cushing have benched Bakrar and Wolf? We started with 3 losses. But you have to give the 2 guys acquired to lead your offense 3 games and probably more. So those losses stay losses. Then Mijatovic was in Europe for Games 4-8. So Bakrar at least has to play those. And none of us know if Jovan came back game fit and we won anyway until Colorado for which Glen Crooks reports a mystery heel ailment. At which point maybe you fault Lee for acquiring a backup striker who did not start the season game fit and disappeared for weeks under mid-season visa issues rarely before seen in MLS. And maybe you bench Wolf after 5-6 games, but we have 10 points in the last 5 games anyway.
Bakrar and Wolf simply have to start converting chances. There's no switch to push, no regimen that will fix it. It will happen or it won't.
What if Baktrar and Wolf scored the 4 and 2 goals they should have this season based on xG? Well, I checked the game logs and gave them each a goal in the games where they had their highest xGs of the season: 4 for Bakrar and 2 for Wolf. I did not manipulate it such that the goals were distributed to get the most benefit. The result is the loss to Portland becomes a tie (+1) and ties with Miami and Atlanta become wins (+4). The remainder of their hypothetical goals do not change results. The team record would be 6-4-1, with 19 points, in third place, same record as Toronto but ahead on the second tiebreaker of GD.
What could Lee or Cushing have done to make this happen: run more shooting drills in training? I'm not even sure Bakrar and Wolf can control it.
Let's go back to Daniel Salloi and his Goal minus xG differentials:
2018 +3.44
2019 -6.54
2020 - Covid and he barely played
2021 +4.59
What happened in 2019? Did Salloi and Vermes take stupid pills? Why didn't they just do what had worked in 2018 and then again in 2021? We like to pretend there's a meaningful level of control over this. But there isn't. Again, NYCFC ranks 9th in xG generated, and 27th in Goals Scored. With this young roster I think being 9th in xG is solid. And if anyone here has a fix for consistently converting xG into Goals, well, you know more than anyone in the world, because nobody knows how to fix that. That's not a Cushing problem, just like 2019 Salloi wasn't a Vermes problem.
Should Cushing have benched Bakrar and Wolf? We started with 3 losses. But you have to give the 2 guys acquired to lead your offense 3 games and probably more. So those losses stay losses. Then Mijatovic was in Europe for Games 4-8. So Bakrar at least has to play those. And none of us know if Jovan came back game fit and we won anyway until Colorado for which Glen Crooks reports a mystery heel ailment. At which point maybe you fault Lee for acquiring a backup striker who did not start the season game fit and disappeared for weeks under mid-season visa issues rarely before seen in MLS. And maybe you bench Wolf after 5-6 games, but we have 10 points in the last 5 games anyway.
Bakrar and Wolf simply have to start converting chances. There's no switch to push, no regimen that will fix it. It will happen or it won't.
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And that's the great conundrum of soccer punditry, by contrast with, for example, basketball. In a basketball game there are enough baskets scored that the ebb-and-flow of the game gets somewhat reflected on the points and things revert to the mean quarter-to-quarter, at least in most games. So at the end of the game, when the pundits are trying to explain that the best team won it isn't usually a bald-faced absurdity like it quite frequently is in soccer. I always have fun watch pundits tying themselves in knots trying to justify a result, instead of just saying "well, they played like shit, were incredibly lucky, and stole a result".
This may be why Nick was a little downcast after the latest failure. There are only so many buttons he can push. And the painful part is, had Malachi converted that header (what a cross from Tayvon, and it wasn't the only one) we would have drawn level and it's a different game.
So, the subs were correct. He knew what Colorado was cooking up and the plan going in was correct. The guys just couldn't get it done in the final third, again. And then we literally gave a goal away to seal our doom. It must be incredibly frustrating.
Now we'll see what we're really made of. Three big games in a week, two of them on the road and a derby at home.
"In particular, Mounsef Bakrar is goal-less after 10 starts this season. I typically don’t worry much about "finishing," but Bakrar may legitimately be a Kévin Cabral-ian outlier here. Per FBref, Bakrar is underperforming his xG by 3.9 goals. That’s the highest mark in the league."
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Kevin Cabral:
| Year | Team | Personal G-xG | Team G-xG | Team net of Kevin |
| 2021 | Galaxy | -3.1 | -5.0 | -1.9 |
| 2022 | Galaxy | -4.3 | -2.6 | +1.7 |
| 2023 | Rapids | -1.5 | -11.9 | -10.4 |
| 2024 | Rapids | -1.4 | +1.0 | +2.4 |
Well this is not encouraging at all. You don't have to balance good years and bad years when it comes to hitting your xG.
In 2021-2024 combined Cabral has the worst total G-xG in MLS and has never over-performed. He's been coached by Greg Vanney, Robin Fraser, Chris Little, and Chris Armas. Nobody can fix him. The only team he was on that had consistently poor G-xG across the roster was the 2023 Rapids.
I don't know if he he's consistently unlucky, legitimately poor at finishing, or what. I'm not shocked. Every stat in life has outliers. Also back to back years of -1.5 and -1.4 are normal and close to median, but combined with his first 2 years it's ugly. FWIW in 3 years at Ligue2 before MLS his numbers were +1.2, -1.6, and +1.8.
My only takeaways are to repeat there's no way to know if or when Bakrar will improve, I doubt there's any proactive way to fix it, and soccer can be very cruel.
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So talking of Joyless soccer , yesterdays WHU news got me thinking , if Cushing was kicked to the curb , what’s everyone’s thoughts on Moyes as a replacement ?
I have to think he is done with the PL , at best he is going to get hired at Xmas by s struggling bottom club to get them out of trouble, I don’t see him going to Europe again , so I think he may like the idea of the MLS
If he coaches winning soccer, I don't particularly care. Dome was a CFG toadie but he had us as good as we've ever been. We don't win a championship without the stuff Dome instilled in this group.
Was Dome really a CFG toadie? Pretty sure he had a career with many non CFG clubs before Man City. Cushing on the other hand…
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If anything Dome was a Pep toadie as almost all of his other gigs were as a Pep assistant. Dome was also outspokenly critical of CFG and ultimately left due to what was rumored to be a disagreement over what players he wanted signed.
No accomplished coach will tolerate the type of roster building that CFG is doing. Any coach with a considerable resume and name recognition would be blasting Lee and CFG at this point about the lack of experience among the attackers signed in the offseason. For that reason, I'm skeptical they will even part with Cushing and I agree with others that if they do the replacement will be another CFG yes man.
If they happen to sign a big coach and it also corresponds with them bringing in experienced players to support the new coach, I'd be pissed if I was Nick Cushing.
During this entire video, I just thought of the joyless soccer that we've been playing all season long...
Did they touch up the video? It looks very... smooth... for lack of a better word.
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