I’m over the moon that we sailed right through the stormy seas. Other than the run for the cup, I think this is the greatest stretch of wins this team has ever had. #coybib.
NYCFC Season Discussion 2024: The Definition of NYCFC is Doing the Same Thing Over and Over and Getting the Same Result
- Thread starter mgarbowski
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Top six teams in the table right now are Miami, Cincy, NYCFC, RBNJ, Toronto, and Charlotte.
Of the 10 games this year against those five other top table teams, NYCFC has already played seven of them with a record of 4 W, 2L and one D with two home games (against the two top of the table teams) and one away game remaining.
Pretty good way to handle a tough schedule.
Of the 10 games this year against those five other top table teams, NYCFC has already played seven of them with a record of 4 W, 2L and one D with two home games (against the two top of the table teams) and one away game remaining.
Pretty good way to handle a tough schedule.
It's close, at least from a PPG perspective. There's been a few that are better over a 7 or 8 game stretch. But there's still a chance to string a few more wins and make this a better stretch.
Also, realizing that you may not even mean strictly from a PPG perspective, but maybe a form, consideration of opponent, vibes, etc.
Haha I was 100% talking about going up against all three of our biggest rivals and knocking them all down in a row, regardless of home and away. But yes the PPG being close is also awesome!
One fun aspect of this NYCFC team right now is that they have a very high ceiling. They have the potential to be one of the best teams in the league. Almost every player and backup is young and could become much better as the season goes on and the team could improve collectively with more repetitions of their pattern of play, but they are playing well now. Too early to say what they will look like during tournament play, but its a treat to watch your team when they are playing well and could easily continue to improve (e.g. through goalscoring production from the 9)
I wonder what the strength of schedule breakdown looks like now. There has been a fair amount of shuffling of teams in the standings since a month ago - it seems to me more than usual. The above suggested that things had been easy and would only get harder. Now, we can see that we've played 7 of 10 games against our 5 toughest opponents in the East.
Played to date is 1.27, 7th easiest. Remaining is 1.36, tied for 11th hardest. So your guess is correct that NYC's schedule has moved a bit to the median on both sides, though it stilll qualifies as easy so far and harder to come. The real shift in future difficulty happens after Game 21 at home against Montreal. Opponent H/A PPG over the next 7 games is 1.23. For the final 13 games it is 1.43, largely because the final 13 has
Gotham Gator
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Here's one for you: if we win our game in hand (will be two after tonight) we are only 5 points behind Miami.
I'd Rather Be Lucky and Good than Unlucky and Bad
Here is a table comparing every NYCFC season to date. All numbers are per game so 2020 and this season need no adjustment to compare to the others. Blue means that year had the best number; red means the worst.
What strikes me, apart from the utter defensive incompetence of 2015, is how 2023 had (1) the worst actual offensive number (shots, goals), (2) the worst xG, and (3) the worst underperformance compared to x numbers for each of Points, Goals, Goals Against and GD. The team created very few shots, failed to finish, and on defense gave up more goals than expected. Bad shot generation, bad finishing, bad shot stopping, bad luck, bad everything.
You look at this year, and the change, and it is different, but not crazy good. Goals scored trails every year but 2023 and 2015. xG is slightly above average. But, let's break 2024 into the first 7 games and the most recent 10. A blue cell means that 2024 would be the best NYCFC season for that stat, if it actually were a full season, red the opposite:
They started as the lowest scoring, worst GD, and worst under-performing team ever, except for xGA-xG, which was all Freese.
Since then, we see the most goals, fewest allowed, highest GD, highest xG, best GD, most points, and best over-performance on Points and Goals Allowed. It's just 10 games, and smaller samples yield extreme results, but still, the change from 2023 and the season start is striking.
The team is legitimately much better. The xGF might be unsustainable but it's not quite best ever level, falling just behind 2019 LAFC and 2018 Atlanta. The GA over-performance should stay positive, though Freese also could slip a bit. His current G-xG/Gm number place him 4th all time on ASA for Keepers with 1700 minutes minimum in a season.But all of those stats pointing the same way means something.
Additional historic notes: NYC over-performed xPts every year until 2021. Remember the summer slump and certain voices saying it was just bad luck, and then it changed and we won the Cup? Yeah, that. But it continued in 2022 and 2023. And now the tide seems to have turned.
Alonso and Malachi
After the hat trick I was pondering how good the team looks when Martinez and Jones are on the field. So I did some digging and looked at the team Goals per 90 when either is on the field compared to not. It's a flawed stat. Both have mostly played as subs. A lot of goals naturally come late when new legs face tired defenders. They neither scored nor assisted on many of the relevant goals. These are very small sample sizes.
Still, it tells a story (all numbers are for the team, not the player):
Make of that what you will.
More to come; I've got family stuff this afternoon.
Here is a table comparing every NYCFC season to date. All numbers are per game so 2020 and this season need no adjustment to compare to the others. Blue means that year had the best number; red means the worst.
What strikes me, apart from the utter defensive incompetence of 2015, is how 2023 had (1) the worst actual offensive number (shots, goals), (2) the worst xG, and (3) the worst underperformance compared to x numbers for each of Points, Goals, Goals Against and GD. The team created very few shots, failed to finish, and on defense gave up more goals than expected. Bad shot generation, bad finishing, bad shot stopping, bad luck, bad everything.
You look at this year, and the change, and it is different, but not crazy good. Goals scored trails every year but 2023 and 2015. xG is slightly above average. But, let's break 2024 into the first 7 games and the most recent 10. A blue cell means that 2024 would be the best NYCFC season for that stat, if it actually were a full season, red the opposite:
They started as the lowest scoring, worst GD, and worst under-performing team ever, except for xGA-xG, which was all Freese.
Since then, we see the most goals, fewest allowed, highest GD, highest xG, best GD, most points, and best over-performance on Points and Goals Allowed. It's just 10 games, and smaller samples yield extreme results, but still, the change from 2023 and the season start is striking.
The team is legitimately much better. The xGF might be unsustainable but it's not quite best ever level, falling just behind 2019 LAFC and 2018 Atlanta. The GA over-performance should stay positive, though Freese also could slip a bit. His current G-xG/Gm number place him 4th all time on ASA for Keepers with 1700 minutes minimum in a season.But all of those stats pointing the same way means something.
Additional historic notes: NYC over-performed xPts every year until 2021. Remember the summer slump and certain voices saying it was just bad luck, and then it changed and we won the Cup? Yeah, that. But it continued in 2022 and 2023. And now the tide seems to have turned.
Alonso and Malachi
After the hat trick I was pondering how good the team looks when Martinez and Jones are on the field. So I did some digging and looked at the team Goals per 90 when either is on the field compared to not. It's a flawed stat. Both have mostly played as subs. A lot of goals naturally come late when new legs face tired defenders. They neither scored nor assisted on many of the relevant goals. These are very small sample sizes.
Still, it tells a story (all numbers are for the team, not the player):
Make of that what you will.
More to come; I've got family stuff this afternoon.
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Defense concerns me. Our shots allowed are the highest since 2015, and got even worse in the last 10 games. We rank 19th in MLS.
The xGA is the worst since 2016 and ranks 18th. The GA is 7th, but it is all Freese. Even good keepers are streaky. He's on a great run, probably better than his median. Note how he was not quite as good in the first 7 games. Some shots cannot be stopped by anyone. It would be great to reduce shots allowed and xGA to at least league average or somewhat above so everything does not depend on him being amazing.
In the last 10 games the team's offensive base of shots taken and xG has gone above its historic average, but the defensive metrics are going the wrong way. Previous teams did not sacrifice defense for aggressive play. Are you thinking it might be Chanot? I wondered. Here's the split from last year, splite between when Chanot was on the roster and after (he played 19 of 23 games when he was here):
Shots allowed unchanged, and xGA barely moved. The big drop off did not happen until this season. The GA decrease was Freese.
Support Your Local Keeper
While relying too much on Freese to stop scoring, NYC is of course scoring more. From a keeper's perspective here is how that works: last year conceding 1 goal, Barraza was 2-3-7. Both keepers combined were 2-3-10. This year conceding 1 goal Freese is 5-2-2. Have a little sympathy for Luis. Freese is better at stopping goals, but Barraza got no support. Freese even has better luck on clean sheets. Freese has 7 wins and 1 draw in 2023-2 combined when allowing zero goals. Barraza had 2 wins and 2 draws.
Also, we have the same number of clean sheets through 17 games as last year, FWIW.
Progress, in Charts
If you want to compare to 8 games ago click here. I added 2018 and 2019 as comparison years. It's a little busy but you can make out the trends.
Last year's playoff line was 41; things seem heading the same way in 2024. Four more wins gets us there. Here are other ways to get there, and better (as of now we have as many wins as all of last year).
The xGA is the worst since 2016 and ranks 18th. The GA is 7th, but it is all Freese. Even good keepers are streaky. He's on a great run, probably better than his median. Note how he was not quite as good in the first 7 games. Some shots cannot be stopped by anyone. It would be great to reduce shots allowed and xGA to at least league average or somewhat above so everything does not depend on him being amazing.
In the last 10 games the team's offensive base of shots taken and xG has gone above its historic average, but the defensive metrics are going the wrong way. Previous teams did not sacrifice defense for aggressive play. Are you thinking it might be Chanot? I wondered. Here's the split from last year, splite between when Chanot was on the roster and after (he played 19 of 23 games when he was here):
Shots allowed unchanged, and xGA barely moved. The big drop off did not happen until this season. The GA decrease was Freese.
Support Your Local Keeper
While relying too much on Freese to stop scoring, NYC is of course scoring more. From a keeper's perspective here is how that works: last year conceding 1 goal, Barraza was 2-3-7. Both keepers combined were 2-3-10. This year conceding 1 goal Freese is 5-2-2. Have a little sympathy for Luis. Freese is better at stopping goals, but Barraza got no support. Freese even has better luck on clean sheets. Freese has 7 wins and 1 draw in 2023-2 combined when allowing zero goals. Barraza had 2 wins and 2 draws.
Also, we have the same number of clean sheets through 17 games as last year, FWIW.
Progress, in Charts
If you want to compare to 8 games ago click here. I added 2018 and 2019 as comparison years. It's a little busy but you can make out the trends.
Last year's playoff line was 41; things seem heading the same way in 2024. Four more wins gets us there. Here are other ways to get there, and better (as of now we have as many wins as all of last year).
In light of your earlier post with the 2024 split in half.
My sense before seeing the numbers was that during our winning streak, we haven't been as good as our results would suggest, but during our poor start, we were every bit as bad as our results suggest. I think the numbers support that somewhat, but not completely.
My sense before seeing the numbers was that during our winning streak, we haven't been as good as our results would suggest, but during our poor start, we were every bit as bad as our results suggest. I think the numbers support that somewhat, but not completely.
I wrote a little bit about this in my article I published today for The Outfield. I think our offense is as good as the numbers say it is, but our defense is not. The difference between the real and expected GA numbers is real easy to spot though. It's Matt Freese.In light of your earlier post with the 2024 split in half.
My sense before seeing the numbers was that during our winning streak, we haven't been as good as our results would suggest, but during our poor start, we were every bit as bad as our results suggest. I think the numbers support that somewhat, but not completely.
I'm looking at these next three games before the Leagues Cup break: Saturday Away at Chicago, Wednesday Away at Atlanta, Saturday Away at Orlando. We're on better form that all those teams and a minimum 7 points here would be great towards playoff positioning. Really think 4 is the ceiling for us since Columbus, Cincinnati, and Miami are going to run away with the East.
I think you are right about 4th place being the best possible placement.
To set context for Away game expectations, NYCFC's best ever number for Away wins is 7 in 2016 and 2019 (and 2020 IF adjusted for 34 games). The team average is about 5. We're sitting on 3 wins with 7 Away games remaining. Cincy and Miami are killing it Away this year with 9 and 8 wins respectively already. Then a big gap to 5 Away wins by 3 teams.
On another topic, NYCFC is done with the West conference for 2024 and it is the worst performance in club history. 2015 won just 0.8 PPG against the West. Last year 1.0. This year 0.50, only 3 points in 6 games, from a single result against the worst team in the league.
Yeah, in hindsight, St. Louis should have been at least a tie (they're terrible this season), Austin a tie too. Portland at home is also a bogey. And that Colorado loss at home was defeating.
And a far look into the final remaining home games on October 2 and October 5, it's very likely that both will be at Red Bull Arena. Wonder what the deadline will be for NYCFC FO to make the decision on it depending on if the Yankees/Mets are in a Wild Card race. Mets regular season ends on Sunday, September 29th. That's enough time to covert the field to soccer but everything else like ticketing will probably be the issue.
If both the Yankees and the Mets make at least the Wild Card, both games will be at RBA.
If both the Yankees and the Mets make at least the Wild Card, both games will be at RBA.
It seems very unlikely the Yankees drop out of the race altogether. Mets look like they could finish anywhere from first wild card to 3-4 spots out, but likely at a minimum will be in the mix at least until mid-late September. I'm with you thinking RBA is very likely for those last home games.
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