ACFC Wingers

Author’s Note: My apologies that it’s taken so long to get this article out. I have decided to go back to school to get a Master’s in Sports Administration, and hopefully turn that into an actual job in football. I’ve started at Northwestern, and this first quarter has been especially challenging (although I expect this first one to be the hardest). At the same time, I don’t want to compromise on the depth of the articles (actually, I’m probably going to want to get into more depth, incorporating what I’m learning), which is just going to mean that the articles will be less frequent. I did want to say, though, that I wouldn’t be taking this step if I hadn’t started writing Goosecat, and if you, the readers, hadn’t been so encouraging. Really, my sincere thanks to each of you. Anyway, on to the article

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At the start of the season, I thought that this position was the deepest that it’s been for Angel City. We had three players that could all be starters in Emslie, Alyssa Thompson, and Endo. With the fullback depth, I thought that Spencer would mostly see playing time as a winger. And with the trade for Bright, who I assumed was going to be the starting No 9, I thought that Leroux would also get some minutes from wider positions. How wrong I was about all of that. Now, at the end of the season, we’re only going to be looking at three players in the winger position: Emslie, Alyssa, and Press. Endo missed the entire season, Spencer played the most minutes of any fullback, and while other fullbacks in Vignola and Gisele Thompson had some appearances at winger, they were primarily defenders. Press, of course, did make her return, but also played fewer minutes than I expected, based on the point in the season in which she returned.

Alyssa Thompson

It does make me happy that Alyssa had not only the most minutes of any winger, but the most minutes of any ACFC player. Last year, she had 13 starts and 7 substitute appearances. She averaged 72 minutes per start, and only played 3 complete games. Of course, the famous moment is that video when she drank the Hot Shot, but it she was definitely having to adjust to the intensity of the professional level. So it was encouraging that this year she had 24 starts and averaged 87 minutes per start, with 16 complete games. She played at least some part in every single game. Her total minutes went up from 1,155 in 2023 to 2,144 in 2024. That alone might make the season a success for her. The first thing a player has to do is get on the field; nothing else happens without that. And playing almost 1,000 more minutes shows that Alyssa is successfully adapting to the rigors of the NWSL.

Shooting

Thus far, we haven’t actually had too many offensive contributors. In the previous positional groups the most actual goal contributions from anyone we’ve discussed was 3, Dougherty Howard and MA Vignola each with 1 Goal + 2 Assists. But now we are actually getting into some significant contributors, and consequently I’ll be looking at some additional stats. Alyssa had 5 Goals + 7 Assists in 2024, which represents an increase of 6 Goal Contributions from her rookie year, even though she actually only scored 1 more Goal. We’ll discuss the assists next, but there’s actually not a huge increase in Alyssa’s shooting from 2003 to 2024. Shots per 90 actually went down by .08 (2.18 to 2.1), Shots on Target Percentage went up by 1.9% (32.1%-34%), xG per 90 went up slightly (.21 to .24), and Goals per Shot also went down slightly (.14 to .1).

Alyssa’s xG went up to 5.8 from 2.7, but, of course, she also played 1,000 more minutes. Because she overperformed her xG in 2023 by +1.3, but underperformed it in 2024 by -0.8, she ends up with only 1 additional goal, but the underlying stats show that she is on an upward trajectory. Her xG per Shot only went from 0.10 to 0.12.

But as I’m sure we all remember, Alyssa had a season of two halves in terms of goal scoring. In the 16 games prior to the Olympic break, she had 0 Goals and 2.7 xG from 31 Shots, or .087 xG per Shot. In the 10 games after the break, Alyssa had 5 Goals and 3.1 xG from 19 Shots, or .163 xG per Shot. Lots of people talked about how she had the yips at the start of the season, or she needed to regain her confidence, and that’s probably part of it, but she was also taking much better shots after the break, or specifically, taking shots from much better positions. Of those first 31 shots, 8 were on Target (25.8%), but that went up to 9 of 19 (47.36%) after the break. Part of it is that I think she was forcing matters in the first half of the season, but once she was shooting from better spots, she started scoring. I can remember multiple instances where she was trying to pick out the corner from a bad angle in that first half. And I hope that decision making is something that we see from the start of the 2025 season.

For context, Alyssa ranks as pretty average compared to rest of the NWSL, but FBRef groups Attacking Midfielders and Wingers together and they are including some genuine superstars in this group, like Temwa Chawinga, Sophia Wilson (neé Smith), and Mallory Swanson. So bearing that mind, Alyssa is in the 47th percentile for Goals and for Shots, 43rd percentile for Shot on Target percentage, and 64th percentile for xG per Shot. Her overall NPxG (5.8) puts her in the 60th percentile. It’s not possible for me to have an accurate comparison of her second half with the rest of the league, but she would clearly rank much higher if we just looked at those 10 games. The sample size question is a little bit of a problem. I think that there was some positive regression to the mean in the second half, but I also think that Alyssa played better and made better decisions. So, part luck, part better football.

Alyssa’s .12 xG per Shot is maybe the most intriguing number to me. The players with the best numbers here tend to be substitutes, actually, due to a lower number of chances, but usually of a higher quality. For instance, Makenna Morris is the leader in NPxG per shot per 90, but she only played 536 minutes with 4 starts, and it probably wouldn’t even have been that much if it wasn’t for the fact that Washington had so many injuries. Still, she also finished with 5 Goals, same as Alyssa. On the other hand, Sophia Wilson’s NPxG per Shot (.09) is worse than Alyssa’s, but she also takes more than twice as many shots per game (5.23). I think that Alyssa is not quite as central a player as Wilson, but if she can increase her volume of Shots to something more like 3 Shots per 90, while maintaining something close to the .16 NPxG per Shot that she had after the break, then Alyssa would comfortably be a 10 Goal scorer on the season. And I think that all of those metrics are very much within her reach.

Playmaking

When she first joined Angel City, I thought that Alyssa primarily looked like a scoring threat. But this past season, her playmaking ability maybe stood out more. She went from 2 Assists in ‘23 to 7 Assists in ‘24, with her xAG rising from 2.4 to 4.7. Another aspect that I like is that of Alyssa’s 7 Assists, 2 were to Emslie, 2 were to Leroux, and 1 each to Le Bihan, Bright, and Vignola. So it’s not just that there was one connection that was working; Alyssa was feeding multiple players in good positions. Her 7 Assists actually were 2nd in the NWSL, behind only Croix Bethune, although her Assists per 90 (.29) rank her 10th in the league.

But building off that last piece, the underlying stats aren’t quite as good. Those 7 Assists overperformed her xAG by 2.3 and her xA by 2.7. When we look at those same stats on a per 90 basis, they don’t look bad, but also not elite: her .2 xAG per 90 is in the 61st percentile, while her .18 xA per 90 is in the 66th percentile of NWSL wingers and attacking mids. Similarly, her 34 Key Passes are close to the top of the league, but at 1.43 Key Passes per 90, she’s only in the 52nd percentile.

And just to touch on some other passing stats: Alyssa was 40th percentile in Pass Attempts (28.8 per 90), 80th percentile in Pass Completion Percentage (72.4%), 60th percentile in Passes into the Penalty Area (1.18), and 61st percentile in Crosses into the Penalty Area (.34).

Moving on to Shot Creating Actions, Alyssa was in the 52nd percentile of Total SCAs per 90 (3.15) and the 57th percentile of Live Ball Pass SCAs (2.35). The other one that stands out is Fouls Drawn SCAs, which was .21 (74th percentile. Overall, Alyssa led the team in SCAs with 75, and was fourth on Angel City in SCAs per 90 with 3.15. She also led the team in Goal Creating Actions with 11, more than twice as many as the second best player. And finally, Angel City as a team got a Goal Creating Action on 10.2% of their Shot Creating Actions, but Alyssa was getting a GCA on 14.67% of hers.

So what do we take from all of that? It kind of goes back to volume, which isn’t a bad thing. She overperformed her xAG, but looking at the video, I don’t think that any of the assists were too lucky, except for the one on Le Bihan’s goal (which was very, very lucky). Good players are going to overperform, and Alyssa just has to show that she can do that consistently. And yes, she did play a lot of minutes, but so did other wingers, and they didn’t get 7 Assists.

My other concern is that she never had a game with both a goal and an assist. Part of that is down to how one dimensional the Angel City attack often was. But it would be nice to see Alyssa posing a threat to score or assist in any given situation.

Possession

Anyone who’s watched even one game of Alyssa’s knows that she seems most dangerous when she has the ball at her feet, and consequently, her Carry stats are some of her best. But before we get into that, it’s worth noting her Touches. She was only in the 29th percentile with 40.8 Touches per 90. Touches in the Middle Third (16.16) and Attacking Third (18.72) are also lower than I’d like and good for just the 34th and 36th percentile respectively. For context, Delphine Cascarino had the most Touches in the Attacking Third per 90 with 30.89, or 65% more than Alyssa.

I wanted to mention Touches first, because it does give some context to her Carries and makes them even a little bit more impressive. Total Carries per 90 (25.06) was only 40th percentile, which is up from her Touches (29th percentile), but I think that these things go together. When you don’t have the ball, you can’t carry the ball. But Total Carrying Distance (183.4 yards) was 80th percentile, Progressive Carries (3.84) was 83rd percentile, and Progressive Carrying Distance (91.72) was in the 82nd percentile. Almost half of her Total yards were Progressive yards. And finally, Carries into the Penalty Area (2.6) was in the 91st percentile. Because Alyssa actually had the ball a little less than most of her peers, I think that it says a lot that she’s still able to get near the top of these categories. Most of the leaders here are players like Trinity Rodman and Sophia Wilson, players that the attack is designed around. I don’t think that Alyssa is quite at that level, yet. But if the Angel City attack was also designed to get her into space in a similar manner, I think that we would see her as one of the best wingers in the league.

One caveat to this, though, is Take-Ons. Alyssa was in the 64th percentile in Take-Ons Attempted (3.27), but only 39th percentile in Successful Take On Percentage (39.7%). My personal feeling is that this is more about decision-making than about skill. There were so many times, especially at the start of the season, when she would run straight at the defender, including a memorable time when you could even hear Tweed saying, “Take the outside!” Alyssa’s balance and acceleration are so good that she can beat a defender from a stand still, but because she can, it doesn’t mean that’s the best approach. She also has such good control, especially dribbling at speed, that I think that she should use her pace. I’d guess at the youth level, more defenders would panic when you go straight at them, but I don’t think that’s true of the top defenders in the NWSL. However, I do think that any defender is going to be worried about Alyssa getting behind her. So I think that this is going to come in time, as she continues to learn what works and what doesn’t. And hopefully the coaching will help with that too.

Defensive Stats

I’m probably not going to talk too much about defensive statistics for most of the attackers, but I have to mention this again because it absolutely blows my mind: Alyssa Thompson had more Tackles in the DEFENSIVE Third (22) than Sarah Gorden or Megan Reid (both 21). Alyssa was actually third on the team in this stat. I really can’t get over this. I don’t actually even see this as helping defensively. When Alyssa drops all the way back to help on defense, that is just inviting the opposing fullback to come forward and join the attack. If Alyssa stayed high, I’m betting that fullback is staying back too. And if they do, that means that Alyssa is able to run onto any clearance with nothing but green grass in front of her. After a couple goals, I feel confident that opposing teams would always keep someone back. In 2023 it was McCaskill that was staying high. In 2024, it was either Leroux or Dougherty Howard, usually. None of these players can stretch the field. Alyssa can. She shouldn’t be playing in the defensive third. And when she does come back and make those tackles, there is nobody ahead for her to pass it to. Sophia Wilson had 4 Tackles in the Defensive Third, and I think that’s where Alyssa should be too.

xG +/-

Alyssa’s Team xG and Goal Differential stats are very interesting, but we have to start off by acknowledging that she played 91.6% of the available minutes, meaning that there’s only 196 minutes to look at to see how the team performs without her. There are some interesting comparisons, though, to Haračić and Gorden, as the other two players on ACFC to also get at least 2,000 minutes.

Starting with Actual Team Goal Differential, Alyssa is tied with Megan Reid for the 2nd best per 90 at -.25. Looking at her On-Field vs Off-Field numbers, however, and Alyssa is the best of the bunch. The team averages +2.96 better Goal Differential per 90 when she’s on the pitch. That’s miles ahead of Emslie in second place with +1.1. Haračić was at +.57, while Gorden was at +.15. So while Alyssa’s number is probably skewed somewhat by goals conceded when she wasn’t playing (I’m thinking of that first half in Portland), we can’t put it all down to her number of minutes.

Alyssa’s Team xG Differential is lower, which isn’t surprising to me, since she outperformed her xAG numbers and had such a good ratio of GCAs to SCAs. Her Team xG Differential per 90 was -.21, which was 11th on the team. But her On-Field vs Off-Field Team xG Differential per 90 was +.59, which was fourth on the team (if we remove that outlier trio of Henry, Anderson, and Nielsen). But I think that’s enough to say that her actual Team Goal Differential isn’t a fluke. To me, the team is definitely better with her on the pitch.

Additional Thoughts

I think that Alyssa Thompson has a real claim as the best player on Angel City in 2024. She had the most Goal Contributions on the team (12, 5G + 7A) and the highest xG+xAG (10.5). She played the most minutes. I think that it can be easy to forget that she is still developing, and that this is only her second year. And honestly, she’s faced a lot of turmoil in these two years. I honestly believe that she has the potential to be a 10 Goal + 10 Assist player, however, which would be monumental. That kind of season would make her one of the best wingers in the world. I think that it was very positive to see her take on the minutes that she did this season. If she can add just a little bit more quality on a little bit more consistent basis, I think she can get there. And making her the centerpiece (figuratively, she’s definitely a winger) of the attack, giving her a genuine playmaker, plus a striker that actually helps her out, will all help. It’s hard to be too optimistic for 2025, but in another 2 or 3 years, with her current trajectory, I think that she can get there. Alyssa just signed a contract extension and is signed with Angel City through 2028 .

Claire Emslie

The only other player that I consider a contender to Alyssa for Angel City MVP is Claire Emslie. She was 4th on the team in minutes with 1,960, or 83.8% of the available minutes. Part of that, I think, was dealing with her extensive travel, as she often had to go back and forth to Europe during international breaks. And unfortunately for Emslie, Scotland didn’t make the Euros, just missing out on the final matchday of qualifying (Emslie’s interview after the match is heartbreaking). From the Angel City perspective, I think that the club and fans want to see our players playing in major tournaments, but it is good that she won’t be going to play a number of high intensity games on another continent in the middle of the season. But returning to playing time, this was also the most minutes that Emslie has ever played in her career. And even with all those minutes for Scotland, too, Emslie didn’t look fatigued to me at the end of the season. I often saw Tweed getting criticism for not playing Emslie for the full 90 (she only had 11 complete games out of 24 starts), but looking back on it, I think that it was the right call to manage her minutes.

Shooting

Emslie finished the season with 7 Goals, tied with Leroux for the team lead. She also passed McCaskill as the all-time Angel City Leading scorer, up to 13 goals, and tied the single-season goal scoring record (with Leroux, of course, and McCaskill in 2022). I know it’s only Angel City’s third season, but I think these milestones should be celebrated.

Of those 7 Goals, 3 of them were from the penalty spot, where Emslie went 3 for 4. That gives her a total 7.7 Total xG, but 4.5 Non-Penalty xG, so she just underperformed both metrics. Emslie was second on the team in shots, but there was a sizeable gap between her and Alyssa in first place: 33 to 50. When you look at Emslie’s 1.52 Shots per 90, she drops all the way to 7th on the team. But she did have the second best rate of Shots on Target, with 54.5%, behind only Vignola, but Emslie had three times as many Shots Taken. Her .14 npxG per Shot was also third best on the team.

Comparing these same stats to the other wingers around the league, we see basically the same trend. Emslie is in the 25th percentile of Shots, but 96th percentile of Shots on Target Percentage. 74th percentile in xG, then down to 36th percentile in npxG, but up to 83rd percentile in xG per Shot. And of course, she was in the 98th percentile for Penalties Made and Attempted, as well as Free Kicks.

My assessment is that Emslie is one of the best shooters on the team, but she’s clearly not considered the focal point of the team, i.e. moves are not really designed for her to be getting the final touch. Watching the games, I always felt like Emslie was making that sacrifice to contribute to the buildup. So let’s look at her playmaking stats and see if I’m right.

Playmaking

Emslie was tied for second on the team with only 2 Assists, however her underlying stats looked much better. She had 3.7 xAG and 4.3 xA, which was tied with Alyssa for first on the team. When a player underperforms their xG, there could be other factors, but you tend to think that the responsibility lies with them. But when a player underperforms their xAG, it seems more likely that her teammates are letting her down. I think especially when we see an xA that’s higher than the xAG. Because xAG only measures the xG of the shot following a pass, while xA is based on the likelihood that a pass will be an assist, it seems that this discrepancy is caused by Emslie’s teammates not even getting off a shot after she passes it to them in a good position. If we take one more step back and look at Key Passes (so not worrying about position at all, but just any pass that leads to a shot), we find that Emslie leads the team with 43, 9 more than Alyssa in second place. On a per 90 basis, Emslie is second behind Le Bihan with 1.97.

There’s no real surprises when we compare these stats to the rest of the league. Emslie is 47th percentile in Assists, 53rd percentile in xAG, 74th percentile in xA, and 85th percentile in Key Passes. The progression of these stats goes from most reliant on a teammate to least reliant on a teammate. The more we look at stats that only are reflective of Emslie’s ability, the better she looks.

Shot Creating Actions are interesting, and a little perplexing. Emslie is again second on the team behind Alyssa. In this case, it’s Alyssa with 75, Emslie with 69, and then a huge drop to Zelem in third with 34. When we look at SCAs per 90, it’s Zelem in 1st, then Le Bihan, and then Emslie with 3.17, just edging out Alyssa at 3.15. The thing is, Alyssa got 11 Goal Creating Actions, or a GCA on 14.67% of her SCAs, while Emlie only had 4 GCAs, or 5.80% of her SCAs. This is really shockingly low. Part of it is that 23 of Emslie’s SCAs came from deadballs, and probably a lot of those were corners. Angel City just didn’t have a good target for those set pieces last year (but we do now! probably nobody was happier to see Alanna Kennedy arrive than Emslie). But I think it’s fair to expect that this is unsustainably low, and that if Emslie keeps generating shots for her teammates at this rate, we’ll see more of them go in.

Passing

There are two major areas of Passing that stood out to me regarding Emslie. The first is crosses. For the second year in a row, Emslie led the entire NWSL in crosses with 181. Alyssa was second on the team with 37. I really wonder if this is Emslie’s idea, or the coach’s, but it’s never worked. Of those 181, only 15 are considered to have connected with a teammate in the penalty area. I think that Emslie is a pretty good crosser, but it’s usually just one or two static targets against at least four defenders. My opinion is that there was never more of a plan than to have Emslie swing the ball in and cross your fingers.

The other that stood out to me was Long Passing, or a Pass of at least 30 yards. Emslie was in the 94th percentile of wingers in Long Passes Attempted, with 7.07 per 90, and 80th percentile in Long Passes Completed, with 2.2 per 90, but her Completion Percentage was only 31.2%, 12th percentile. Long Passes were not that successful, and again, I don’t know if that’s Emslie forcing them, or the coach’s instructions. But the fact that she is dropping so deep to get the ball that she is in a position to make Long Passes is a problem for me.

Her other Passing stats don’t seem very noteworthy. She is in the 69th percentile of Total Passes Attempted, but a very low 59% Passing Completion Percentage, only 7th percentile of NWSL Wingers. Digging into that a little, Emslie’s Short Passing Completion Percentage (78.3%) was not bad, but the Medium (65.6%) and Long (31.2%) Completion Percentages really bring that down. This makes sense to me, though. When one of the front three drops deep and is looking for a longer pass forward, there are only two options. And the defense can ignore the side of the field that the passer is on and concentrate on the other two. This is almost always going to be a 2 v 4, best case scenario, so it’s not surprising to me that these passes are so unsuccessful. So to me, this is indicitive of Emslie being in the wrong place, making the wrong pass, rather than her passing ability.

Possession

This is interesting, and actually does seem to contradict my earlier opinion. Emslie actually led Angel City in Touches in the Attacking Third with 546, 100 more than Alyssa in second place with 446. In terms of Touches in the Middle Third and Defensive Third, Emslie is in the 47th, and 55th percentile of NWSL wingers respectively. I think these categories are skewed by players like Avery Patterson in Houston, who is a winger, but spends a lot of the game defending, because it’s Houston. But the one that really stands out is Touches in the Penalty Box. Emslie only has 3.03 per 90, good for the 28th percentile. On Angel City, Emslie is still second on the team, but her 66 Touches in the Attacking Penalty Box are dramatically below Alyssa with 119. I think that Emslie was also more likely to be overlapped, as Gisele and Spencer have more Touches in the Attacking Third and Penalty Box than Curry, the most common Left Back last year. So yes, Emslie was a crucial player in the attacking third, but she was never the point of the spear.

xG +/-

And finally, the most compelling evidence for Emslie as Angel City’s 2024 MVP. Looking at the Team xG Differential per 90 On Field vs Off Field, Emslie is the leader with +1.14 ahead of Sarah Gorden at +0.75 in second. The difference between 1st and 2nd place here, is almost the same as the difference between 2nd and 8th place. Emslie stands alone. And playing 83.8% of the minutes, we have pretty good samples of how the team looks with her and without her. Looking at actual goals, Team Goal Differential per 90 On Field vs Off Field has Emslie in second, behind Alyssa, with +1.1. I think this is actually pretty great, as a surprisingly large number of the chances that Emslie generated did not result in goals, as we discussed earlier.

Additional Thoughts

I’m not sure that I have a pick between Alyssa and Emslie for team MVP. I think that they were both outstanding. But I do think that Emslie sacrificed more of her personal stats for the team. Which is not to say that Alyssa didn’t, just that Emslie did more, in my opinion. But I think Emslie spent a lot of time trying to set up her teammates, who are just not as good as she is (again, in my opinion). I would love to see a version of the team where someone else is setting up Emslie, either to take the shot, or make the final pass. Increasingly, I feel like Angel City should utilize a False 9 to be feeding both Emslie and Alyssa. Emslie signed a new contract for two more years, and Angel City is lucky to have her onboard.

Christen Press

Press finally returned after tearing her ACL in 2022. That alone is makes this season a success in my eyes. I did think that we were going to see more of her when she played during the Summer Cup. All in all, she played 203 NWSL minutes from 9 Games with 1 start, averaging 8.7 minutes per match. Just for some context, Kerolin was also coming back from an ACL and played 235 minutes in 5 games with 2 starts, averaging 47 minutes. Not all ACL injuries are the same, and clearly Press had a number of difficulties in her comeback, so I don’t want to equate the two. However, I do want to illustrate that this was a particularly long time for Press to try to get match fit, and I’m not sure that she ever really got there during the season. Having had an additional offseason and a preseason should help. Still, I’m not sure that we’ll ever see the Christen Press of old.

As always when we get to the final player on these lists, I don’t think that we can get any meaningful statistical analysis out of the 2024 season for Press. 203 minutes is just too small, and most of those appearances were too short to make any meaningful impact. FBRef will not actually even compare her to other players because her minutes are not enough. But this is Christen Press we’re talking about, so I don’t think that I can just skate past either. And actually, there are some numbers that I find interesting, but we just can’t assign too much meaning to them.

Offensive Statistics

I think that any per 90 stats are going to be very skewed and not worth looking at. But there is some shot data worth looking at. Press had 1 Goals from 9 Shots with 2 Shots on Target. The most meaningful of those to me is the 2 Shots on Target out of 9, or 22.2% On Target Percentage. This is actually exactly the same as Madison Hammond (2 for 9), and tied for 17th on the team. She generated .5 xG from those 9 Shots, or .06 xG per Shot, which was 13th on the team.

Press only had .1 xA and xAG, so very little to discuss there. She had 6 SCAs, and I know I just said that I any per 90 framing was going to be skewed, but there’s no other way to compare this, so that comes out to 2.67 SCAs per 90, which is 10th on the team. 10th is actually lower than I’d expect, as her lack of minutes should have skewed that higher (for instance, Katie Johnson and Elizabeth Eddy are both above Press here for that very reason). I think what I find most interesting, is that of those 6 SCAs, only 3 of them are passes. The other three are Take Ons and Shots.

Possession

I saw a lot of fans, once Press was back on the field, questioning why Press wasn’t getting the ball more often. And it’s true that her actual Touches per 90 ranks 18th on the team. What’s interesting, though, is that Press was the leader in Touches per 90 in the Attacking Third and in the Attacking Penalty Box. As I said, though, per 90 stats make me a little bit uncertain in this case, so let’s look at some actual match data.

In the 1-0 win over the Reign, Press came on in the 88’ and had 10 Touches, with 8 of those being in the Attacking Third. Those 8 Touches were the 5th most on ACFC that match, ahead of Dougherty Howard who played 80 minutes, and Bright, who played 63 minutes.

In the 1-1 draw away to North Carolina, the game in which Press scored, she came on in 65’ and had 16 Touches, with 7 in the Attacking Third. Press was tied for 4th this time, but really wasn’t far off Alyssa, who played the full 90 and had 10 Touches in the Attacking Third. Press also had the most Touches in the Attacking Penalty Box of any Angel City player in this match.

The 1-1 home draw with the Royals was a change of this trend. Press entered in the 67’, had 16 Touches, but only 4 in the Attacking Third. The bulk of her Touches were in the Middle Third. Alyssa led the way again with 24 Touches in the Attacking Third.

And finally, the 0-3 loss away to Portland, which was the only game that Press started. She played 63 minutes and had 31 Touches. 13 of those were in the Attacking Third, which was 5th on the team, but her 5 Touches in the Attacking Penalty Box actually led the team.

These were the final four games of the season. There are two ways to look at this: 1) Press got herself into more scoring positions, or 2) Press was put into more scoring positions. I had the idea to just look at the ratios of Angel City’s top attackers

Looking at the table above, we see that Press is tied with Emslie for the most Shots per Touch (.5), but Press has the worst Shots on Target per Touch (.111111) and npxG per Touch (.02777778). Again, we have to acknowledge that this is a super small sample size, but the intial evidence suggests that Press made less of her opportunities than the other attackers. The fact that she actually has such a high Shot per Touch ratio, but a low npxG and Shot on Target ratio also suggests that she was taking a lot of bad shots. I know there’s a school of thought that says that players of a certain caliber should shoot from anywhere, but if you’re not putting it on frame, then you’re taking pressure off the opposing team and giving them back the ball. And the fact that she is tied for the lead in this group in Shots per Touch, in addition to her high number of Touches in the Attacking Box, should dispel the notion that Press wasn’t getting opportunities. In fact, she was getting them, but she was often not effective with them.

Additional Thoughts

As I mentioned in the article I wrote before her return, Press hasn’t played over 1,000 minutes since 2019. Just for perspective, the Utah Royals team that she played for that year has since ceased operations, and then been reinstated as a new franchise. A lot of time has passed. I’m not trying to be pessimistic about her chances, and I would love to see her return to that form, but I don’t think that it’s realistic. I actually think that it’s unfair to expect her to perform at the same level as she did in 2015. But I worry this could be a problem. There is not a question in my mind that Emslie should start over Press, but if Press isn’t starting, there will be a portion of the fanbase demanding that she does. Press spent a portion of the offseason as a free agent, but it was hard to imagine her signing with anyone else, both from Angel City’s perspective and from hers. In the end, it was a one year contract, which I found interesting. That feels like both sides want to see what a healthy season looks like before entering into negotiations again. But I think that Press and Angel City are also going to have to learn what a new role looks like.

Final Thoughts on the Winger Position

Despite only having three players qualify here, this position actually looks really good for Angel City. Emslie and Alyssa were both outstanding, and there is reason to believe that they could both be even better next year. I think that Press can provide quality and depth. With Endo returning as well, plus new signing Julie Dufour, I think that this is one area of Angel City that I’m not worried about. And I sincerely hope that I didn’t jinx it by saying that. We’ll see what the new tactics are for the year, but I think that Emslie and Alyssa are our best players, and I’d like to see the team supporting them, instead of them supporting the rest of the team.

I will be sure to have the Striker article out before the start of the season (it’s already in progress), just so the full positional group analysis is complete. And even if I’m not writing articles as frequently, please feel free to ask any questions. It’s always good to hear what people are thinking.