ACFC Midseason Player Report
xG +/- On/Off
I’ve talked about some of the Angel City players in the previous articles, but I also wanted to try to dig into who’s been performing the best for the team. There’s an interesting statistic that we can look at that takes the xG +/- net per 90 (or the team xG - team xGA on a per 90 basis), when a player is on the field, and subtracts the xG +/- net per 90 when the player is off the field. This can obviously be skewed heavily by sample size, e.g. if a player plays 99% of the minutes, and there isn’t a shot taken during the 1% she’s off the field, or a sub who makes one appearance in stoppage time, but there is a huge scoring chance in that time. But it can provide some insight into who helps the team. So with that being said, here are the Top 6 Angel City Players in this stat:
Alyssa Thompson +5.21, 97.9% minutes played
Claire Emslie +1.68, 81.6% minutes played
MA Vignola +1.14, 24.7% minutes played
Amandine Henry +0.98, 22.5% minutes played
Angelina Anderson +0.89, 23.1% minutes played
Paige Nielsen +0.89, 23.1% minutes played
Here are the Bottom 6 Angel City Players for the stat:
Katie Johnson -0.42, 7.6% minutes played
Maddison Curry -0.73, 78% minutes played
Didi Haračić -0.89, 76.9% minutes played
Gisele Thompson -1.02, 33.2% minutes played
Megan Reid -1.27, 71.6% minutes played
Rocky Rodríguez -1.41, 65.6% minutes played
For starters, I think that we should just ignore Alyssa Thompson and Katie Johnson on these lists. They have either played too many or too few minutes to make any kind of accurate comparison. I also think that we should subtract the keepers, because while they can definitely impact xGA, mostly these factors are not in their control, and I think that there are other statistics that better reflect a goalkeepers contribution. One quick aside, though: last year Alyssa was only averaging 58 minutes a game, so it’s really good to see her playing full 90s this year.
So that Top 6 is kind of surprising, right? With the subtractions that I made, that leaves four players and two of them don’t play for us anymore. So let’s just look at a player’s on-field contribution for a minute. There are actually only four Angel City players that have a positive xG Differential (i.e. xG-xGA) while they are on the field: Vignola (.44), Henry (.34), Anderson (.27), and Nielsen (.27). These are all per 90. Everyone else on the team has a negative xG Differential. So let’s look at the individual games to understand where this comes from.
There have only been 5 games in which Angel City generated more xG than their opponent, the home opener against Bay FC, away to Orlando (week 2), away to Chicago (week 4), away to Utah (week 7), and away to Houston (week 12). Angel City has conceded more xG in the other 8 games. The thing is, a lot of those games with a positive differential were pretty disappointing. To me, the opening loss to Bay looked like they got the lead, and then parked the bus in the latter part of the game, so of course we had more xG. The draw with Orlando also felt like a missed opportunity, with the only goal coming from an Emslie penalty. The only goal in the win at Chicago was an own goal, plus they didn’t have Mal Swanson for that match. The Utah match, especially now, looks pretty good, but they controlled a lot of the second half. and the 0-0 game in Houston also felt like a missed opportunity.
I think that generally everyone would want to have a positive xG differential, or put another way, everyone wants their team to generate a lot of chances, while also limiting the opposition’s chances. But in the games when Angel City has done this, it’s never felt like the statement win to build from. Which I think is part of why players haven’t been buying in. But the fact is that at the start of the season Angel City was playing better football, at least by this metric. Three of the games with positive xG Differential were in the first four weeks, and then only two in the next nine weeks. So to get back to looking at specific players, it’s not a surprise that three of the four players with a positive xG differential played almost entirely in only the first three matches.
It has always felt to me like there was a real shift at that point in the season. Obviously, there were the major changes of benching Anderson and trading away Nielsen and Henry. I also think that there was a change in formation, from a 4-3-3 to a 4-2-3-1. Going back to our On/Off lists at the start, I don’t think that we can say that Curry, Gisele, Reid, and Rodríguez have been bad, because there was this shift, and none of them got to play a big role in any of the first games. I would actually say that Curry and Gisele have been two of the bright spots in the season so far, which is part of what makes these stats difficult for me. It’s also impossible for us to say if the tactical changes came about because of the trades, or if Henry And Nielsen were traded in part because they weren’t viewed as fitting into the newer system. Or neither. It’s also hard to say because the away loss to Kansas City in Week 3 was, I thought, our worst game of the season. Three games is also just a really small sample size, so maybe we shouldn’t read too much into that early season positive xG Differential.
Goals +/- On/Off
I think that xG is a better predictor than actual goals, but let’s look at actual goals for a second. This is Team Goals Scored minus Team Goals Allowed per 90. Our Top 6 are:
Alyssa Thompson +10.64, 97.9% minutes played
Claire Emslie +1.58, 81.6% minutes played
Maddison Hammond +0.96, 40% minutes played
Didi Haračić +.08, 76.9% minutes played
Jasmyne Spencer +0.76, 65.1% minutes played
Lily Nabet +0.71, 46.0% minutes played
The Bottom 6 are:
Amandine Henry -0.83, 22.5% minutes played
Ali Riley -0.84, 22.2% minutes played
Kennedy Fuller -1.05, 51.9% minutes played
Messiah Bright -1.12, 17.6% minutes played
Gisele Thompson -1.16, 33.2% minutes played
Katie Johnson -1.77, 7.6% minutes played.
This list looks a little bit more reflective of how I think the club is thinking about players. Nielsen was just above Henry here, so on this list, they do look more like players that aren’t helping. Messiah Bright’s lack of minutes also make more sense looking at this list. The ones that really surprise me are Gisele Thompson, and Fuller to some degree.
When we look closer at the two of them, I think that it shows this is an anomaly. Gisele is second on the team in Tackles + Interceptions per 90 (5.58), behind only Curry. Fuller is 12th, but her 2.24 puts her between Dougherty Howard (2.61) and Hammond (2.12), so she doesn’t stand out as a defensive liability compared to other midfielders. Of course, this isn’t at all reflective of positioning, but it at least shows that these two players are not neglecting their defensive responsibilities.
Offensively, both are very good. Fuller and Gisele are 4th and 5th on the team is Shot Creating Actions, with 17 and 15 respectively. Fuller has also taken 10 shots worth .7 xG, while Gisele has taken 3 shots for .1 xG. However between all of that, they each only have 1 Goal Creating action apiece and only 1 Goal scored for Fuller. So 42 shots that they’ve created or taken, and only 3 goals to show for it, or 7.14%. At the team average of .1 npxG per shot, we’d expect over 4 goals from this level of creation.
Conclusions
Generally, my first objective with every article I write is to clarify something that doesn’t make sense to me, but I still feel pretty confused. There are a few points I’d take away, though. This, in essence, feels like the eternal debate between whether xG or actual goals are more important. Lots of people say that the actual scoreline is the only thing that matters. My personal thoughts are that xG can never predict a single game, but a team that has superior xG Differential over a whole season is going to be have a good season. You need that larger sample size to see results. And when Angel City have generated chances, they haven’t really gotten results. So they’ve tried other methods that do occasionally work, but not consistently. That first three game stretch really throws a wrench in things, as in some ways, it was our best football, but we only got one point, and were pretty comprehensively dismantled in that third game.
The second takeaway, and it pains me to say it, is that Angel City is a worse team than I thought. We’ve generally been in most games. That away game in Kansas City that I view as our worst performance could have been a 3-3 draw with just a few different bounces of the ball. The away game in Gotham that they completely controlled still only finished 2-1. So generally, I’d been feeling like we were close. But we only have one player who’s been on the field for more goals than we’ve conceded (Hammond), and only one player who’s been on the field for more xG than xGA (Vignola*). That’s just not what a good team looks like. We all like to look at how close we are to the playoff line, and it’s totally possible that we’ll turn things around in the second half of the season. But this team, right now, is far, far away from a contender. And it’s not on any one player, or coach, or staff member. We’re allowing more chances than most teams, and getting below average goalkeeping. We’re creating fewer chances and not converting the ones that we do have. I think that there is a mountain to climb, and I’m just now realizing how big that mountain might be. But I also haven’t given up hope, and I don’t think that we should give up on the season. I think that there are a lot of talented individuals, and that if there was a clear vision in what our football looked like, we could turn things around. But that means that the front office, the coaching staff, and the players are all on the same page, and stick to the plan, even if it doesn’t immediately reap rewards.
* I’m only including Vignola, but Henry, Nielsen and Anderson also had positive xG Differential. But I think for obvious reasons I’m not including them.