The Recap - Gameweek 6
#BecauseMLS
There are highs and there are lows, and when it comes to lows, last week was one of the lows. Was it the international hangover? Players hitting form? Losing form? Or just Major League Soccer? It’s Major League Soccer.
FlavorTownSC did not have a good week, the player picks didn’t hit and the players not picked did hit. Finished with 56 points, three points above the average, forty-six points below the highest score of the week, so yeah…just bad. Not only did FlavorTown have a rough outing, the overall top spot is fading out of view fast, the space between is now set at eighty-three points. The bright spot is that the team value has risen to $122.6M and now can afford the best players to rise through the ranks. Time to look at what happened and what can be adjusted for next week.
The Good, The Bad, The MLS
The Good
This will be short as there wasn’t much to celebrate last week. The top and only players that performed well last week were my two defenders from Minnesota - Hlongwane and Duggan, Ojeda (Orlando), and Evander (Cincinnati). Hlongwane and Duggan were part of a Minnesota squad that scraped together a shutout on a cold rainy snowy night and were lucky not to concede multiple goals. I figured there was going to be goals in the Nashville and Cincinnati match but I didn’t think that Mukhtar would miss out on the fun. It’s the second week in a row where having Evander in the lineup was crucial to keeping up and not falling behind other fantasy managers. Finally, Ojeda - is a player reborn so far this season. He’s second among all players in overall total points and only trails the top overall player, Rusnak (Seattle) by two points.
The Bad
Dropping Rusnak for Evander and not dropping Biel (Charlotte), Forsberg (NJRB), or Mukhtar for Rusnak. He’s the leader in points and bonus points in the league, so…why did I not have him in my squad? That’s on me. Last week was a confusing outcome for road midfielders but a resounding return for out of form midfielders playing at home. Overlooking Mihailovic (Colorado) and Gil (New England) hurt in ways that I’d rather not dwell on. They were the top earners with sixteen and fifteen points respectively.
The MLS
It’s hard to separate the bad from the MLS this week but the crown should go to Chicago after their one one draw with Montreal. Chicago has turned their fortune around, yet struggled to get points from a home fixture that favored them winning and scoring multiple goals. Rogers and Gutman were part of a defense that couldn’t keep the sheets fresh and my captain - Cuypers was subbed out after not contributing in any way offensively. Collectively all three players tallied 10 points. Not a good showing and demonstrates that expecting things to happen a certain way in MLS is a terrible thing to hope for. Mukhtar also qualified this week after a two point performance after a missed penalty and a last minute loss to Cincinnati at home. He’s fifth overall among players for the most bonus points with nineteen and sure he’ll bounce back and start hitting on penalties.
Strategy & Data
Switching up what to look for, as it proved to be something I overlooked last week and so far this season, even though it’s important to my player selection. When it comes to bonus point generation, the range for the top ten midfielders is twenty-seven to sixteen. Of those, eight are designated players. When it comes to forwards, this stat shows why forwards shouldn’t be given the captains arm band. Among forwards, the range for the top ten is fifteen to eight. Not great numbers, but all of the top ten are designated players. The range gets even smaller when looking at the top ten defenders at eleven to six and individual play makes them stand out and NOT fresh sheet bonus points. Half of the top ten are defenders from teams that are giving up the most goals per ninety minutes. D.C. have two players in the top ten - Herrera and Schnegg. Wagner of course, leads all defenders when it comes to bonus point generation.
Home teams had the second most dominating week of the season with eight wins - bad week to choose away midfielders. And higher ranked teams in the Supporter Shield standings had some good results winning or drawing five out of six matches and only half were able to score two or three goals. Higher ranked teams on the road did not fare as well - grabbing only three wins on the road out of eight possible teams, and only half scored two goals or more.
Fresh sheets and shutouts were not a theme last week, as there were only five last week. While the strategy to focus on one or two squads to keep the shut out was a good strategy, one of the two clubs I picked - did not work out. While 33% of teams kept shut outs last week, this is well below the overall average of 56% of matches finishing with fresh sheets and four of the first six weeks have had an average of 60% to 80% of clubs walking away with a shut out.
That’s all I got. Back tomorrow with my lineup, scenarios and hopes for the weekend.