I agree completely with your assessment that overall our personnel are subpar for the league and have been saying that ad nauseum since last February. But a team can be both bad and unlucky.
You guys are hilarious. If I dropped a bunch of team logos onto a piece of graph paper, someone would have an 'analysis' that fit their current understanding of the situation. Just because you can put two axes together doesn't mean it's useful.
I think you are over-interpreting it. There is no analysis being suggested. No regression, no correlation, nothing of the sort. The plot is just a visual presentation of # of shots allowed and quality of shots being allowed by each team. You could present the same info in tables of course. But the graphical presentation makes it easier to quickly see where teams stand on these two dimensions.
I get that. I'm suggesting that xGA per shots allowed graphed against shots allowed per game is about as useful as cost of beer per shots allowed graphed against number of open concession stands.
Great article on MLS that reflects what many of us are saying. Atlanta hired Tata Martino as coach and he attracted great young players. Who was Onalfo ever going to attract? - in fact he potentially turned off high profile players. I would seriously look at Luis Enrique for next year, kick Sigi upstairs to handle the vagaries of MLS rules. https://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2017/09/27/why-tata-martino-was-man-land-young-stars-atlanta-united
I don't think he's been a "key problem", except that he's clearly not the player LA thought they were getting (a 6). Considering we lost Lletget and Husidic for this season and Jones for long periods, can anyone imagine what would have happened if we hadn't signed Pedro? He also started as the 8 in the best string of results we had, when Jones got injured vs. Chicago. He didn't take the league by storm in that position, but we tended to be better with than without him.
Here is a Here is an article of available players for the 2018 SuperDraft. I need to check their stats to see who has had a good year because it might be worth trading some people or giving up some TAM money to make the most of this draft as we will for the first time in a long time have a really high spot. If we could score another Omar/AJ/Franklin pickup in the draft it would be so worth it. https://www.brotherlygame.com/2017/1/20/14316134/2018-mls-superdraft-prospects
Like you say I don't know if Pedro is the "key" problem - we have so many big problems and I would put lack of a true striker as the biggest one (at least until JVD left). But Pedro is mediocre wherever you play him. Sure he makes some nice passes but he also is slow, soft and gets run over regularly. He isn't worth anything close to 1.5 mil.
Martino was perfect for Atlanta. He had the knowledge, the connections, the respect of young players and the will to build a great team from scratch. If we could find another Tata of course we should kick Sigi upstairs and go in that direction. But Tata is a rare exception - there is a long list of foreign coaches who've come to MLS and failed miserably. In fact I remember one failing in LA from a few years back... Also Tata had a smart, financially ambitious FO/owner supporting him. We need that as well.
You’d be hard pressed to say Anshutz isn’t smart and financially ambitious. He single handedly saved the league in 98, did a lot of rule bending and money spending to bring Hernandez, then Donovan, then Beckham and all sorts of other things along the way, I mean the league trophy is named after the guy. I think he just took his eye off the ball, not without reason, the Galaxy had been running quite smoothly for almost a decade through major player upheaval and executives leaving. He’s old and the Galaxy is a minor part of his empire. It’s entirely possible he thought it was in good hands, perhaps having witnessed the Toronto (?) embarrassment first hand he might turn his eye back to the Galaxy this off season. Or maybe he’s become an absentee owner he did tried to sell a few years ago, maybe he’s done and no one in AEG has the same kind of interest in the Galaxy.
I agree with LD's classification that it is a problem. It is silly to parse the size {gigantic, enormous, big, medium, small, tiny minuscule}. LA could have signed Breinburg who is a true ball-winning #6 and would have complemented not only Jones but also Lletget, and JDS when they play the #8. Pedro #6, partnered with either LLetget or JDS will either get destroyed or force the #8 to sit by Pedro's side to protect him thus neutering LA's attack Pedro is not dynamic enough and so below par as a MLS #8 so very little benefit from playing him there. LA will not be a championship club with Pedro as a starter in CM. Here is what I said at the time Pedro was signed.
No argument here about Phil who has been a hero for MLS and US soccer in general. Just saying we need bigger thinking and better strategists than Klein/Pete and their AEG direct boss Beckerman.
I think what bugs me is that hiring Onalfo was an admission that the club was not trying to be the best. We had no ambition. Maybe in the long run the best thing that could have happened was to have this disastrous season, and be forced to make bold moves. How bad would it be if Onalfo went .400 but kept his job (and Klienagas) for another year?
I don't have many problems with those aspects of Pedro's game. He's a finesse 8, not a motoring 8. He doesn't break up plays and win balls; he's going to do best in teams that dominate possession (which is not us, usually). In games like that this season, he's been good. But that's fairly open to opinion. Still, given that he's a young player (a year older than Boateng) his fee is amortized over the course of his career with the Galaxy. It can also be recouped if we sell him (which probably makes the most sense right now). I don't think this is as big a smoking gun.
When triaging a season, how is it "silly" to make distinctions between big problems and little ones? Well, Pedro's apparently not a 6 at all, so I don't know why we're still laboring under those assumptions. That was a legit gaffe that worked out in our favor: had we signed Breinburg, we would've played several games without an 8 of any quality, MLS or otherwise. Pedro may not lead us to championship, but I also don't think his performances aren't the reason that this is (most likely) the worst Galaxy season in franchise history.
That assumes Breinburg is good enough. He's currently playing in the Dutch 2nd tier, by the way, with his club shipping 59 goals in 34 games in the Eredivisie last season.
I may be wrong, but I think that this is too easy an explanation. New MLS clubs with the smaller expansion draft and with the unknown but substantially increased GAM and TAM allowances have a substantial advantage over existing clubs seeking to rebuild. After all its not like Curt or anyone else could undo the contracts of Gio, Gyasi, Cole, JVD, Rogers, etc. The new clubs also have ownership that has just made a huge investment and can probably see that the best path to a return is to continue to spend big. They haven't got to the point where there are differences in direction and they can take advantage of the changing trends in DP hiring.
Sigi talks about his plans for 2018. (IMO) A key point: And it's clear the team needs a goal scorer who, in the words of Schmid, "Can do some of the things that Robbie Keane and Landon Donovan did." Some chum for the people who want Jones gone, Sigi does not seem to share that sentiment: Schmid sounded more positive about the future of midfielder Jermaine Jones. "Jermaine has played very well for me since I've gotten here," he said. "He's been one of our more consistent players." Sigi has also not given up on Gio: With regards to brother Gio dos Santos, the question as to whether he can carry the team's creative burden looks more like it will be answered in the negative, although Schmid isn't losing faith. "[Gio dos Santos] has shown that when he's around good players his numbers can be very good," he said. "We just need to make sure we can get back to that." http://www.espnfc.us/club/la-galaxy...uild-failing-la-galaxy-after-mls-playoff-flop
Jones has had really solid performances since Schmid took over. However, if he's here next year, I will personally vomit on the front of Sigi's shirt. Gio just caught up to Zardes in assists for the season with his last match. Guess that makes him creative enough to move to RB.
Let's see you want to cut one of the few players that you admit has been effective under Sigi. One who Sigi values and makes the team captain. I fail to see your logic. Of course you have been a Pedro fan all season long so perhaps that explains things.
I'm not who you quoted but I want Jones gone as well. That he's had some minor success under Sigi doesn't change my mind. He's rash, injury prone, and mistake prone. In his 3.5 years in MLS he's only managed 57 MLS games (assuming he plays the rest of our games) due to injury and suspension. That's less than half the games he would be eligible for. He also turns 36 this year and makes $720k. He's not a piece to build with going forward and at best would be a stop gap for 2018. He represents a large chunk of money that could go into finding an actual piece to build with. I'll pass. For the record, I don't want Pedro either but I don't see why one has to pit one vs the other. Both are expensive and flawed players and I'd dump them both if possible. We need a better partner for Jona.
I don't know what Galaxy players are signed for 2018 and have guaranteed contracts. However from looking at the players union numbers, I suspect that Gio, Pedro and Jones are all signed for next year. I also suspect that Jones budget hit for 2018 is $624k not $720k with his 17 hit being much larger. Given that the Galaxy can probably only cut 1, I would prefer it be Gio. If that is not possible, I would prefer it be Pedro to recover his TAM (if that is possible).
I am quite certain both Pedro and Gio are guaranteed for 2018 but it's not like cutting them is the only option (and in fact I think it would be a waste of money to cut either). Pedro probably had retained some amount of value in terms of being sold abroad (size of the transfer fee notwithstanding) and certainly we could sell Gio. I doubt Pedro has a no-trade clause so we could shop him within MLS as well. We have to accept that Gio is going to be part of the roster next year. I'd rather us move on but unfortunately that doesn't seem likely given that Jona only just got here and Gio was a big reason he came. Barring something huge, they're both locked in for 2018. I'm not 100% that Jones' contract is guaranteed for next year. Typically you see something like "multi-year" announced in the press releases when a player signs and I haven't found anything like that for Jones. None of us know what his contract is like for next year if it is guaranteed. The bonuses could have been as part of a signing bonus or a games played bonus or any sort of achievable both years type bonus and he could have a raise built in. It's certainly not easily assumed that this year is a larger cap hit. In any case, even if his cap hit is $624k vs $720k, that's still a TAM salary being used on him. It's a slot we can't afford to waste next year and I think it's wasted on Jones.