Attacking:

2 goals on 3 total shots, total xG of 0.70. Outperformed his xG by 1.3.

xG on target of 1.62

6 touches in opponent’s box

2 completed dribbles

15/16 passing 94%

2 progressive passes

1 shot creating action

16 carries, 1 progressive carry

2/3 successful take ons

1 key pass, 1 pass into final third

3 progressive receptions

Defensive:

4 recoveries

2/3 tackles won

6/9 ground duels won

2/3 tackles won

0/2 aerial duels won

Total rating of an 8.9

Was also clocked as the fastest player on the field last night.

There was a narrative that he wasn’t contributing to the press and his off the ball work rate wasn’t high last night. Those are categorically false claims.

Truth be told, he was all over the field last night and the defensive stats paint a totally different story. He outperformed every single attacking player on the field defensively last night.

While he has some good moments occasionally, l feel like Glesnes has been atrocious almost every game I’ve watched this season, Jack Elliot is solid some games but this season hasn’t been amazing, and don’t get me started on Damion Lowe… And Chris Donovan is no where near good enough at this point in time to have the Corey Burke super sub role. And the few minutes I saw from Markus Anderson last night tell me everything I need to know about him (jogging back after losing the ball and Cincinnati scoring from it…)

If the Union were to splash the cash in the summer window, I feel like a center back and a striker/creative player to be a difference maker off the bench are definitely a priority. I saw someone mention Jannik Vestergaard from Leicester City as a possible center back solution. I know he is a little bit on the older side at this point in time, but I feel like any sort of confident center back could help massively as it looks like all of our center backs lack confidence this season, whether it is going forward with the ball or defending.

Are there any realistic center back or super sub signings you guys would like to see come in during the summer window??

I don't know what else to say. As much as we appreciated Blake in his prime, I still don't think it's enough.

Alright everyone, the vibes are obviously down bad here. However, out of everything that’s happened with the club recently, not getting a goodbye game for one of our most talented strikers in club history is what has bummed me out the most.

So to try to remedy that, I wanted to ask what’s everyone’s favorite memory of watching Carranza play for the U?

Mine is his very first home game for us. Not too long into the game Flach got absolutely decked and the ref didn’t call it, and as soon as that player got the ball Carranza comes flying in and does this exact same thing back to him. It showed me that he was going to fit right in with this city and I bought his jersey right then, which was risky considering he was still a loan player at the time.

Now I don't want to ignore that this team needs to improve - there are lots of things we can do better. From passing better, to marking guys on defense, to making the routine saves in goal.

But I honestly can't remember a season where we've been the victim of so many unlucky bounces and deflections, and just overall great goals by the opposing team. You expect it to happen occasionally but it seems like this season it's happening in pretty much every game. Take tonight for example - that PK (which was a dreadful call by the way) doesn't happen if the ball doesn't pinball around the box to a perfect position for a Cincy player. And that goal from midfield...I mean come on.

Is it me or is that kind of stuff happening way more this season than in the past?

So...I am a STM and SOB from day one...

I was at the Cincinnati game with maybe another 10 to 15 other Union supporters.... I made the effort to travel out there and incur thn expense to attend the game.. Did I expect them to win... No....but being a supporter means you support the U in good times and bad..

We effing cheered the Union through a very exciting game...

And after giving up 3 of 4 goals which were total BS... We still cheered...

The game ended.. we were heartbroken.....and then the U simply walked off the field... Not a single player or coach made any effort to recognize we were there.. we hung till half the stadium was empty and security was escorting us out....

Gone are the LeToux/Califf days when connecting with the fan base meant something...

It pissed me off..

I will continue to support the U... But JFC.. help us out a bit..

Hello darkness my old friend…

7:45 est / 6:45 cst

TQL Park, Cincinnati, Ohio

FREE ON APPLE TV

Would be fun to watch if we could spend more than 1 million every 5 years

Just a side note here. I saw that Jim sorta called Kai a bad boy for "speaking out" after the Miami game. All I caught in his statement was that the team needed to invest in help. Is THAT controversial now? WTF?! Doesn't every team need to invest in players? MLS is so fucking corporate and shut down it makes me SICK. Time for the coffin.

The reality of our current situation does not escape me, but I'm going to go through my normal breakdown and hope for the best.

We're taking on our familiar foes in FC Cincinnati tonight who are making a great case to be repeat Supporter's Shield winners with a current 2.12 ppg pace. Luciano Acosta already has a staggering 14 assists on the year. And they also have an impressive defense having only allowed 18 goals in 17 game.

How to watch: MLS Season Pass & FS1

Time: 7:45 is advertised (I'm thinking it will be 7:54 kickoff)

Injuries/International Duty:

OUT: Blake (knee)(also technically with 🇯🇲)

OUT: LeFlore (knee)

OUT: Gazdag (🇭🇺)

OUT: Lowe (🇯🇲)

OUT: Martinez (🇻🇪)

OUT: Bedoya (Quad)

OUT: Carranza (😢)

Cincinnati:

Injured/International Duty

OUT: Corey Baird (hip)

OUT: Matt Miazga(leg)

OUT: Miles Robinson (🇺🇲)

Referee: Jair Marrufo has been around the league for a few years and I can't recall anything memorable about him.

Hopefully we have a bounce back game but I'm just hoping for a draw at this point.

DOOP!

There is a "Pre-Match at the Park" (Washington Park), for the lack of anything else, will take my chances there.

(Note: My enthusiasm is the result of well practiced Union denial/ delusion... It's going to be a tough one to pull some points on tonight, but hoping for some lineup-fu that may catch Cincy off-guard.... DOOP-ON)

I know, I know, we never play with wingers. And McGlynn isn’t a true winger even if we did. But! If we were designing a tactic based on the talent we have (post-Carranza), rather than the talent we wish we had, this would put our best 11 on the field in positions that maximize their skill sets and hide their deficiencies. The Flach/Martinez double pivot would be a wrecking crew on defense. Wagner would be free to overlap McGlynn at will and create havoc down the left. Uhre would be supported by three legit attacking mids, all focused on creating perfect chances for him to miss. And we could stop pretending McGlynn or Sullivan can play a lick of defense.

Besides the miserable play from the Union lately, I wanted to give props to KSU this past Saturday for really trying to get 101 and other close sections involved in some of the chants. The more this happens, and the more people learn the chants it may be able to spread further. Kudos KSU!

The night of the Miami loss at Curtin's press conference he was asked about the status of Caranza. He gave a disgusted look and said, "He's not playing."

Is that it?! Is he gone already? So we don't even have a chance to see him off in some way?

I was just about to comment in this post about our absurd 8.3 expected goal difference, but wanted to go into more detail about the significance about that stat and what is should tell us.

First off, it cements us as the least clinical team in the league. This seems to get missed in the xG conversation when people think of it as a "useless" or "meaningless" stat. It's incredibly helpful in showing what the quantity/quality of your goalscoring opportunities are and how efficient or wasteful you are with them. Clinical finishing and shot-stopping consistently outperform xG. The stat doesn't take into account who the player is; it's the expected number for any given shot taken. When a player underperforms vs. their xG, they're missing opportunities that they should be scoring. Coincidentally, when a keeper underperforms vs. their xG, they're letting in goals they should be stopping.

If we're evaluating our GD based on the results it gets us, there doesn't seem to be much correlation:

Wins: 0.1, 1.5, 0.2, 0.6

Draws: 1.5, -0.4, 1.2, -0.5, -0.5, -0.1, -0.5, 1.6

Losses: 1.3, -1.0, 2.6, 0.8, 0.7

The stat frequently gets lumped in with luck, and you could look at it that way. We've let in a couple fluke goals that cost us points. However, it's more useful to see that our players are taking more shots and better shots than the our opponents. This correlates when you look at the shooting stats:

• We're 1st in the East in shots/90 (15.76) and xG/90 (1.76). We are generating more quality goalscoring opportunities than any other team in the East.

• We're 4th in the East in conceded shots/90 (11.53), and conceded xG/90 (1.26). In terms of opportunities allowed, there's a few defenses better in the East, but most are worse.

So why aren't we scoring and why are we getting scored on with such consistency? Let's zoom in a little more our individual offensive player performance when it comes strictly to finishing:

• Gazdag - 10-8.8 G-xG (+1.2), 0.69-0.61 G-xG/90 (+0.08) - slightly overperforming, even considering penalties (without penalties, he's 7 goals in 5.7xG)

• Carranza - 6-5.9 G-xG (+0.1), 0.5-0.49 G-xG/90 (+0.01) - on par

• Uhre - 6-5.4 G-xG (+0.6) , 0.5-0.45 G-xG/90 (+0.05) - on par

• Bedoya - 2-1.4 G-xG (+0.6), 0.19-0.13 G-xG/90 (+0.06) - slightly overperforming thanks to that goal in KC

• McGlynn - 2-1.4 G-xG (+0.6), 0.13-0.10 G-xG/90 (+0.03) - slightly overperforming, honestly underperforming if not for those pair of highlight reel goals

• Sullivan - 1-2.1 G-xG (-1.1), 0.07-0.14 G-xG/90 (-0.07) - underperforming

• Wagner - 1-0.6 G-xG (+0.4), 0.06-0.04 G-xG/90 (+0.02) - small sample size but slightly overperforming

That's the end of the list, because no one else has scored this season. Harriel has taken 21 shots, 0 on target. Glesnes, Elliott, and Lowe combined for 26 shots, 3 on target. Martinez and Flach, 15 shots, 2 on target. We're down -1.9 G-xG for the season, and Sullivan and Harriel combined more than cover that deficit. Harriel in particular needs to stop taking shots unless he gets better.

Our offense is not winning awards and will suffer without Carranza, but from a finishing perspective, we're doing about as well as possible with the chances we generate, and we are generating a lot of them. Passing is a different conversation - it's extremely bad, but it's not reflected in xG.

Here's my hypothesis: for the most part, our defense and goalkeeping is fine. It's a bold statement because it's counterintuitive with the results we've been getting. The problem is those opportunities are frequently getting scored. High xGA means your defense is allowing the opposition to get a lot of opportunities, but low xGA with high GA can mean 3 things: 1) you're not saving shots that should be saved, 2) you're allowing high-quality opportunities where shots aren't likely to be saved, or 3) you're getting unlucky. Let's take a quick look at goalkeeping:

• Blake - 1.18-0.62 GA-PSxG/90 (+0.62), 66.7% saved shots on target - despite only 302 minutes played, he let in 4 goals in 2.1 PSxG - double the goals a goalkeeper would be expected to allow against the shots he faced. It's a small sample size, but it doesn't look good.

• Semmle - 1.54-1.63 GA-PSxG/90 (-0.09), 68.3% saved shots on target - it's mostly been Semmle's season, and he's been an improvement over Blake this season while he was playing through injuries. He's also had to face way more shots an average than Blake used to, and his shot stopping is above average by comparison. This is the data point I'm most interested in. Our PSxG - the expected goals from shots that a keeper faces, has ballooned this season. In 4 of the 5 losses we've had this season, that number is above 2 - meaning we weren't just unlucky, we allowed those opportunities to be scored on us with chances that Semmle or any other keeper would not typically be expected to stop.

• Blake 2022 MVP season - 0.76-1.06 GA-PSxG/90 0.76 (-0.30), 82.5% saved shots on target - just for comparison, we were spoiled when Blake was in form. Not only was he facing far fewer dangerous shots, he was stopping the vast majority of them.

===== TL;DR ====

From a shooting and saving perspective, we're outperforming most of the league. xGD isn't valuable because it tells you we're unlucky. If you want to get into luck, we were unlucky vs. RSL and we were lucky vs. Nashville. It hasn't overwhelmingly swung one way or the other.

The first statistical point that really show where we're losing points is the high PSxG in losing games - 4 of our 5 losses have us expected to concede at least 2 goals from on-target opportunities. If you take one thing away from here, let it be this: this is a sign of major defensive lapses, typically opportunities that are being allowed by being out of position and/or leaving the attacker with too much space. It's both tactical and down to individual performances: we're unlikely to commit defensive fouls and we're routinely losing our marks when it matters. As much as everyone wants a prolific striker to replace Carranza, we might be better served by bringing in a DP center back/sweeper to pick up where the current back line is routinely having critical lapses.

The other is a little less analytical, but it's home form. 5 of our 5 losses have been at home, meanwhile we're undefeated on the road (Pachuca wasn't MLS and also that game never happened). There's less to extrapolate from that other than the issue might be more of a psychological one, and Opta doesn't record psychological data (yet).

This will be a weekly post. Lets try to keep all of the small impulse post in here. Take a night to digest the game and get your thoughts together, and lets try to keep all the conversation in one place. Please try to refrain from low effort post. They also tend to get reported. They clog up the page, and don't provide good discussions because other post override them.

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We are up to 13K users now with 2 active Mods. So report bad behavior so we can see it, we cant read every post and every comment.

We will also bring back the monthly ticket exchange page which will be sticky to the top.

Now I'm not even hype to look at my notifications for the final score. Don't wanna take that trip from north Philly to Chester anymore. Team used to have me so proud.. traveling to DC. Getting a room..making a weekend out of seeing my guys play on the road. Talking trash to NYCFC fans..the list goes on..I don't really want to rant but I am pissed guys. That MLS cup loss really stings cuz the optimism is completely GONE

Given the current situation and all the related posts, it seems I need to make an appearance at Subaru Park.

On June 1, 2022, I traveled to Philly to watch the Phillies play the Giants. To everyone’s surprise, the Phillies won and started their winning streak. Additionally, that was Joe Girardi's last game before Rob took over shortly after leading us to the World Series.

I like to think my appearance stirred things up among the staff. Looks like I’ll be heading to Chester sooner than expected to see if me filling a seat can do the same.

Probably a unpopular opinion, but I’m convinced the correct one. Playing the kids has gotten us into this position we are in. 2 of the 3 goals scored against us in MLS Cup final were a direct result of having to play cheap teenagers in important roles, and we really leaned into it after that. When we were at our best we had zero homegrown players starting. Now we have three starters and most of our bench. These guys just aren’t good enough to compete for anything in this league. They all would’ve been fine players in MLS eras of the past, and who knows maybe someday they will be better. But we have to compete now.

I see a lot of people talking about how we ate it against miami with carranza gone and gazdag in Euros, blake out. But how much did we miss elliott? We missed having a 6’6” dude in the box for repeated corners. We had more than enough crosses. Also, glesnes didn’t have the same chemistry with the back line as when lowe or elliott is back there.

Crew fan coming in peace...

Was skipping around your game against Messami and thought I heard the fans booing Glesnes right before he gets yellow-card fouled in the 75'.

Did he do something this game to upset the fans? Is he in hot water this season? Or is my tired mind hearing things?