When a coach talks about their team creating opportunities but not finishing them, it’s simply a qualitative way of talking about what the stat expected goals (xG) attempts to quantify. Some goals are sitters and some goals are worldies. They all count the same, but expected goals is a running tally for each team throughout a game of how good the chances they created were. Put them all together and it gives you another way to think about a team’s quality.
The Loons this season are without a doubt taking shots. They currently lead the league with 105, and second place belongs to Sporting Kansas City with 91. The 14-goal gap there is roughly the same as the difference between SKC and seventh-place CF Montréal. But MNUFC only have five goals, which means a scoring percentage at the bottom of the league at 4.8%. You can only score on shots that get on frame, and Minnesota are also lagging there, getting just 21.9% of their shots on goal and once again sitting at the bottom of the league.
And yet, MNUFC sit fifth in the league in expected goals for (xGF) with 8.66. And while their expected goals allowed (xGA) is far from stellar at 8.28, it’s good for an expected goal differential (0.39) that a far sight from their actual goal differential of -5.
If we look back at xG for the individual games, it gives a bit of a better feel for how the games were played, rather than simply what the result was. In the four losses so far, the team has not cracked 1.6 xG — and the 1.6 came against Colorado where they collapsed late after having a two-goal lead. In those same four games, their opponents were never held below 1.5 xG. In the two 1-0 wins against Vancouver and Dallas, Minnesota hit 1.8 and 2.0 xGF, respectively, and held Vancouver to 1.0 xG and Dallas to 0.5 xG.
So what’s the takeaway from all this? Probably that the four-game skid was not as bad as it looked and also that the last two wins are not a total turnaround — at least not yet. The season opener against Seattle hinged on some big mistakes on defense, but given the results since then, it’s also clear that the Sounders are not experiencing the kind of slump many had them pegged for prior to the season. Seattle currently sit atop the Western Conference with a goal differential of 11 — the next highest in the league is six for NYCFC.
The nadir of that slump to start the season was likely the game against Austin FC, while the games on either side against RSL and Colorado were closer to toss-ups. The recent wins point in the right direction, but one-goal wins at home can’t be the ceiling for this team if they hope to get back to the playoffs. Currently, MNUFC are averaging a point per game, and that needs to be more like 1.6 if they hope to get into the top seven on the Western Conference.
The good news, then, is that attacking reinforcements are on the way in the form of French forward Adrien Hunou from Ligue 1 and Argentine winger Franco Fragapane from Talleres. The expectation for them is to add some serious teeth to an attack that’s generated chances but hasn’t been able to seal the deal consistently. Hunou comes in as a Designated Player at the age of 27 — just entering his prime after coming up through the youth system at Rennes. Fragapane is also 27 — at least for another few weeks — and arrives having scored four goals in 13 appearances so far across all competitions in 2021. Both are expected to at least be available for selection when Minnesota travel to Utah to face Real Salt Lake on May 29.
Adding players into a group, though, can be a volatile process. The hope is that a player’s inherent qualities can overcome any initial clunkiness. This was the case with midseason acquisitions Emanuel Reynoso and Darwin Quintero when they joined the team in years past: they were simply so good they raised the team’s ceiling immediately. If the Loons can hold the line at the back until Bakaye Dibassy can return from injury, Hunou and Fragapane should be able to measurably improve the attack, both through their own skill and through allowing players like Robin Lod to maximize their skillsets by playing in their best positions.
