Stat Check Tuesday
- Updated: April 28, 2015
Photo credit: Kari Heistad/capturedimages.biz
Saturday’s rout of Real Salt Lake was the Revolution’s most impressive display of the 2015, no doubt. But before the locals get set to take on the undefeated New York Red Bulls this weekend, let’s take a moment to look at where the Revolution rank in some key statistical categories.
(Note: the following statistics can be found on whoscored.com and squawka.com, both of which use information gathered from OPTA to calculate its figures.)
Total chances (key passes + assists): 72 (8th)
Analysis: The Revolution climbed four spots in this department thanks to an impressive performance against Salt Lake in which the locals collected a season-high 18 attacking chances. Once reason: the introduction of a front-three consisting of Juan Agudelo, Charlie Davies and Teal Bunbury, all of whom either scored, assisted, or factored into Saturday’s rout.
Passing accuracy: 76 percent (13th)
Analysis: For the third straight week, the Revolution’s overall passing accuracy improved, even though they dropped a spot in this department. Their 77.4 percent clip on Saturday was lower than their success rate at Philadelphia (82.6 percent), but the Revolution’s commitment to winning second balls and stretching Salt Lake’s defense certainly made up for the dip.
Who’s up: Chris Tierney. The Revolution left back returned to the lineup with a strong effort, and not just because of his startling, right-footed strike. Tierney completed 84.6 percent of his passes, two of which were categorized as “key,” and led all Revolution players with 74 touches on Saturday.
Who’s down: Teal Bunbury. Hard to believe, we know, but on a night in which nearly everyone registered a sound performance, Bunbury has actually played better games this year. The stumbling block: giveways, as Bunbury’s passing accuracy was a less-than-impressive 67.9 percent, and was dispossessed four times.
Performance score*: 1,462 (6th)
*Squawka.com uses an aggregate of key stats such as goals scored and conceded, defensive actions and chances created and combines them into an overall score.
Analysis: The Revolution climbed six more spots from last week’s ranking, and have shot up 12 spots since two weeks ago. Outscoring their opponents 6-1 over their last two obviously helped matters. Perhaps the most surprising thing about their success is that they’ve improved even in spite of injuries to core contributors like Tierney, Jose Goncalves and Darrius Barnes. You can call the Revolution plenty of things, but you can’t say that they aren’t a deep team.
How does their current score compare to last year’s through the first seven games? After their 2-0 win over Sporting Kansas City on Apr. 27, 2014, the club’s performance score was 668.
Did you know? The Revolution have taken an average of 1.5 shots from inside the six yard box through eight games, the highest average in all of MLS.
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