The Union’s lack of scoring this year doesn’t just look bad to the human eye. It looks bad by statistical measures, too.
For proof, look at a widely-used metric called expected goals. It uses quantity and quality of shots to judge how many goals a team should have scored in a game or season.
Opta, MLS’ official stats provider, gave the Inquirer and Daily News the league-wide ranking of what it calls Goals Above Average: the difference between a team’s expected goals and scored goals. Going into the weekend, the Union ranked dead last. They’ve scored three times, and the expected goals formula says they should have nearly six more.