So: Nashville is not playing well right now. Is it because they’ve always been bad? Is it because something has fundamentally changed in the way they play? Is it just some really crappy luck and a bad run of form?
The answer is going to be some combination of the three (though far less the first one, given that NSC was pretty comfortably the best-performing team in USL just a few weeks back). Let’s first diagnose what the problem is.
Here’s Nashville’s Pure Power (for a bit of an explanation see here, long story short, zero is an “average” performance, positive is good, negative is bad) rating over the course of the season. Game-by-game outcomes are in Blue, the average over the course of the season is in gold, and the five-game rolling average is in red.
As you can see, after the opening disappointment against Louisville, there had been just a negative result here and there (both games against Indy, the scoreless draw in Harrisburg) until recently. The last four games have all been below-average performances, and all but the Atlanta United 2 game – which was en route to being pretty bad itself before Taylor Washington’s game-winner – weren’t particularly close to being acceptable performances.
For a club that had otherwise been pretty good – for a while, it was the best-performing team in USL – the recent results have really changed the tenor of the year. The season-long performance is still comfortably above average, but the five-game rolling has now spent three games below that Mendoza line, and continuing this poor run of form will certainly see that change eventually.
However, as you can see, acting like this team has been bad all season is simply a path toward not understanding what has gone on. That’s bad analysis, ignore it.
Of course, the offense has had plenty of struggles this year (again, though “the offense has low output” and “the team is bad” are two different – if related – things, and acting like they’re one in the same is bad analysis). Here’s the same chart, but focusing only on Nashville’s scoring:
So this hasn’t all been sunshine and roses. The first two games featured a no-offense-preferred 5-3-2 lineup, and happened to come against a very good defense (Louisville) and far-and-away the best defense (Pittsburgh) in the USL. To some extent, the slow start to the end of the season is understandable.
However, aside from a penalty-kick tally at Bethlehem Steel, it took Nashville until the eighth game of the season(!) to have an above-average performance on offense. That requires a bit of explanation, too: the Bethlehem game was a victory, as was the following game against Charlotte Independence (a two-goal game at home is below-average against that defense. Not a great road team, the Independence). Nashville also got draws against Penn FC and New York Red Bulls II. The only loss in that stretch came to Indy Eleven.
“Scoreless draw” is hardly the most exciting result, sure. But it stands to reason – especially given Gary Smith’s reputation – that playing for a result on the road (which all of those games except the win over Charlotte were) was the goal, to some extent. Trying to pot a large number probably wasn’t the intention.
That said, the lack of scoring bite went from “intentional” to “something the team is stuck with” after a great run of offense following that slow spell. Above-or-exactly-average outputs in the next five games devolved quickly, and Nashville has been below average on offense in seven of the past eight games (the exception being three goals in the first game against Atlanta 2). Worse, it’s looked less like they are willing to sit on the ball and wait out a result and more like they don’t have the confidence to go out and get the goals. Did playing for the former destroy the confidence to do the latter over time?
That may be a bit of a doom-and-gloom way to phrase it – and there’s something to be said for just being in a poor run of form, as previously mentioned – but there’s perhaps something to it.
The bigger problem with the recent results has actually come on defense, though. Nashville was achieving above-average results with below average offense early in the year by being absolutely lockdown on this side of the ball. The axis is flipped here (you want to be negative, as in “the opponent has negative goals compared to their average” on defense), and outside of a few blips early, this is where the consistency has disappeared:
The worse-than-average defensive games early in the year? The 2-1 loss in Indy (a bad game) and a 3-1 home win over Penn FC (which, won by two goals so whatever). Since then, though, things have been far sketchier. A horrid 2-0 home loss to Indy in which the lack of offensive punch hurt the defense, and a pair of pretty awful 2-0 road losses in Canada within the past three games.
That ain’t great. It probably plays a bigger role in the losses than the bad offense (which we’ve seen that Nashville is able to overcome to accomplish good results). If NSC simply had performances approximately at its season averages in those contests, both would have finished as scoreless draws, and while we’d be fretting over the offense nonetheless, certainly the overall feeling of dread wouldn’t be nearly as palpable.
So what is there to do?
The defensive issues are unfortunately – or perhaps fortunately, since some are solvable – attributable mostly to a couple specific things: injuries to Bradley Bourgeois, Michael Reed, and Matt Pickens, a red card to London Woodberry, and just a simple bit of bad luck (a missed penalty kick by Alan Winn that demoralized the team in Ottawa). Bourgeois’s absence seems like a longer-term deal, but Reed and Pickens have been able to get a bit of rest, and should be back in the lineup soon.
On offense, there aren’t easy answers. Adding Brandon Allen made things feel better for awhile, and indeed he’s the team’s third-leading scorer despite only joining in mid-season. Lebo Moloto has nursed a minor injury in recent weeks (and has had to rest at other times), and hopefully a return to full healthy for him will be helpful. However, the team remains one of the lowest-scoring in USL, and while there’s context to that, it needs to change. Adding a new player who can score goals, changing formations, shifting personnel… something must be done to open up the offense if the defense isn’t going to remain impenetrable. Bringing Reed – the only central defensive midfielder who can be both sound going backward and threatening with the pass or shot going forward – back when he’s healthy will be only a minor help.
I’ve advocated for a little bit more responsibility and a shift centrally for Alan Winn, giving a more even split of minutes to Ropapa Mensah instead of keeping Allen on the field late into contests, and a few other options. Adding a scoring threat with the international slot Nashville gained by trading Michael Cox to St. Louis FC is almost a certainty, as well.
In the end, this is a very bad run of form, and there’s little sugar-coating that can happen there. However, it feels worse than it is when you actually look at what’s happening. No, Nashville has never come back from a losing position to capture points. But they’ve only ever gotten into a losing position six times in 20 games of USL play. If they can get back to relying on the defense, only a little more scoring punch will suddenly feel light years away form what we’re seeing now, and hey, a little more confidence restored in that D should help the offense play more freely, as well.
Club and Country 