MLS Fantasy Boss A Fantasy MLS Community
This week we’ll examine how many average points per game each team concedes by position. There’s a lot of valuable information that we can glean by looking at points conceded – which teams to avoid playing against and which teams we want to target playing against for each position. You should be able to sort the table below to make the analysis easier. The data only includes players who played at least 45 minutes in the game.
| Team | D | M | F | G |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CHI | 4.815 | 4.333 | 5.5 | 4.429 |
| CLB | 5 | 4.694 | 5.313 | 5.556 |
| COL | 3.868 | 3.872 | 3.55 | 5.7 |
| DAL | 4.614 | 5.102 | 4.188 | 4.909 |
| DC | 5.256 | 4.929 | 4.529 | 6.1 |
| HOU | 3.853 | 5.359 | 4.867 | 4.556 |
| LA | 3.25 | 3.972 | 3.429 | 4.444 |
| MTL | 5.026 | 4.409 | 6.063 | 4.2 |
| NE | 4.372 | 4.396 | 6.684 | 5 |
| NY | 4.256 | 5.292 | 6.615 | 6.4 |
| NYC | 4.5 | 4.809 | 5.385 | 6.1 |
| ORL | 3.265 | 5.195 | 5.25 | 2.667 |
| PHI | 4.156 | 4.371 | 4.333 | 5.875 |
| POR | 3.342 | 5.163 | 6 | 3.3 |
| RSL | 2.757 | 4.088 | 6.316 | 3.444 |
| SEA | 4.378 | 4.278 | 4.647 | 5 |
| SJ | 3.718 | 4.538 | 5.2 | 3.9 |
| SKC | 3.825 | 4.381 | 4.348 | 4.273 |
| TOR | 4.091 | 4.366 | 4.571 | 3.667 |
| VAN | 4.318 | 4.556 | 5.619 | 5.364 |
Defenders
Don’t play your defenders against RSL. That is the only combination in the entire table that is more than 2 standard deviations from the mean for that position. They don’t play particularly fast, meaning fewer bonus points for defenders, and week 9 vs Colorado is the first time they haven’t scored.
Play your defenders vs. DC. Ben Olson (who I think is a leading candidate for worst coach in the league) has never had his team play quality, attacking soccer. Just twice have they scored more than 1 goal and they’ve been shut out 4 times already.
Midfielders
It should come as no surprise that we want to play our midfielders against Colorado less than anyone else in the league. Their defense has been great last year and continues to be great this year. They have the second best goals conceded per game in the league after trading Clint Irwin to Toronto… who are the team who have conceded less often.
Houston and New York Red Bull have the most points conceded to opposition midfielders. Both have been leaky defenses and Houston allows a lot of attacking bonus points.
Forwards
Again, Colorado is near the top of our list. LA just pips them out for who we most want to avoid playing our forwards against, with the third largest standard deviation in the table. LA play slow and organized – typical from The Bruce.
New England struggle the most against forwards in fantasy. A lot has been made about how poor they are at defending against crosses and they’ve conceded the most goals in the league.
Keepers
Just a hair shy of 2 standard deviations is Orlando, with the fewest points conceded to keepers. They have the second most goals per game and haven’t been shut out yet. They have plenty of attacking options and it is better to just avoid playing your keeper against them if possible.
NYRB allows the most points for opposition keepers. I think that’s a thing of the past and they’ve gone on to score 8 goals in 3 games since I last featured them. DC and NYCFC are tied for second worst, but I’d rather play my keeper against DC than David Villa.
