By: Tom Worville
In what is likely to be seen as one of the best trades of this MLS season, Patrick Mullins to D.C. United has been a fantastic piece of business. Mullins has performed as well as any other striker in the league; despite having only a short amount of time to make an impact at his new team he’s already scored seven goals in just 963 minutes.
It certainly wasn’t a cheap move, however. NYCFC received general and targeted allocation money and an international roster spot until the end of 2017 in exchange for the two-time Hermann Trophy winner. D.C.’s willingness to exchange such valuable assets surely points to the inclusion of Mullins in a longer-term plan for the team.
The arrival of the former University of Maryland striker signaled a stylistic change for D.C. manager Ben Olsen, who began the season playing a 4-1-2-1-2 before switching to a 4-4-2 for 12 games. Within a game of Mullins arriving, the team changed to a 4-1-4-1 with Mullins as the lone striker, and they haven’t looked back since.
Expected Goals (xG, read more here) is a way of measuring the quality of chances a team creates. The table below shows the breakdown of the chances created between the two formations:
Read Full Article
Leave a comment