Heaps vs Nicol: What Do The Stats Say?

Shortly after accepting his new position at New England Revolution Head Coach, Jay Heaps expressed his desire to change the style of play completely. Heaps stressed a more attacking, better passing with a focus on maintaining possession. We're through six games of the 2012 season the New England Revolution find themselves with six points at a record of 2-4. At this point last year the Revs also had six points by way of 1-2-3 record.

Has there been any improvement?

Combing through the Opta match statistics on MLSsoccer.com's post game sections I gathered data focusing on the key indicators that would be Heaps' focus and sought to average that data over the first six games and compare it to 2011 Revs. Now granted stats can be taken out of context to prove anything; for example we're 0-3 when Benny Feilhaber plays. Does that mean we should bench Benny, no absolutely not. I think data trended over the length season has enough data points to tell a story. We have 6 games so far and I thought it'd be interesting to compare and contrast the two squads at this point in the season.

Here are the stat categories I chose to analyze and why.

• Attempts on Goal: This means you're actually threatening the defense and creating chances. "We're going to attack."
• Shots on Target: How often are we testing the goalie? How often are our attackers in a position to shoot and how often are they pulling the trigger? "We're going to attack."
• Open Play Crosses: Not sure what this will show, The type offense employed, teams your facing or the style of the outside midfielders will truly dictate this number. Honestly I was grabbing all this data anyway what hurt would tracking this too.
• Duels Won: Are we winning 50/50 balls? This to me also is an indicator of many intangibles like toughness, grit and desire. Who wants it more. Keep in mind we do have a small midfield that draws a ton of fouls.
• Passing Accuracy: Can't keep the ball if you're passing it away.
• Possession: You can't win if you don't score, can't score if you don't shoot, can't shoot if you don't have the ball. Maintaining possession for long stretches is a necessity to employing your game plan and dictating the match. Heaps vowed to improve this.