Today’s “LA Galaxy by the numbers” will be quick. Afterall, what stats can you really glean from the third-straight 3-2 loss? How much of a broken record is this season when you consider what Galaxy fans had to go through in 2017, as well?
The Galaxy are now 3-6-1 for 10 points in 2018. Last year – the worst year in franchise history – the club was 3-5-2 for 11 points. And it only took Galaxy head coach Sigi Schmid 10 games to find a four-game losing streak (it took Curt Onalfo 19 games).
And having now conceded the first goal in seven of the 10 games they’ve played which results in a record of 1-6-0.
Additionally, the Galaxy have only held a lead in 2018 for a total of 103 minutes. That’s 58 minutes in the win over the Portland Timbers, and 45 minutes in the win over Chicago. That means the Galaxy have only been playing ahead in their games for 11.4% of the total time 103 out of 900 minutes). In games where they have scored first, the club is 2-0-0.
The Galaxy continue to face tough opponents. Through their first 10 games, the average table position of the other team on the field is 7.8. Meaning most of the teams the Galaxy have faced rank in the top 10 in the league. The wins column shows the Galaxy beating teams with an average ranking of 10, and the loss column shows a higher number of losing to teams in the top 7 or so.
If you want to find some correlation with what the Galaxy have done so far this year, note that the average table position of their losses is fairly close to the average table position of the overall opponents. This can pretty quickly get you to the six losses on the season.
But it’s still unclear, by this chart anyways, of exactly how good or bad the club is at this moment.
Our final, look today is the Galaxy’s overall points total after 10 games. The 10 points after 10 games give the Galaxy a 1.00 PPG rating – a rating that would list the overall PPG total as second worst in the history of the franchise just behind last years’ 0.94 PPG. Prior to last year, 2008 had the lowest PPG total with 1.10.
The 2018 club sits over a half a point lower than the club’s historical average of 1.51 PPG.
And when we plot out the Galaxy’s running point total in 2018, and then compare it to the rest of the Galaxy’s historical runs, you can see that this years’ club is languishing near the very bottom of the chart. Event the generous, 2012 season can be seen rising above the current trend and the Galaxy are more than likely setting themselves up for a ridiculously unsustainable pace if they don’t start soon winning games.
In fact, if you look at historical data for the Western Conference, the average total points of the last team to make the MLS Cup Playoffs is just over 47 points (47.8) – for the Eastern Conference it’s actually a bit higher (48.7).
In order for the Galaxy to reach 48 points for the season, they’d need to earn 38 more points this season with 24 games left. That averages to about 1.58 points per game starting with Montreal. Or, to put it another way, the Galaxy would need to go 10-6-8 through the rest of the season to even be in contention for a playoff spot if the historical averages hold true. Obviously, any combination of 38 points would result in the same findings. But, with an additional franchise in the mix, that last team into the playoffs could need even more points to qualify. Leaving the Galaxy on shaky-ground through the rest of season.
Although, The 2012 Vancouver Whitecaps snuck in with 43 points. So clearly miracle do happen. 
That does it for this week’s charts and graphs. As always, we’ve included the rest of our charts below for you to peruse and quantify.
