Back To The Numbers: A statistical look at Week 6 of the CPL

Week 6 of the Canadian Premier League brought us four more games to digest as six of the leagues seven teams were in action with Cavalry FC being the sole team having a week off league play.

Edmonton found themselves on the wrong end of a couple results whilst Forge were seen surging in this mid-spring-season portion of the year. Pacific continued an unfortunate trend and York9 came up short of a win once again.

Let’s dig into what stats, numbers and trends this week led us to in the sixth week of the Canadian Premier League.

Edmonton All Dried Up

Have Edmonton’s goals all dried up? Or were they never there to begin with?
FC Edmonton might have given us all false hope for enjoyable attacking football in their season opener against Valour when they came out 2-1 victors. That was the last time they scored a goal, and that game was on May 4th. Since then they have been shut out four times on the trot. This includes home games against Pacific and Valour and games on the road against Calvary and Forge.

The table above gives us shooting stats over those four games and a couple of things are glaringly obvious. Ten shots on target over the course of 360 minutes is not good enough, but that certainly doesn’t mean that none should go in the net. Another thing that we can see is that coach Jeff Paulus was obviously not happy with the attacking intent from his team and made big changes to their style of play against Valour this past weekend (19 shots!), but to no avail, the Eddies were snuffed out once again.

Big Ol’ Zero in the ‘W’ Column

York9FC have no wins through five games of league play, which isn’t ideal. All that can be done at this point is to squeeze out the positives, of which there are still a few!

Of their five games, four of them have been away from home, which means that they are going to be running the second half of the spring season very home heavy.

In those five games, they have only been shutout once. Teams struggle to get out of a York game with a clean sheet, Forge being the only team successful in doing so. Unfortunately for York there is a mentionable counterpoint to this, which is that they have yet to keep a clean sheet in league play. Only themselves and Halifax still hold this ‘honour’.

York9 can pride themselves in keeping games close. Three of their games have been ties after all. The other two results have been losses but only by one or two goals.

York’s next league game is on June 15th at home against Pacific FC. This is a very good opportunity to pick up their first win of the season and to set a positive omen for the rest of the season.

Consistency Is Key

‘2-0 victory’ has been a popular phrase over the last few weeks in Hamilton as Forge have registered that result in their last three games, defeating Edmonton, York, and Valour in the process.

Triston Henry has been between the sticks for all three of these shutouts, and perhaps the most impressive part is that he has only been forced to make eight saves over the course of 270 minutes. A lot of credit must go to his backline in protecting him.

Tristan Borges is a buzz name around the league at the moment and for good reason. He sits atop the golden boot race halfway through the season, and over these last three wins, has contributed with a goal in each of them.

Tale Of Two Halves

More than halfway through their season are Pacific FC, who have continued to display a frightening trend. Pacific sit in 5th in the CPL after six games with five points. If games were to finish at half time, they would be at 11 points with a record of 4-2-1. There is no denying that this young team struggles to see out a game. Whether it be fatigue or experience, the numbers are staggering.

If we look at the table above, you can see the stark contrast in halves played by the BC team. Not a single goal has been scored in the second half of games by Pacific FC, costing them six points in the process. The Wanderers 2-1 win against Pacific this past weekend was actually the first time all season that the team to score first has gone on to lose the game.

If Pacific fans feel a need to hang their hat on something, don’t worry, Marcus Haber scored a goal in the 73rd minute against Cavalry in the Canadian Championship, so it does happen!

Up Next

A short hiatus awaits the Canadian Premier League, as league play is interrupted by the Canadian Championships 2nd qualifying round, which got underway with a very heated encounter between Forge and Cavalry on Tuesday, with Vancouver Whitecaps waiting to learn which one of those two sides will be their opposition in the quarter-finals.

League play will resume on June 15th with a triple header. Don’t forget all matches can be seen at onesoccer.ca.