In what is likely to be seen as one of the best trades of this MLS season, Patrick Mullins move to D.C. United from New York City FC 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.
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. head coach 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:
For more on Mullins' progression and a deeper statistical dive into his play, visit MLSsoccer.com.
The Opta Spotlight series continues at MLSsoccer.com as Opta's data scientists provide a detailed look at performance and apply their world-renowned soccer analysis to MLS.
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Opta is the official data provider of MLS for six years running. For more of Opta’s MLS analysis, follow @OptaJack on Twitter and visit the OptaPro blog.
