How many points for TFC in 2016?

[Initial B]

Well, Pre-Season is now done, so it's that time again to figure out how well we think TFC will do this year. Previous year's prognostications can be found here:

http://forums.redpatchboys.ca/showth...or-TFC-in-2015
http://forums.redpatchboys.ca/showth...or-TFC-in-2014
http://forums.redpatchboys.ca/showth...or-TFC-in-2013

The team is still not ready for the season and I'm not sold on the backline. The preseason average against MLS opposition is well above the 1.32 GA/90 target that the FO has set for the season. I'm also worried that the injuries are a sign of things to come for the season. If Seba goes down, I think the team is done, depth or not. I'm hoping Endoh can surprise, but we can't expect Giovinco to have another MLS-record season so I'm sure the offense will suffer a bit. The midfield is still a mess as well.

I expect the road trip is going to be hellish as the team tries to gel and Vanney juggles line-ups and find combinations and formations that will work against their opponents. The team will beat at least one of Colorado or NYCFC and win one more game that they have no business of winning, tie one or two more games and lose the rest. The team will be in a hole by the time of their home opener and I can see the season going one of two ways depending on what TFC we believe in:

TFC Past - They go 1-5-0 in May and Vanney is fired after Montreal pick up their first win at BMO in the Voyageur Cup competition, with a distressingly familiar meltdown the rest of the season that we all know and dread.

TFC Present - Bradley, Johnson and Moor take the team by the throat and slap some sense into them and the other veterans will encourage the youngsters to come out guns blazing. TFC solidifies its identity during their first home-stand and goes on to build momentum leading to a solid playoff berth. This is the path I choose to believe will happen, winning half the remaining games and splitting the remaining games evenly between ties and losses for about 53 points. (NB: the team has always done better than I expected).

Place your bets, people!

<Edit: The poll closes April 27th>

[OgtheDim]

Thanks for this. Always good fun.

*************

I DESPERATELY want to believe we are better. We have upgraded every on field player position that needed upgrading. Vanney and co have spent weeks bashing into these guys the importance of positioning and defensive shape, to the point where we are most likely to give up chances by stupid passes as against lazy play. From what we have seen, Seba looks in better form then he was last March.

But then, the PTSD kicks in.

Goal after goal after goal after goal floats easily into my head....most scored against us because our defence was crap and our mids have not supported our defence well in years, and our forwards have never been interested in putting in the work needed for team defence.

We don't have much to go on. Bits and scraps from some preseason friendlies on video before 2 games this past week on youtube.

Meanwhile, every other team seems to have gotten better too. (Well, maybe not every other- both DCU and NER look like they have stagnated while the Fire and Union are both in revamp mode).

And then I remember how close the East was last season, how competitive it was from 1-7.

All I want to see from this season is an organized defence I can believe in. The attack I know will be there - we have way too many decent passers of the ball and way too many good technical players to not get chances and goals. Just fix the defence.


I think we make the playoffs, and get a home game in the first round - either 3rd or 4th. Points? 55

[Yohan]

Too many new starters trying to jell and Vanney still working out the kinks in his system. Lots of growing pains. The rest of MLS learns to isolate Giovinco and the offence sputters.

Going to guess 5th or 6th in the East.

[Kaz]

Most teams have tried to do something with their defense so I think we will score less than last year. The big if factor is how few goals we let in.. We have been scored on by every team USL or higher in preseason. Not a single clean sheet.. that isn't a good sign.

[Detroit_TFC]

Between improved goalkeeping (on the plus side) and reduced production from Giovinco (on the minus side) there will be a lot of draws this season. W-L-D 13-11-10 49 pts.

[Eastend]

There's always hope with a new season and I want to look on the optimistic side but it's hard to when you've been burned for 9 season.....well, let's say 7 seasons cause the first 2 were a lot of fun regardless of the results at the end of the year.

So....I say on the Bubble and will be happy to eat my words if/when I'm wrong.


Dom

[MightyDM]

The midfield and the defence, particularly RB, are significantly improved from last year, so for me they do better and I have voted that way. However, our defensive organization under Vanney remains a serious concern. It has not improved in a season and a third and against Montreal not only was it poor, after the impact made changes to attack our weaknesses at halftime of the first game we made no adjustments whatsoever, including for the playoff and we all knoynw what happened. That was squarely on the coaching staff and our chances this year depend significantly on whether they have changed their naive approach, and whether they have instilled positional discipline in the midfield.

i don't agree with the "woe is me" about previous seasons. Almost every one has had brilliant moments. The first three were fantastic fun, perhaps until NY. We had magic at BMO and we found Danny Dichio and our voice as supporters. Preki was not much fun but there was Cruz Azul. Winter never really adjusted to the league but we had the magical Champions League run and Danny K. Under Mariner and in Nelsens first year the performances were dire, and it was a pretty miserable season and a half, but then we got Defoe who was electrifying at the beginning. And DeRo first time round was fantastic. Even in the bad years, there was lots to cheer for and cheer we did.

[Fort York Redcoat]

Well, Pre-Season is now done, so it's that time again to figure out how well we think TFC will do this year.

Again, B, Thanks for starting the Points poll this year and getting prediction talk going.

I know some peeps love it.

Have fun guys.

[bigredone]

On paper, we have improved and fingers crossed it translates to the pitch. Other teams figuring out Giovinco will only motivate him to find new ways to net nearly as many goals. Can we keep our goals against down to compliment our goals for Reds? Perquis, please behave!!!! If so, and I belive so, ELITE TEAM!

[OgtheDim]

From what little we saw in the preseason, teams havn't figured out Seba yet.

Its like something I heard today, when you get to a certain level, players think faster. Seba thinks as fast as he needed to in Italy. MLS defenders don't think that fast.

Baring injury, Seba will win the scoring title - he wants it without an asterisk.

[ronzilla]

I'm predicting Vanney will be gone in May/June and a new coach comes along and takes the team to the finals.

[Fort York Redcoat]

I'm predicting Vanney will be gone in May/June and a new coach comes along and takes the team to the finals.

That is incredible. I love the positivity but I don't see how THIS would be the season to grab the anonymous coach that doesn't plead for a full season to improve the team.

Also: I was going to vote but there's too much Pussplops mentions for me.

[Defoe]

I would estimate 52-54 points.

We will win maybe 1 playoff round depending on who we play and if we make any changes in July.

I don't see us doing well vs a team like the Columbus crew who just seem to have far superior depth and a more well rounded team.

The east has a lot of question mark teams - Montreal, NYC, Orlando, TFC, DC... I don't see how anyone could predict this season tbh

[SoccMan2]

One thing that concerns me is how well this team copes with that crazy 8 game road trip to start the season. Will they do ok like last season with all those away games they had in the beginning of the season or will they crash because of all the road games, that's what concerns me in a league where winning on the road and even getting ties is not easy. If they come home with a lousy record this can go south real quick even though they will have all those games at home left.

[Ivy]

TFC finishes the road trip with 11 points. You heard it here first.

[notthesun]

I said 52-55 points (think it'll be on the low end of that). I think it will take a while for the team to gel and work out the kinks, and for Vanney to learn how best to use all the players at his disposal (I'm not convinced we end the season with a 4-3-3 still being the preferred formation). I can see us having a very up and down first half of the year, beating some teams above us and losing to some below. But I think after enough time has passed the pieces will start coming together and we finish the year strong with momentum going into the playoffs. We have more talent than we've ever had and the back line in particular should be much improved, I have to think it's likely the team as a whole improves along with it.

After crashing out of the playoffs I thought most of the blame lied with Bez, who put together a very top-heavy squad last year. He may not have done exactly what I would have liked to see this off-season but he was damn close, and with this collection of talent any decent coach should be able to work something out over the length of a season to put together a dangerous team. So in my mind, our success this year is entirely on Vanney.

[Joe Kool]

I said on the bubble. I think some will go right for us and some will go wrong in about an even split so putting us in the playoff hunt by the end of the season. I would love to be wrong and the season works out great but we have alot of challenges with international duty, initial road trip and starting the season with some injured starters among maybe some other challenges. I think we will be a decent team but I still get the feeling that we can still have those games where Manning called it an "embarrassment". Manning set out an amount of points from the road trip that he would expect TFC to make. Will definitely be interesting to see what happens if TFC doesn't make that goal...not that I want that to happen at all.

[portu]

I'm calling Vanney getting sacked and us squeaking into the playoffs. 50 points. Also I'm measuring success by performance in the league table not via playoffs or conference standings

[molenshtain]

conference finals and a top 3 finish in the conference. We have the squad, and we have a good enough manager to get us there. we added heavily to a defensive unit that the advanced metrics tell us wasn't even that bad to begin with, and we have the best offense in the league. add to that a pretty deep team with a hell of a lot of talented young guys... it's gonna be a pretty fun season.


Of course, no one else will think this because, well, we're talking about TFC here. Only negative thoughts allowed here.

[TFC07]

I predict TFC will make it to the playoffs (finish season with 55 points) and host one playoff game. After season, Vanney will be gone and replace by Italian manager while there will be talks of getting rid of Bradley and/or Jozy to get a DP overseas in the offseason.

[FRANKIE65]

I am withholding my vote on the grounds that, most assuredly, guaranteed, I will jinx the squad with any, and or all, positive predictions.

[Oldtimer]

I say the bubble. One has never gone wrong with low expectations for TFC in the past 10 years.

[Bobo]

Management addressed some of, but not all of the needs of this team. Seba's production will almost certainly drop off now that the league has had more time to adjust. He will also likely see less of the ball if he stays out wide. If he can't stay healthy this team will struggle immensely. Most importantly, though the squad has improved on the whole, TFC still have a scrub of a coach who will not get the most out of his players. I'm almost hoping for TFC to get whatever point tally is necessary in their initial road trip to get him canned in order to hopefully bring in a coach who can increase the ceiling of potential. As it stands, unless Vanney was visited in the offseason by the spirits of tacticians past, present and future, I still feel as though we will struggle to make an expanded playoffs once again.

[T-boy]

That is incredible. I love the positivity but I don't see how THIS would be the season to grab the anonymous coach that doesn't plead for a full season to improve the team.

Also: I was going to vote but there's too much Pussplops mentions for me.

[molenshtain]

This hate for Vanney is honestly really over the top. He has his shortcomings, sure, but so does every MLS coach. He performed admirably in his first full year. He never had a settled back four, and he had to continually juggle lineups to deal with the shortcomings of his squad. His strengths will be more obvious now that he has a proper roster to work with, and we'll get to see the full breadth of his talent this season. It's possible he fails, but it's much more likely he improves on a rookie year that showed a lot of promise at times.

Viewing Vanney without the context of the league is pointless. We have to be measuring him against what else we can get in this league. Through that lens, we've got a pretty promising coach running our team right now.

[TFC_Allez]

53 Points. 2nd in the East. Book it.

[MightyDM]

This hate for Vanney is honestly really over the top. He has his shortcomings, sure, but so does every MLS coach. He performed admirably in his first full year. He never had a settled back four, and he had to continually juggle lineups to deal with the shortcomings of his squad. His strengths will be more obvious now that he has a proper roster to work with, and we'll get to see the full breadth of his talent this season. It's possible he fails, but it's much more likely he improves on a rookie year that showed a lot of promise at times.

Viewing Vanney without the context of the league is pointless. We have to be measuring him against what else we can get in this league. Through that lens, we've got a pretty promising coach running our team right now.

I don't think anyone hates Vanney, its just that his teams have been abysmal defensively and many of us think it is about tactics and where he plays personnel, particularly how he arranges the midfield and what instructions he gives to Bradley, not just about the back four. The last regular season game and the play off game are perfect examples - the Impact changed their tactics and personnel at halftime of the first game and we did not change either of ours in response, in that game, and stunningly, not in the playoff game. Over that period they outscored us 5-0.

This commenced in his very first game in charge against the Union and the trend to giving up poor goals in the first half has not abated. It happened this weekend! It is a real and serious concern.

[molenshtain]

I don't think anyone hates Vanney, its just that his teams have been abysmal defensively and many of us think it is about tactics and where he plays personnel, particularly how he arranges the midfield and what instructions he gives to Bradley, not just about the back four. The last regular season game and the play off game are perfect examples - the Impact changed their tactics and personnel at halftime of the first game and we did not change either of ours in response, in that game, and stunningly, not in the playoff game. Over that period they outscored us 5-0.

This commenced in his very first game in charge against the Union and the trend to giving up poor goals in the first half has not abated. It happened this weekend! It is a real and serious concern.

He wasn't allowed a settled backline basically the entire season due to injuries, and had to keep adjusting the midfield and forward lines due to injuries and call-ups. Advanced metrics say we let in way more goals last year than we should have statistically. we were ninth best in the league last year for expected goals against, but individual errors and crap goalkeeping meant we far exceeded that. A settled lineup and a lot of added quality in our defensive third should solve a lot of those problems.

Our offense might regress slightly due to teams taking an ultra defensive approach against us, but i suspect an our elite defensive unit will make up for that.

[OgtheDim]

I remain unconvinced that defences have figured out Seba. The bigger danger is people figuring out our midfield.

[molenshtain]

I don't think teams will figure him out, I just think they'll devote more resources to stopping him. Add to that the fact that Giovinco had to massively outperform his statistical models to achieve what he did last year and it just seems unlikely this year will be an improvement on the last.

That being said, he'll still be the best player in the league by some distance. I think his influence on the field will open things up for everyone else though this season. Might even mean our offense will be better as a whole even if his individual stats won't be as good.