Some things will never change
They stand there looking backwards
Half unconscious from the pain
They may seem rearranged
In the backwater swirling, there is
Something that'll never change
Thanks to the Meat Puppets
This week, as in all I can remember doing this for during 2010, the Los Angeles Galaxy are #1. At the beginning of the year most people had four teams that could compete for a major trophy. One of those seems to be nearly eliminated (hey, that's our guys), but the Galaxy, Crew and Real Salt Lake are still dominant.
| Team | Points | Played | PPM | GD |
| Los Angeles | 29 | 11 | 2.64 | 16 |
| Columbus | 20 | 9 | 2.22 | 6 |
| Salt Lake | 19 | 10 | 1.90 | 10 |
| San Jose | 16 | 9 | 1.78 | 3 |
| Colorado | 16 | 9 | 1.78 | 3 |
| Toronto | 16 | 10 | 1.60 | 1 |
| New York | 15 | 10 | 1.50 | -4 |
| Houston | 16 | 11 | 1.45 | 3 |
| Dallas | 12 | 10 | 1.20 | 0 |
| Chicago | 10 | 9 | 1.11 | -1 |
| Seattle | 12 | 11 | 1.09 | -5 |
| New England | 11 | 11 | 1.00 | -4 |
| Chivas USA | 10 | 11 | 0.91 | -4 |
| Kansas City | 8 | 9 | 0.89 | -4 |
| Philadelphia | 7 | 8 | 0.88 | -7 |
| DC | 6 | 10 | 0.60 | -13 |
I'll be submitting my rankings this week and honestly I don't know how many teams to rank as awful now. Seattle's next two matches are against teams that are supposed to be worse than they are, but New England is on a little run after getting Sharlie Joseph back with the team.
Sagarin does have Seattle 9th overall with the third toughest schedule.
Team Offensive Data after the break
The most notable thing I discovered about the Sounders is not that they are second to last in Goals For per Match, but that they are currently so poor offensively that the following teams score more in a half than the Sounders do in a Full 90. Seattle score 0.82 Goals Per Game.
RSL scores 1.20 in the First Half of their games.
LAG score 1.09 in First Half
TFC score 1.10 in Second Half
SJE score 1.00 in Second Half
RSL score 0.90 in Second Half
ChF score 0.89 in Second Half
That's not pretty. And it gets less pretty.
While yes the Sounders take a ton of shots, and they win a ton of corners, they are the worst team in the league in putting the ball on target, and they are 5th in the league in % of Goals to Shots. For this I have subtracted out Penaty Kick Goals, as a teams offense has little control over those being awarded.
| Team | Goals | Assists | A:G Ratio | Shots | SoG | OnTarget% | Goals % SOG | G % Shots |
| Salt Lake | 21 | 19 | 0.90 | 108 | 47 | 43.5% | 44.7% | 19.4% |
| Los Angeles | 18 | 23 | 1.28 | 127 | 49 | 38.6% | 36.7% | 14.2% |
| Houston | 14 | 20 | 1.43 | 108 | 40 | 37.0% | 35.0% | 13.0% |
| Chivas | 13 | 13 | 1.00 | 126 | 45 | 35.7% | 28.9% | 10.3% |
| New England | 13 | 11 | 0.85 | 120 | 51 | 42.5% | 25.5% | 10.8% |
| Toronto | 12 | 9 | 0.75 | 76 | 37 | 48.7% | 32.4% | 15.8% |
| Columbus | 12 | 8 | 0.67 | 109 | 40 | 36.7% | 30.0% | 11.0% |
| Chicago | 11 | 16 | 1.45 | 100 | 46 | 46.0% | 23.9% | 11.0% |
| Philadelphia | 10 | 11 | 1.10 | 78 | 40 | 51.3% | 25.0% | 12.8% |
| SEATTLE | 9 | 12 | 1.33 | 121 | 37 | 30.6% | 24.3% | 7.4% |
| New York | 9 | 9 | 1.00 | 107 | 40 | 37.4% | 22.5% | 8.4% |
| San Jose | 8 | 15 | 1.88 | 104 | 46 | 44.2% | 17.4% | 7.7% |
| Dallas | 8 | 10 | 1.25 | 133 | 52 | 39.1% | 15.4% | 6.0% |
| Kansas City | 8 | 7 | 0.88 | 108 | 56 | 51.9% | 14.3% | 7.4% |
| Colorado | 7 | 2 | 0.29 | 97 | 40 | 41.2% | 17.5% | 7.2% |
| DC | 6 | 3 | 0.50 | 108 | 42 | 38.9% | 14.3% | 5.6% |
| TOTALS | 179 | 188 | 1.05 | 1730 | 708 | 40.9% | 25.3% | 10.3% |
The fact is should we really expect the team that is worst in the league at putting shots on target to be good at scoring goals? Probably not.
Maybe less time at practice trying to hit targets in the corner and just trying to hit the center of the net and get the late runners opportunities for clean-up?
I don't think the answer is more long distance shots. This would be like having a bad at passing NFL team try to get better at passing by running Hail Marys.