The Shots on Target Are Level at 123 Each Across 30 Matches

Six days ago I wrote that the shot-count argument was settled and paid for.

My own notes from the Montreal win, filed days earlier, said something else: one match of five answered, and do not declare it settled before the other four.

I declared it settled anyway. So this week I did what the notebook asked. Not five matches. All 30.

### The number that needs no model

Atlanta United have attempted 399 shots in 30 league matches. Their opponents, 361. An edge of 38.

Shots on target: 123 each.

Dead level. That is the argument in one line, and the only figure that needs no model and no quarrel about providers. ESPN's own count of the same 30 matches has Atlanta two behind, 121 to 123.

The mechanism sits in the block column. Of Atlanta's 399 attempts, 123 were blocked before a goalkeeper had anything to do -- 30.8%. Of their opponents' 361, 74 were -- 20.5%.

The proximate cause, six days ago, was 26 crosses with four reaching a teammate. The block rate is that finding at scale.

Price in chance quality and the advantage inverts. Opta has Atlanta on roughly 41 expected goals against roughly 50, and big chances at 57 to 99.

### Where I was too quick

Then the Associated Press printed a figure I had not gone looking for: four matches this season with a shot differential of 14 or better, per AP the most in a single season in club history.

A note on that 14. AP's provider counts Saturday as 21-7. I published 20-7 off ESPN's feed on 17 October and I am keeping mine. Opta runs one shot ahead of ESPN there, and at D.C. too.

I ran the differential across all 30 and got the same four: New England (22 April, home), Orlando (16 May, away), D.C. (12 September, away), Inter Miami (17 October, home).

Across those four, the process reading is correct. Shots 85 to 25. On target 22 to 12. Roughly 7.9 expected goals to 4.1.

Two points from 12.

22 April has never run on this site, and it is where my line was too blunt. Twenty-three shots to seven. Nine on target. Three big chances. Fourteen attempts inside the box, about 2.5 expected goals, and Atlanta lost at home, 1-2, to two New England goals in five minutes.

That is a side creating plainly and losing anyway.

The other 26 matches were not that.

And the one AP chose to print is the weakest of the four. Strip out the penalty and Atlanta's non-penalty expected goals fall below Miami's -- 1.56 to 1.69 on Opta's numbers, one model's and revised between my own two reads. It is also the only one of the four where Atlanta lost the open-play count, and the open-play goals column read nil.

The extreme is D.C., filed here as nineteen shots for a point that changes nothing. Opta says 20. Four reached the goalkeeper, worth 0.19 expected goals between them -- under a fifth of a goal from an entire evening.

### The straight answer

A fan podcast put out an episode this week titled "THE SOUL OF ATLANTA UNITED IS GONE." I have not heard it and will not pretend to know its case.

The title I can answer. A side out-created 99 big chances to 57 across a season, whose whole shot advantage dies at the target line, is not being wronged by variance. Four nights of real superiority do not redeem the other 26, and a nine-goal expected-goal deficit does not make them imaginary. Both are true. Only one is the season.

Chicago Fire arrive fourth on 48 points, beaten twice this month: at home by Philadelphia, then away at New England, who they held to five shots -- per AP the third time this season Chicago have faced five or fewer.

Per AP, Atlanta have won seven and drawn one of eight regular-season home matches against Chicago, 2.75 points a match, unbeaten in that sample. Six points off the postseason places with 12 available is not over. It is just not much.

### The closer

Three goals. That is Atlanta's return from their four most shot-dominant matches of the season.

Fafa Picault scored two: the 38th minute on 22 April, and the penalty in the 89th on Saturday, seven minutes after coming on. The third was Jay Fortune's 86th-minute equaliser at Orlando.

Two of the three arrived in the 86th minute or later. Per AP, since the beginning of the 2018 season Picault has scored 15 regular-season goals in the 85th minute or later, with only Carles Gil, on 16, also reaching that many.

Four nights of genuine dominance, and the goals came from a 35-year-old substitute at the death.

The shots will come on Saturday. Watch where they finish.