Missing: New York City FC MLS Output Merchants | OneFootball

By James Nalton.

New York City FC will be hoping new head coach Pascal Jansen can get more out of existing players, but to get real high-level output to match the best of MLS, it might also need new signings. The departure of James Sands on loan to FC St. Pauli in the German Bundesliga now makes roster reinforcements a necessity rather than merely a desire.

The expectation for New York City FC each season is not merely playoff qualification but trophies. It has one already—an MLS Cup won in 2021—but the aims don’t change. Since then City has not looked like a contender, but it will be looking to change that in 2025.

Secrets To MLS Success

There are several ways to go about becoming a successful MLS team. Some are unique to the league due to its roster restrictions, while others are applicable to soccer across the globe, but one of the most obvious ways to produce a team that can compete at the top is to get the big-salary signings right.

If a team can get more than one of its high-paid attacking players to perform at the top end of MLS in terms of output, whether through creativity or goalscoring, that team tends to do well.

Tactical discipline, good defensive organisation, and team ethic are all important and can produce an outfit that performs to a level higher than the sum of its parts. These elements can be especially important in a salary-capped league such as MLS. There have been numerous examples of this including at various points in recent years Philadelphia Union, Colorado Rapids, St. Louis City, and Montreal Impact.

If this can be combined with the right signings at the DP and TAM levels, then a team can build more consistency across several seasons.

Getting key signings right at the top end of the salary spectrum is often the difference between success and failure in MLS, regardless of the financial level at which a team is operating.

The most obvious examples of this in recent seasons are the two Los Angeles teams, Columbus Crew, and Inter Miami (although the latter is in a category all of its own due to having attracted Lionel Messi and the accompanying snowball effect, so normal MLS dynamics don’t apply).

New York City has players who are almost at this level, but they are not quite consistently at the top levels and there are not quite enough of them.

Getting Goals

It felt like NYCFC almost stumbled upon its goal-getter. Alonso Martínez’s 2024 scoring output was at the levels of Luis Suárez and Messi, but he only played 1,499 minutes last season. If he could maintain this level for over 2,000 minutes a season, then one problem is solved.

Again, it’s probably not useful to compare other MLS players with Suárez and Messi, but they do provide a warning for 2025 for Martínez.

It is expected that players at the level and quality of the Inter Miami pair would overperform their expected goals (xG), but when a player like Martínez does so there is always the question of whether they can maintain this level of finishing.

In 2024 Martínez scored 16 goals from an xG of around 10.

MLS 2024 xG overperformance (goals scored – xG)

Lionel Messi +8.20 Mateusz Bogusz +6.70 Luis Suárez +6.60 Petar Musa +6.10 Alonso Martínez +5.80 Facundo Torres +5.40 Evander +5.10 Christian Benteke +5.00 Cucho +5.00

Though xG can be used as part of the assessment of a striker’s finishing, it is primarily a chance creation metric. This is where the conversation around players’ output naturally moves on to creativity—assists, expected assists, and shot creation.

New York City has a player who was finishing at an elite level in 2024, so the next logical step would be to create more chances for them.

Finding The Creators

Whether using the global definition of assists or the MLS definition that includes some second assists, no New York City players were in the top 20 for assists in MLS in 2024.

In terms of assists per 90 minutes in MLS in 2024, Tayvon Gray was NYCFC’s highest-ranked player coming in at 15th in the league. Hannes Wolf and Santi Rodríguez were New York City’s most creative players in 2024, but neither did enough to be up there with the league’s top creators.

Familiar names such as Luciano Acosta, Cristian Espinoza, Kai Wagner, and Ryan Gauld all appeared near the top of the charts in 2024 for creative metrics, while some more recent signings such as Evander of Portland and Gabriel Pec of LA Galaxy also featured.

Rodríguez is often the player NYCFC turns to when they need something to happen. He is the closest the team has to one of the types of players mentioned above, but he is not yet at their level and, like Martínez, needs others to complement the attack if they are to consistently produce league-high numbers.

Improving Existing Players

Just as Riqui Puig and Dejan Joveljić needed Gabriel Pec and Joseph Paintsil to turn LA Galaxy into a real force in 2024, New York City needs something similar to happen on the East Coast. Having a dynamic and creative winger would go a long way towards making NYCFC a force at the top of the league.

There is always the chance that a new head coach could turn Santi into Lucho, Wolf into Espinoza, or finally get the most out of the team’s talented young attackers who were on the fringes last season, but it would be better to combine those chances with a punt on another potentially elite producer in MLS.

Players like Carles Gil, Sebastian Giovinco, and Acosta thrived in MLS more than in the other leagues they played in, and the same can be said of many of the dynamic wingers. The Galaxy signed Pec because his profile fit the team’s needs and he was immediately one of the best wingers in the league. The same could also be said for Paintsil.

There is a sense New York City isn’t that far off. It is certainly in a better position than LA Galaxy was in 2023 prior to the handful of signings that transformed the team into MLS Cup winners in 2024.

This is the task facing new head coach Pascal Jansen and sporting director David Lee as they look to add players who will produce, or help others produce, high-level attacking output in 2025.