Long time followers of this site know that I’m a sucker for statistics. Now that the USL has partnered with Opta, I have actual numbers and charts I can look at to dissect the game, rather than just rely on my eyes, which get blurrier as the game goes on. Opta/USL unfortunately won’t let me copypasta their data into this page. Let’s have a look at the numbers against last week’s opponent, Richmond Kickers:

This is one of those games that makes stats look bad: Louisville City won the possession battle 54% – 46%, but those numbers betray where the ball was most of the time in this one: Richmond’s defensive half. The heat map tells the story, as the area between the midfield line and Richmond’s 18 yard box looks like it’s on fire. City had a bunch of touches in the box in this one, too, though none turned into a goal aside from Davis’s penalty kick.

The heat map also more or less lines up with how Richmond wanted to play this game. They set up in a 5-4-1, about as conservative a lineup as you can imagine. The Kickers wanted to muck up the middle of the field for Louisville City, and they had success in doing so. Louisville City couldn’t do much in the way of creating chances through the middle, and Richmond’s centerbacks did a decent job bottling up Luke Spencer. City did have some good chances to score, though, and probably could have put at least one more goal past the Kickers’ gigantic rookie keeper.

For the second week running, Louisville City’s passing numbers were very good, and Paolo DelPiccolo had his best game since becoming the starting defensive midfielder for LC. Speedy took a bit of a dip, but nothing that causes me much concern.

George Davis deservedly won Man of the Match as he scored and had a high work rate. I’m still not convinced he’s better in the 10 spot than Brian Ownby, however. Ownby had another very good outing, and probably should have had a goal of his own if the ball hit an inch to the left of the crossbar. Cuatro’s passing numbers weren’t as good as Ownby’s on the day, but he did create two scoring chances in the match.

Luke Spencer didn’t have a great day on the stat sheet. Part of that is due to how Richmond defended him, but he did not pass the ball well. Spencer had nine touches in the Kickers’ penalty area, but just generated one shot.

Finally, our backs had another good day. Oscar Jimenez teamed up well with the midfield passing, and tacked on another scoring chance. Sean Totsch also played very well, winning most of his 1v1s.