Armchair Analyst: Matt Doyle

Opta Stat of the Day: And oh yeah, Sporting are still dominant in the air

On Tuesday, I noted that Uri Rosell has done superb work cleaning up messes in the central midfield for Sporting KC which, in all honesty, was one of the big questions for that team headed into the season.


Thanks to his work (and Paolo Nagamura, and Benny Feilhaber, and Peterson Joseph, and even a little bit of Lawrence Olum), attacking KC up the gut is still a no-go. But attacking from out wide doesn't work so great, either:

<strong>Team</strong>
<strong>Headed Clearances</strong>
Sporting Kansas City
268
San Jose Earthquakes
221
Vancouver Whitecaps
213
New York Red Bulls
208
Portland Timbers
201
Houston Dynamo
198
FC Dallas
197
Colorado Rapids
189
Real Salt Lake
189
D.C. United
182
Montreal Impact
179
New England Revolution
175
Chivas USA
175
Columbus Crew
167
LA Galaxy
162
Toronto FC
162
Seattle Sounders FC
148
Philadelphia Union
141
Chicago Fire
118

Obviously, this doesn't mean SKC are unbeatable. They can be had, especially in transition, and their attack still isn't clicking the way Peter Vermes must have hoped it would heading into the season.


But they still get the basics right. And that's why they'll be at or near the top of the Eastern Conference through the rest of the season.