Early Crew Goal, Mins Projection

Any player, when given enough time, can score goals. When your looking at how many goals a team might score a good place to start is how many minutes any given player might get.

Team watchers should be able to look up and down the current Columbus Crew roster and come to some pretty solid conclusions as to how many minutes players will be getting. I did this last year with a reasonable amount of success.

Here's how my projections looked on a positional level:

POSITION : PROJECTED, ACTUAL : DIFF
MIDFIELD : 14,6 : -8 (Gaven)
FORWARDS : 30,29 : -1
DEFENDERS : 4,6 : 2

From a goal scoring perspective, Gaven's injury really set the team back but even with him the 2013 Crew were just not equipped to get enough into the back of the net.

What I did last year was just plug in expected per 90 goal outputs based on past performance. This year I've done the same.

So the big question is, do they have enough this year?

2014 GOALS : NAME : EXPECTED MINS
8 : Dominic Oduro : 3000
8 : Federico Higuain : 3000
7 : Jairo Arrieta : 2000
6 : Bernardo Anor : 2500
4 : Daniel Paladini : 1500
3 : Josh Williams : 3000
2 : Ryan Finley : 1000
2 : Tony Tchani : 2500
1 : Justin Meram : 500
1 : Ben Speas : 1000
1 : Aaron Schoenfeld : 500

0 : Agustin Viana : 1500
0 : Wil Trapp : 2500
0 : Chad Barson : 2000
0 : Ethan Finlay : 500
0 : Eric Gehrig : 1000
0 : Tyson Wahl : 1200
0 : Kevan George : 500
0 : Matt Lampson : 0
0 : Brad Stuver : 0
0 : Steven Clark : 3000
0 : Waylon Francis : 1500
0 : Daniel Withrow : 0
0 : Shawn Sloan : 0
0 : Matt Wiet : 0

This works out to be around 43 goals as the team is built right now. There are too many players that have to achieve above what I think they are capable of in order for the team to get get over the magic number of 50 goals on the season (playoff level).

SOME NOTES, RISKS

• ONE GIVER: Dominic Oduro and Jairo Arrieta are going to be sharing key passes from Higuain. There is only one Federico on the pitch at a time.

• BROKEN RECORD: I'm in pre-season year two of saying Meram can get goals and be dangerous. The will need him this year, but the question remains; will they use him?

• MF: Goals (or threat of goals) are still missing from the midfield.

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FINAL THOUGHT ON EARLY GOAL ANALYSIS

Gregg Berhalter is going to have to be patient and stand by some tough early season lineups because it's looking like the key to this season isn't players like Oduro, Arrieta or Higuain.. they will get their stats, it's about the other guys. The role players. They are are going to be the key to the 2014 season.

They happen to also be the biggest unknown though.