New York City FC sit winless over their last four MLS league matches, but Pascal Jansen doesn't see major signs of concern as it relates to his team's attack.
Jansen's squad put eight shots on target and had 23 shot attempts during the 2-1 loss to Charlotte FC, but were only spared from a home shutout by a pinpoint, powerful strike from Nico Fernández Mercau, but one that came with what was nearly the last kick of the match while trailing by two goals.
In his press conference following the Charlotte loss, Jansen told New York Soccer Journal's Mark Radigan, "If you see the goal that Nico makes at the end of the game, that's the only thing that was lacking throughout the game: The quality of the finishing, because we create numerous options, multiple options, to score a goal. Credit to the goalkeeper, as well, from Charlotte, because he did a great job, but looking at our own team, we should have scored more than one goal overall."
The "should have scored more" sentiment was shared by Jansen's top 2026 goalscorer, Fernández Mercau, during the Designated Player's pre-FC Cincinnati press availability.
Nico said in part (and translated from his original Spanish), "I believe we had several chances to win the [Charlotte] match. I feel we deserved to take home the three points. But then again, football is also decided by the details. They executed well on two plays, though I don't think they created many scoring opportunities against us. We were getting forward, but we just couldn't convert our chances into goals."
Chance-conversion concerns?
While scoring opportunities went wasted with regularity in the loss to Charlotte, Jansen brushed aside any concern that an inability to finish chances would be a recurring problem his New York City squad has to overcome.
"It hasn't been a topic in the games before Charlotte. The game against St. Louis and the game against Charlotte, that was creating a lot of moments in order to score a goal. But decision-making in the final third is part of the story, and the quality of finishing," Jansen said.
"Overall, we can be pretty satisfied, I think, scoring 15 goals in the first eight games. We all know we want more goals, but to make it bigger than what you're suggesting is a little bit too far, if you ask me," said the New York City coach.
Those 15 goals scored have NYCFC ranked among the ten most prolific scoring teams in Major League Soccer so far this season, and 15 goals through eight games has the 2026 team tied for the third-biggest goal return in club history at this stage of the season, equal to the amount scored by the 2021 team through eight league games, then trailing only the 16 goals from the 2018 team, as well as the whopping 19 scored by 2022's reigning MLS Cup winners.
This season, the goals came in bunches and came early, and a fair number of them came during the stretch of games in which every New York City FC opponent seemed to earn themselves a crippling red card. Most have been scored by Fernández Mercau — his six goals in 2026 already match the career-high total he scored in the Spanish second-division during his last season with Elche prior to his move to New York.
The goals all count the same no matter the circumstances or the scorer, but how NYCFC measures up in terms of chance conversion, rather than pure goals scored, is a different and less clear-cut story.
Goals to follow if the 'moments' remain
If you go by Sofascore's chance-creation metrics, New York City is in the middle of the pack for both creating great scoring chances, and for missing out on those same big scoring chances. So far, New York City converted seven of their 20 so-called "big chances" into goals through eight games, according to Sofascore. Those 20 chances created place NYCFC in 16th, and their 13 big chances missed ranks as the 14th-most in the 30-team league.
Their shots on target percentage, 41.3%, is 10th-best in MLS so far this season, but New York City's goal/shot on target ratio of 0.29 doesn't rank as well, placing the team down in 16th place.
The shots and chances to score have been there for NYCFC across the eight-game slate to open this season, but it's been a mixed bag when it comes to finishing them.
Lately, the pendulum has swung in the wrong direction for the team's attack, away from goals-plural getting scored during home matches. While speaking after the Charlotte game, Pascal Jansen didn't see any trends forming, and instead stressed that the existence of the scoring chances was the more important thing.
"We had guys scoring goals in the first run of games like it was no problem...It will worry me if we don't create these moments anymore," said Jansen.
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