On December 31st, 2024, I naively sent my friends the following text:

Welp. Hearing about Jenna Nighswonger leaving Gotham for Arsenal today made me feel… stressed? No wait, sad? As someone who’s been a fan of Gotham for about as long as Jenna has played there, the prospect of Jenna Nighswonger currently makes me sad more than anything else. When players like Delanie Sheehan, Yazmeen Ryan, and Lynn Williams, who had all been at the team the entire time I’ve been a fan, left Gotham, I also felt similarly sad, but I also felt really stressed about the implications of their departure on the team’s strength. In contrast, by the end of the 2024 season, Jenna Nighswonger often found herself on the bench. With this news about Jenna, I’m not sure how to feel. I didn’t grow up playing soccer so I feel like I lack a deep understanding of the game that a lot of people here have and I rely a lot on what people tell me to feel about different players and moves, and what people have told me to feel about Jenna Nighswonger has varied so widely over the course of me being a fan. So I decided to turn to data to see if I could parse through my feelings about her leaving on purely a soccer performance level.

Visual #1: Jenna vs. other fullbacks on attacking g+, 2023 vs. 2024

Okay, so before I get into these first few graphs, I need to explain the statistic that I am using. American Soccer Analysis has this super cool statistic called goals added (g+), an explanation for which can be found here. The gist of it is this:

For example, at the moment a player receives the ball at midfield, their team might have a 1.5% chance of scoring on that possession but also a 1% chance of conceding on the next possession. That situation isn’t very valuable. But if they play a throughball from there into the final third, their team is now in a much better situation and might have a 6% chance of scoring and only a 0.5% chance of conceding. The pass would be worth the difference in their team’s situation before and after it, or (0.060 - 0.005) - (0.015 - 0.010) = +0.050 goals added.

ASA categorizes each touch and its g+ value into one of six categories: shooting (shots), receiving (receptions), passing (passes), dribbling (carries, take-ons, miscontrols, dispossessions), interrupting (tackles, interceptions, blocks, clearances, recoveries, contested headers), and fouling (fouls committed, fouls received). I created two new variables out of these, one that combines the attacking categories (dribbling + passing + receiving + shooting) and one that combines the defensive categories (interrupting + fouling + passing). Below are graphs of attacking g+ among fullbacks.

Visual #2: Jenna vs. other fullbacks on defensive g+, 2023 vs. 2024

Visual #3: Jenna vs. other fullbacks on both types of g+, 2023 vs. 2024

Visual #4: Jenna vs. other Gotham players on both types of g+, 2023 vs. 2024

Visual #5: Jenna vs. other fullbacks on goal creating actions and shot creating actions, 2023 vs. 2024

Jenna Nighswonger is not a natural defender, and a lot of her value on Gotham comes from what she adds to the attack. Below are graphs of the number of goal-creating and shot-creating actions from 2023 and 2024 among fullbacks.

Visual #6: Jenna vs. other fullbacks on crosses and total xG, 2023 vs. 2024

From going to a lot of games and watching a lot of games, something I’ve observed is that a big way in which Jenna contributes to the attack is by sending in a lot of crosses.

Visual #7: Jenna vs. all other players on crosses and total xG, 2023 vs. 2024

Visual #8: Jenna vs. other fullbacks on defensive errors, 2023 vs. 2024

The narrative throughout most of 2024 has been that Jenna Nighswonger is a defensive liability, and I was curious to see how her defense compared to 2023.

Visual #9: Jenna vs. other fullbacks on total tackles and interceptions

Visual #10: Jenna vs. other fullbacks on tackle and challenge win %, 2023 vs. 2024

My main takeaways from these graphs is that although Jenna has improved in some aspects since her 2023 ROTY winning season, she’s added less to Gotham’s offense in 2024 than she did in 2023 without really improving in her defense much. However, as I’ve mentioned, I’m still getting the hang of actually understanding the game so please let me know if there are certain statistics that you’d value over others as indicators of performance.

I still stand by what I said: Jenna Nighswonger will get her groove back–it just won’t be with my team lol.

Best of luck to Jenna at Arsenal! I’m excited to see her continue to grow :)