Writing about a loss for the Revolution is becoming pretty common now. The opportunities to qualify for the playoffs are there but Bruce Arena’s men continually slip up. This time, CF Montreal were the opponents and below par New England side came up short once again.
Night and Day Compared to the New England Side of Last Year
A Below-Par New England Side
The only goal of the night was scored by Canadian international Alistair Johnson. Justin Rennicks had a goal disallowed and captain Carles Gil squandered a golden opportunity, but the Revs still were still unable to perform. Week-in, week-out, this has been the bottom line at Gillette and away from home too.
Arena hasn’t covered himself in glory at times and on top of that, this is generally a below-par New England side. Last year was an outlier but the drop-off is still disgraceful, regardless of that. This is a sentiment echoed by the coach himself. “I thought last year we played well over our heads and I think some of our players never understood what made them successful last year, and it caught up with them a little bit.”
Alistair Johnston puts #CFMTL in front. 🇨🇦
A counter-attack at its finest, finished at the back post. 👌 pic.twitter.com/4BpZB8ihBX
— Major League Soccer (@MLS) September 18, 2022
“I think we’re all still processing it and obviously everyone is disappointed” were the words of Henry Kessler in the wake of this defeat. The Revolution defender then went on to say, “This was not a game I thought we played really poorly in, but we were on the losing end of it.” The latter half of that quote is the bottom line, no matter what level the performances have been at recently, the results are dismal.
Read More: Jon Bell Exclusive Interview: Being a Liverpool fan, playing for the Revolution and more
Poor Transfer Dealings or Bad Luck With Injuries?
Injuries continue to be highlighted as a reason for the struggles but the transfer business is worth mentioning too. When fit, Dylan Borrero looked strong early on and there is no denying that the arrival of Djordje Petrovic is a stroke of recruiting genius. On the other hand, there have been a fair few misses and holes remain evident in this side.
If the fans were in charge of this New England side then a lot more of the transfer revenue would have been reinvested. This may be idealistic but they do have a point following the impressive fees garnered for Tajon Buchanan, Matt Turner and Adam Buksa. Petrovic has filled Turner’s void as previously mentioned but Borrero and Giacomo Vrioni have been regularly sidelined.
Carles Gil on the #NERevs playoff chances: “I think maybe we don’t deserve to be in the playoffs because I think we’re not a competitive team now.” pic.twitter.com/ZddSnSooH1
— Sam Minton (@Sam_Minton22) September 14, 2022
As well as the aforementioned duo, Gustavo Bou and Ismael Tajouri-Shradi have been amongst those to feature on the injury list too often. Then one can go into the off-season trio of Jozy Altidore, Sebastian Lletget and Omar Gonzalez. The best performing of the trio, Lletget, was traded to FC Dallas with Gonzalez as the only remaining man.
“We’ve just not been able to field our team this year. We’ve been behind the eight ball the whole time”. This was Arena’s latest comment on the health of his side, but when does the buck stop being passed? Other teams in this league have to deal with the same issues!
Two fixtures remain in the MLS season for this New England side. Atlanta United will visit Gillette before they close it out with a visit to Chicago. The Five Stripes still have it all to play for and so that will be a tough outing whilst the Fire are all but eliminated from playoff contention. It may well be too late now…
