After drawing with NYCFC in the last outing, the New England Revolution made light work of CF Montreal. From start to finish, Bruce Arena’s men were on red-hot form on home soil. The Revolution continue to soar this season with only FC Cincinnati above them in the Eastern Conference standings.
The Revolution Make Light Work of Montreal
Latif Blessing Returns to the Fold
Arena made three changes as CF Montreal came to Gillette Stadium. The more experienced duo of Matt Polster and Latif Blessing came back into the XI in the places of Noel Buck and Jack Panayotou, with Dylan Borrero replacing Venezuelan international Christian Makoun also.
Former LAFC man Blessing received a lot of praise from his head coach following this convincing win. “It probably gets unnoticed by a lot of people, but he makes a lot of little plays that make a difference in the game, so he had a real good performance tonight.” The Ghanaian created three chances as well as completing 42 of his 44 attempted passes.
What an addition @latif_blessing has already been to our squad! Get to know him better on #MLSSeasonPass: https://t.co/PzB3PDc2yM pic.twitter.com/9vIHRjkRUF
— New England Revolution (@NERevolution) April 4, 2023
One eyebrow-raising moment in the game saw Henry Kessler replaced by Andrew Farrell at half-time. Amidst injury worries over the centre-back, Arena gave a reassuring update. “No, there’s no injury. We’re just being safe with him.”
Blessing then offered up a strong message as to the potential success of the Revolution this year. “If you want to be a champion in this league, you have to win home games. Last game, we had one point, and we didn’t like it. We go and correct ourselves, we train, so I think it’s a great three points to have.”
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The Revolution Get Back to Winning Ways
As previously mentioned, it ended honours even against Nick Cushing’s NYCFC last weekend. They were back at Gillette and against a CF Montreal side struggling to find their feet under Hernan Losada. Defender DeJuan Jones said that “we wanted to make a statement” and they certainly did that.
When asked about the issues that they’re facing thus far, here is what Losada had to say. “Different reasons. The fact that we’re not able to put the same lineup week after week, the fact that there are many new players, new young players making their first appearances in the top flight, the fact that, individually, we are not on our best level.”
Au Revoir 👋#NERevs | @SantanderBankUS pic.twitter.com/N24kmKxSQs
— New England Revolution (@NERevolution) April 9, 2023
One obvious positive out of this game for the Revolution was seeing Giacomo Vrioni on the scoresheet. Borrero, Carles Gil and Gustavo Bou are a trio of very in-form players whereas the former Juventus man hasn’t enjoyed much success in 2023. Arena issued a vote of confidence towards the Albanian forward. “We’ve seen over the last two or three weeks he’s improving, so tonight will be good for his confidence for sure.”
All in all, it was a very successful outing for the Revolution. They continue to go from strength to strength this season and this was an emphatic victory against their neighbours to the north. Next up is a trip to Columbus!
Featured image credit: Winslow Townson-USA TODAY Sports, taken on Apr 8, 2023.
