Four ways the Revs can salvage their season

As Adam wrote earlier in the week, things are looking pretty grim for the Revolution right now. And while it may, in fact, be time to punt this season and start looking toward next year, I’d like to propose four things the Revs could do right now to salvage their 2010 campaign:

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Revs improve but fall to Chicago, 1-0

After watching the United States’ elimination from the World Cup at the hands of Ghana on Saturday, New England soccer fans shifted some of their attention back to the Revolution.

The last time they’d seen the Revs in MLS play, though, there was little to get excited about. Before the league went on hiatus to grant the Yanks center stage, Steve Nicol‘s club hit rock bottom after a 3-0 loss in Seattle wherein they were outshot 19-2.

In returning to action at Gillette Stadium, the Revs again fell – this time 1-0 to the Chicago Fire at Gillette Stadium – but did not look clueless in the process, at least.

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First trimester report cards

by Adam Vaccaro

As the Revolution are now 1/3 of the way through their MLS campaign and the blog a bit slow of late, I figured I’d throw together an assessment of the team’s individual players through the season’s first segment. The grades and assessments are based only on MLS play.

The grades are also weighted – the players are in competition with one another here, not with the rest of the league and certainly not with the rest of the soccer universe. Brief tangent: I never understood teachers/professors that didn’t weight grades. If nearly everyone has a C, then the kid who has the C+ did best in the class. So he should get the A. Right? Maybe I took too competitive an approach to school, though that wouldn’t explain all the nights I put off papers and studying to engage in whatever inane activity was to be undergone instead…

Right then. Here are the grades in ascending order of quality, because it’s more fun to write about those with whom one or one’s readership is pleased.

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Steve Nicol on trial players

With Ivan Gvozdenovic, Jason Griffiths, and Jean-Baptiste Fritzson currently on trial with a fatigued Revolution club, it seems as though head coach Steve Nicol will attempt to get the trio some game time in tomorrow night’s exhibition against Portugal’s SL Benfica.  He said today, courtesy of Revolutionsoccer.net:

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Revs fail to turn tide, but look good in draw

by Adam Vaccaro

Surely the New England Revolution are frustrated with what is now a 7 game winless streak, but the club spoke positively having looked strong earning a point in a 0-0 tie tonight against the San Jose Earthquakes.

“We’re going in the right direction, and we’ll put a couple in next time,” said Cory Gibbs moments after the game ended.

Indeed, the Revolution controlled much of the game’s pace and, for the second straight league game, looked much improved in two of the season’s early areas of issue.  Playing in a 4-5-1 formation, team possession and midfield play proved to be strengths rather than weaknesses against San Jose.  These combined with the season-long strengths of goaltending and defensive play made for an entertaining tilt, even without a goal.

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Pregame notes: San Jose Earthquakes at New England Revolution

Greetings, and welcome to Six States, One Blog’s coverage of tonight’s match at Gillette Stadium between the New England Revolution (2-5-1) and the San Jose Earthquakes (4-2-0).  The two teams met up previously on the west coast on April 17 of this season, which marked a 2-0 loss to the Revs.  It was the first in the Revs’ current string of 6 winless matches, which includes 5 league matches.

Some pregame thoughts:

• The Revolution will be happy to see Marko Perovic, Cory Gibbs, and Kevin Alston back in the lineup.  Perovic played in Wednesday night’s US Open Cup qualifier but was missed in last Saturday’s loss to the Columbus Crew due to suspension.  Alston missed each of the last two.  Gibbs, meanwhile, went against Columbus but sat out Wednesday’s match.  It’s getting fair to say that it’s been a tough go of it this season for the club, but these three have been bright spots and to have them all back in time for further league play can only help New England.  That goes double for Alston and Gibbs, as the Revs finished off Wednesday’s match against New York without a natural defender on the field.

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Cause for Optimism

It’s been a rough start, but there are reasons to feel good about this Revs team.

By Ian Holliday

Last night’s 3-2 loss to Columbus was the Revolution’s eighth match of the season, which means the team has already played more than one quarter of its 2010 MLS schedule. Obviously, things haven’t gone exactly as planned for the Revs thus far. Seven points from eight matches puts the team on pace for a decidedly bad season, one that would end with the Revs out of the playoffs for the first time in 9 years. There are plenty of reasons to be pessimistic about this Revolution team: injuries, card suspensions, a general lack of quality — particularly in the midfield, and the inexperience of youth, to name a few. We all know what’s wrong, and we all have our ideas about how we’d like to fix it. That’s another column for another day (or perhaps, my first column from a week ago).

Today’s column is about what’s going right with this Revolution team, the optimistic take on this rough start.

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Revs loss a heart-breaker, but club remains positive

by Adam Vaccaro

For a full ninety minutes, the New England Revolution played what was to this point their best soccer of the season.

Unfortunately, they walked away without anything to show for it.

Robbie Rogers put a rebound shot off the top post and into the net in stoppage time to break a tie and put the still unbeaten Columbus Crew (now 3-0-2) ahead 3-2, erasing the effect of an inspired New England effort.

“I think for 91 or 92 minutes, we stuck to our game plan, we did our job and to be honest, this hurts a lot more than getting blown out,” said midfielder Pat Phelan.  “I think we deserved a point.”

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Familiar Problems Plague Revs in Loss to Chivas

By Ian Holliday

A recently acquired midfielder who has earned a regular starting role earns himself a silly red card and forces the team to finish the game shorthanded. Sound familiar? It’s the story of the last two New England Revolution games.

Just four days after having both Kheli Dube and Joseph Niouky sent off against FC Dallas, the Revs saw Marko Perovic ejected in the 28th minute of their 4-0 loss to Chivas USA Wednesday night. Frustrated at the Goats’ Ben Zemanski pulling his jersey, Perovic swung his arms at the Chivas midfielder, catching him in the head and earning himself a straight red.

“The sending off just killed us,” said coach Steve Nicol. “You can’t play men down.”

Two minutes before the red card,

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Pregame: Chivas USA at New England Revolution, May 5, 2010

Tonight marks — aside from Cinco de Mayo — the finale of the Revolution’s three game homestand and the club’s second of eight matches in the month of May.  The Revolution will again be without captain Shalrie Joseph, and will be missing some of the depth that could conceivably be helping in his void as well.  Some thoughts with the match set to start at 7:30 at Gillette Stadium:

-With Joseph Niouky suspended due to the red card he drew on Saturday night against FC Dallas, Mike Videira would have been a solid guy to play in his spot (some observers would argue that he’d be a better fit regardless, but I digress).  Videira, though, will not participate in tonight’s match either; he is listed as out with an ankle injury.  I’m expecting that we’ll see Marko Perovic slide over to that spot instead, and that Chris Tierney will take back the left wing spot he filled earlier in the season.  Then again, with Kevin Alston questionable due to an illness, we may see coach Steve Nicol go with something in the 3-5-2 vein.  “We have no choice,” Nicol told MLSsoccer.com‘s Kyle McCarthy. “We’ve got to be creative. We’ll just sort ourselves out.”

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