This may be the worst Revs team in comparison to the league. Just way too many years of front office ineptitude. I do like Gil and the effort of some others but man what a talent deficit we have.
They are in the running. I'd pick the team the last year of the Nicol era. But still a lot of season left.
There's no cavalry coming to the rescue, either. No one who can make a difference is going to voluntarily sign up to be a part of this.
There is no way to even remotely blame this dumpster fire on the ref, but I will say that MLS will never be taken seriously as long as a big part of a team's game plan can be to level the other team's best player every time that he touches the ball, and then no persistent infringement yellow is given until well into the second half.
So in the postgame presser, Friedel said he accepted full responsibility for not having the team motivated for the match. Accepting responsibility is a step forward, but I don't understand why he seems so hung up on motivation. It's not motivation that left us with no shots on goal. It's gameplan. That's what he needs to step up on. We can "rah rah boys" until the cows come home, but if all we do is give the ball to Teal and Agudelo so they can punt it into Row Z, motivation ain't gonna mean shit.
A great game plan isn’t going to make any difference if the players don’t have the skill to pull it off.
Gameplan or Skill, the brute fact is that this is the team Brad built. Another brute fact is that it is markedly inferior to the team Brad inherited. He owns this mess, alright.
Teal cant even put a shot on the goal line anymore, let alone on goal. Hes had 4 or 5 shots that lead to an opposing throw in this season. With opponents playing a low block against a technique poor revs team a player who's sole value comes from scoring on the break shouldnt be in the lineup. I'm also running out of patience for Castillo. Dude had chance to shoot from the top of the 6 and tried to pass? Whats he thinking. Penilla was poor, I actually thought Diego with Gil and JFC had some nice moments in the 2nd half. Hopefully we see more of them going forward. Cropper made some huge saves, and the flukey one shouldn't be what costs him his job. It should be his inability to play out of the back with his feet. He put 2 or 3 in the stands when simple passes would do
exactly. this team would need 3 DP level signings in the next week to be able to be competitive the rest of the year. We all know that will never happen
I do think there are some decent players on the roster and I do think they are capable of better. They were bad last year but they have taken a step in the wrong direction and that is on the coaching. It seems to me that Brad has lost this team. They are not responding to his type of system or leadership. I honestly don't think this team addressed its biggest problem last year and that was the back line and a defensive mid. Caicedo and Caldwell are not the answer. Clearly Zahibo has worked his way out of the lineup. They could have picked up Alonso but they passed. He has made a huge difference in Minnesota. Castillo, Farrell, Mancienne and Anibaba are backups. Far too often these guys opt for the 60 yard pass which they seldom complete. BFD they have a state of the art training center opening soon. If they continue they direction they are going its like taking a turd out of an out house and putting it into a toilet made of gold. in the end its still a turd. The Revs just can't fire Brad and think things will change. The entire organization needs to have a courageous conversation within its ranks to figure out where and what it wants to be. Until that happens they will continue to loose fans and games
Montreal was traveling on short rest, sounds like they spent about 14 hours sitting on the plane over 2 days and arrived in Boston about 4 hours before gametime. They were missing their 2 best players and rotated their squad to include a number of youngsters with little experience. How is it possible to be routed under those circumstances? Sure the last 2 goals came when the Revs were pressing but they are terrible defending against the break. My daughter and I were actually arguing about who hurts the Revs more: Somi who makes 400k and doesn't even make the 18 or Mancienne who makes 900 or a million and is terrible
The team is bad, and it is Friedel's fault. We have plenty of players with skill. Castillo did not forget to defend when he took the plane from Colorado to Boston. Bunbury scored 11 last year and averaged a goal every 180 minutes in 2017 - he did not suddenly forget how to play. Same story with Fagundez and Penilla. The problem is the coaching. There is no cohesive plan for how to play throughout the season (there might have been at the beginning of the season but it's clearly been scrapped after they sucked to start the year) and there doesn't even look like there's any coherent plan for each game. The players look lost and Friedel's only response seems to be yelling. A good coach could have taken this squad to the playoffs. That is probably not possible any more with the hole we're in, but we have seen plenty of evidence - Friedel is a bad manager and we need a new one ASAP.
It does seem that, on paper, there were upgrades (including addition by subtraction) at a few positions relative to who finished with the team last year. Yet the team is performing worse. While heaven knows there are other problems throughout the franchise, your conclusion seems inescapable. Maybe they should bring in a well-liked former player who brings a fresh eye (read: no experience) to manage....
Couple of stats that absolutely should get someone fired: 4 of the first 6 home games lost 4 of the first 6 home games we were shutout Montreal had 9 SOG last night. The Revs have 11 in 6 home games this year Revs have scored 3 goals in 6 home games, while giving up 10.
Fear not, all you pessimists! They promised us a DP who will save the day, and it's just a mater of time. Mike Burns is ON IT! We will find our man! He is searching in the deserts of Sudan, and the gardens of Japan, from Milan to Yucatan, every player, every man. In the wilds of Borneo, and the vineyards of Bordeaux, Eskimo, or Navajo. On the dock of Tiger Bay, on the road to Mandalay, from Bombay to Santa Fe, over hills and far away. How fitting is it to paraphrase Ian Dury and the Blockheads, when Burns and Friedel are the biggest Blockheads of all!
Jeez I watched the match summary on MLS site and the only passage included in which the Revs are not defending is the corner kick that Agudelo flicked onto the crossbar. (The summary does include Mariner exclaiming "I don't think they've even had a shot on goal" for posterity.)
I pretty much agree with all of this. I've been pretty mystified by some of the performances all year: - Castillo, as you mentioned: you can see the skills, yet the decision-making and the end-products are very questionable. As you point out, he didn't forget how to play. - I could go down the list, but it seems like almost everyone is regressing. Anibaba was just booting it up the field almost every time - the midfield kept working it laterally, then passing it back under token pressure to the defense who would then go on to lose it. ----------------- I believed until last night that Friedel had a chance to get them headed in the right direction, that last Saturday's clean sheet could have been something to build on. After last night - where I made the effort to get to the game and was eager to see something positive - it no longer seems possible to me. On the ride home I was mulling whether they should hand the reins over to one of Friedel's assistants, try to bring someone inside as an interim, or ...? I don't think Burns should be the one picking a replacement - two strikes and he's out AFAIC. They really need to replace Burns with a a real US Soccer executive, who can then pick a coach going forward. --------------- About the only positive I saw last night was that Diego, after a really poor start, finally started to find his rhythm for the first time all season. Then Friedel pulled him out! --------------- So, to me, the real test (if Friedel survives until then ... which is hard to imagine) is when Chelsea comes in. What kind of performances will we see when the players are performing on a world media stage? Will it look like last night, or will they miraculously all be on their "A" games? If the latter, I think that pretty much proves that they aren't willing to be coached by Friedel. I'd rather see the team take some action before then, though.
Pretty much spot on. I was thinking last night that Diego was terrible the first half and then it was like a different player the second then Brad pulls him when he was starting to click. Personally I would have taken Agudelo or Caicedo off who were terrible all night. As for Castillo at one point he entirely missed on a slide tackle about 35 yards from his own goal. Player blew past him. He gets up and jogs back trailing the play. I was screaming at the TV! I'm done with that sort of mentality and effort.