We certainly do... Gil saved our Ass tonight with a late goal. Totally against the run of play. We are sooooo slow. We were VERY luck to get a points out of this. i dont know where Arena thinks this team is going? We are so far behind most other teams at this point. Its embarrassing. Even more embarrassing I guess to give up points to the Revs. WE NEED HELP ...... YOUNG HELP.
A point gladly stolen. The bottom line is our quality and depth are in tatters because of the injuries. Our best back four by far is Bye, Jones, Kess and Romney. That's not an option for a while. We haven't had the opportunity to see the best versions of Bou or Vrioni for very long stretches because of their knocks. Obviously, losing Borrero stings and we're just going to have to live with that for the season. Not having Tommy Mac or Nacho as rotation pieces hurts. Jack and Esmir are promising but they haven't made the leap that Buck has. The more we have to rely on the bottom half of the roster to eat up major minutes, the more difficulty we are going to have dictating the pace and momentum of a game. And I just have to say one thing about all of that...I don't care. I feel like this team at least has some of that resiliency and knack for making something out of nothing that was our calling card in late 2019, late 2020 and all of 2021. If they can figure out a way to grind out results and points, tread water and stay within sight of the top end of the conference standings, get healthy, avoid selling pieces that leave in the summer, and figure out a way to add to the roster, they can find their stride at the right time of the season and try to go on a run to the Cup. Nothing else matters (at least to me).
Thank you to Atlanta for some truly hideous game management. They were still attacking after they went up 3-2 and I said it out loud - we still have a chance. And Carles made them pay. But the disappointing part is that the Revs were outclassed. And there were no viable options off the bench. I assume that Bruce was trying to lock it down by bringing on Jozy but to me Vrioni can do anything Jozy can at this point - and score goals. So why wait to bring him on? I hate it when coaches are stubborn despite all evidence to the contrary. Bottom line is the end of our roster stinks and needs to be upgraded. Otherwise this slide down the table is likely to continue.
And I will say Buck had his first poor game as a professional. He seemed to lose all his challenges, and had no influence whatever as our midfield was continually overrun. (Losing Blessing didn't help there, either.) But bottom line, whenever you're forced to run out Omar Gonzales at center back (or choose to do so), you're going to ship some goals.
I didn't think that Blessing was particularly effective while he was in there. We couldn't hold possession. Also Polster got absolutely skinned alive by Almada on the 2nd goal. Save for Carles and one great cross from Ema, our MF wasn't very good.
Our midfield got run over last night defensively. When they scored their first, I thought ... it's not a question of when they'll tie it, it's a question of when they'll take the lead. I was thrilled to see Gil score the tying goal. Literally all of our goals came from nothing. No major buildups, no possession ... just perfect timing on all three. We couldn't complete a pass to our own team at all. I'll include Petrovic on that (and there's not much bad to say about him over the last year). But his direct kicks almost all went immediately out of bounds or right to Atlanta. I'll agree with @abecedarian that Buck was overrun. So was Polster (it was embarrassing watching that second goal). Now 12 goals given up in 5 winless. 3 straight games giving up 3 goals. Glad to get the point, but the signs aren't positive right now. Help is needed and soon. I want to add something about how this game was being portrayed on TV last night, and even the MLS site has a "Game of the Year?" regarding this one. From a Revs POV, that wasn't pretty. In the least bit. A Game of the Year contender should have both teams going back and forth. This wasn't it. Not even close. We were outclassed, and had three moments where we just finished clinically. We had 3 SOG (to Atlanta's 7). We had less than a 70% pass rate (compared to 88.5% for Atlanta). Only twice in that game did we have more possession over a 5 minute interval than they did. Atlanta attempted 701 passes, we had 266. XG for the game was 1.8-0.9 in favor of Atlanta. It was a great point, but sorry no ... that wasn't a great game.
Yur kind. I thought Blessing stunk but he's and Arena fav so it will take dynamite to get him out of there. Arena has more problems than just Blessing. We are too slow and in some cases, too slow. Why he cant see that.... IDK. We need to get younger and faster, Atlanta ran us off the field last night and that's not a good thing. I think Arena was an upgrade in the beginning but now he seems stuck in his ways .... again. Look at his signings. Jozy, Omar, Sweat... all mostly useless. i hope Henry returns healthy. We need him badly
Yeah, I saw that, and I was like, WTF? As to Blessing, he just didn't play long enough for us to say he was bad.
I thought I was watching a JV team play the Varsity, that was pretty bad. But the Revs somehow managed to get a point smh. I agree with most of the posts, the Revs are playing with the bottom of the bench, but they are paid and should be able to complete a couple of passes. If you want to clear it out of your end that's fine in stoppage time, not start it in minute 50. I didn't have a problem with Buck getting a yellow after the stoppage of play where he pulled back Giakoumakis, but the refs need to do that for diving as well. Atlanta had one absolute clear dive in the box and a couple of others that were borderline yellows. I think the next game BA needs to play the kids, it couldn't be much worse than last night.
I'm not sure any of the kids could have changed anything last night - in fact it may have been worse. But I agree, especially with the games piling up Bruce needs to play these guys Saturday.
I'm absolutely flabbergasted over this. What makes anyone think Jozy deserves to even see the field at this point......and yet he keeps getting his number called....and even over Vrioni this time? There's got to be some story behind this. Why does Bruce keeping going back to him when it's clear to the rest of the world that Altidore is washed up?
New England tied Atlanta in the game last night and is ahead of Atlanta in the standings, but watching the two teams was night and day. Atlanta was a team with a lot of 'pep in their step' and had many decent shots or opportunities. Even their 'fast breaks' that didn't end up in shots were exciting. The Revolution just looked slow and overmatched. No pep in their step at all. They may have stolen a point, but they didn't pass the eyeball test. At halftime i was thinking...hmm, Atlanta is all over us but it will take TWO goals to get by Petrovic in this half for us NOT to win. I thought we had it. Turns out we were lucky to get a point.
The reality is that we are just hanging on until we can get some injured bodies back. That was clear back when Bye got hurt, on top of all the others that were already out. Since we held the lead so long (and had received a precious gift from Guzan) I started having hopes of actually getting all the points. In one sense, all the Atlanta goals involved a good deal of luck - but, OTOH, when you let a team operate in/around your area for most of the game, it's becomes more and more likely that there'll be some unfortunate bounces/deflections. Atlanta was squeezing our midfield, forcing us to play a precision, tight-passing game to work out of the pressure and we weren't up to it. Too many passes were off the mark, but most were just too hard in tight spaces - a by-product of feeling the defensive pressure. The harping on Altidore is just ridiculous - it didn't have an effect one way of the other. He held up the ball successfully a couple of times, something Wood struggled to do with many more chances. Would Vrioni have done any better? I want to see him start, but in previous late game sub appearances, he hasn't really gotten into the flow any more than Altidore has. Same with harping on Omar - he did a decent job under a really tough assault. Atlanta scored because our midfield couldn't prevent them from pin-balling shots all over our box and enough found fortunate bounces - one directly into the goal, the other right to an Atlanta foot for an easy pass and shot. And the mistakes were pretty well distributed - Jones had some bad giveaways and crosses allowed, Polster was badly beaten on one goal, but had other mistakes as well, Blessing had a rough half, Wood got a brave goal, but also plenty of misses, Boateng was pretty overwhelmed aside from his assist on goal #2, ... Once again, Blessing was very erratic. The play where he was injured should have been a foul and a card. Yes, the opposing player got the ball, but he also scissored Blessing's leg while doing so. Farrell, though he had some scary moments, actually did okay. Aside from Gil of course, Romney was pretty darn solid - #2 star in my book. It seemed like we scored on every chance we had ... but, Buck had a wide-open header that he should have buried. I was amazed that a goal 21 seconds in was only something like the 11th fastest in MLS history. I wonder what the record is for longest stretch between goals for a player in one game is. Gil's 92 minutes has to be pretty close to the record.
Talk about a game where you'll take the point. It's never fun to watch your team get outplayed - but my main emotional reaction was gratitude. As in, "Holy ****, we actually get to walk away with something after 90 minutes of that?" It's like the soccer gods decided it was everyone-gets-a-trophy day! Polster's not-so-great form has quietly been an issue for a while now, I think. He seems like a very confidence-oriented player. When he's feeling it, he sprays the ball around and single-handedly gives the defense the pivot they need to break the opposition press - while also muscling people off the ball (almost with nonchalance). His form in 2021 had me wondering if the USMNT would come calling, at least for an MLS-based (Gold Cup, January camp) roster. We haven't seen as much of that lately. Part of it might be about who he's playing with, but it would be nice to see him at his best for a game or two. What a crosser of the ball Boateng is, eh? And that was some ruthless finishing from Carles at the end. He seems to somehow become a better finisher in stoppage time (weak curler vs Chicago aside) - which is, I guess, the sign of a clutch player.
I will continue to call for Makoun's head. A few people have commented hes playing out of position, and yeah hes never in the right position so i guess i agree with you. I dont think hed get on the field for R2, yet hes being paid $250k and making goal conceding mistakes every game hes put on the field. Not quite as bad of a signing as Jozy, but its starting to feel close. And for all the Spaulding naysayers, hes leading the championship in assists despite only playing half the season so far. Wouldnt it be great to have him at LB instead of Makoun or Sweat?
I think Rennicks deserves a shout-out as well. If his job was to make life difficult for Atlanta, I'd say he was the most effective of the subs.
In my search for bright spots from yesterday’s match, I suggest: Twellman on the broadcast team. Finally got the impression that the analyst knows the team. I. think he’s doing the NYCFC match as well.
I agree, I thought Omar wasn't bad. None of the goals were his a fault, I don't believe. I thought Farrell was far shakier and as stated the MF play in front of both of them pretty much stunk all night. Also, I'd like to see Arena toss Omar in at Forward late in games when you need a goal. He's better in the air than all of our guys who actually play the position.
Revolution midfielder Carles Gil voted MLS Player of the Matchday presented by Continental Tire for Matchday 16 revolutionsoccer.net Thursday, Jun 1, 2023, 04:00 PM
Only the 2nd time Gil has won it? Wow. This is the second time Gil has earned the honor in his career, becoming the ninth player in @NERevolution history to win the award multiple times with the club. https://t.co/VHChuQJEt7— MLS Communications (@MLS_PR) June 1, 2023