New England Revolution’s inability to defend cost the the team two points tonight as they drew 2-2 with the Houston Dynamo in front of 16,414 fans at Gillette Stadium. With the draw New England’s record is 4-6-1 for 13 points, while Houston’s is 3-3-4 for 13 points also.
While New England are much improved this year under first year coach Jay Heaps, the teams inability to defend set pieces and its habit of conceding late goals have really hurt the team this season.
The Revolution have now conceded five goals from set pieces this season, while not scoring any themselves.
And just like as against DC United last month at home, Stephen McCarthy was caught out in the last ten minutes of the game, and as a result New England have picked up one point against DC United and Houston instead of four.
The Revolution went ahead in the 26th minute when Houston’s Brad Davis barged into Sene in the penalty box and the New England striker picked himself up and calmly scored from the penalty spot.
Davis made up for his clumsy tackle eight minutes later when he swung in an inviting free kick that REvs goalkeeper Matt Reis came for and but didn’t get there, and Will Bruin had an easy header to make it 1-1.
It looked like NE has wrapped up all three points in the 57th minute when Saer Sene ran from inside his own half and finished past Dynamo goalkeeper Tally Hall at his near post. It was a terrific run by Sene, who is proving to be a very astute signing by Revs GM Mike Burns. Sene has now scored six goals in ten goals by New England this season.
After the Revs goal, the game became really chippy as referee Baklomero Toledo had the poorest performance of any ref I have seen this season.
But despite Houston having a lot of possession, (64% in the second half), New England looked comfortable at the back until with three minutes to go, Brian Ching played a great ball over the head of Stephen McCarthy and Camargo fired past Matt Reis. Poor defending once again by Mcarthy who is learning to play central defense under fire this season and unfortunately his mistakes have cost New England points.
