The New England Revolution are in free-fall mode at the moment. The 2-1 loss in Chicago last night, extended the club’s winless streak to seven games (0-6-1) dating back to early July. The streak is the team’s longest since going seven games winless from July 23 through Sept. 7, 2011 (0-2-5).
Revs rookie head-coach Jay Heaps is finding the transition from the commentary box to the bench much harder than he thought, saying this about the winless streak after the game
“It’s gut-wrenching,” Heaps told Revs Wrap/CSNNE.com before pausing for a moment. “It’s gut-wrenching.”
These are critical times for the Revs and it has to be worrying to Mike Burns and the rest of the Revs management that the team is going backwards under Heaps. They are not improving. The style of football that worked well in the first month of the season has gone, and Heaps doesn’t seem to have a Plan B.
It is hard to win games if you don’t score goals and the Revs have struggled all season, not only scoring goals, but creating chances. Fernando Cardenas’ 11th minute goal snapped the Revs 268-minute scoreless streak, the team had not scored since Saer Sene scored in the 12th minute on July 29 at Philadelphia.
Against the Fire, the Revs had only seven shots, the third time this season they have generated seven or fewer shots in a match.
If you are not creating chances it puts pressure on your defense to not make mistakes, something that this New England team is unable to do. The first Chicago goal came in the fifth minute when A.J. Soares pulled down Chris Rolfe. That was a soft penalty, but the Fire’s second goal was the kind of mental mistake that have haunted New England all season.
A quick throw in by Chicago caught the Revs backline napping and Patrick Nyarko had the time to pick out Sherjill MacDonald in the box and the Dutch Designated Player headed it down and past Reis for his first goal in his four games with the Fire.
“Same old story,” Revolution goalkeeper Matt Reis told Revs Wrap/CSNNE.com. “It’s a little bit of a mental error and a little bit of, well, I guess you’d call it savvy where we need to be better at the crucial times. Like you guys said, I don’t know if we created enough quality chances in the end.”
The Revs will be on the road once again next weekend as they’ll visit the Columbus Crew on Saturday, Aug. 25. Kickoff from Crew Stadium is set for 7:30 p.m.
