The New England Revolution picked up their first home win of the season on Saturday as they beat the Philadelphia Union 2-0 in front of 18,383. Diego Fagundez and man-of-the-match Lee Nguyen scored the two Revs goals.
After getting thumped in New York last week, Revs boss Jay Heaps switched formations tonight. He went to a 4-1-4-1 system with Cisse is the holding role and Nguyen and Rowe in the play maker roles. And it worked.
With 19 attempts on goal, with 11 of them on target, New England had their best offensive performance of the season.
And it started with Cisse. Jay Heaps said after the game that it takes time for new players to adjust to MLS and this was probably Cisse’s best game in a New England shirt. He is mobile, strong and possess a good passing range. All attributes of a good holding midfielder. If Cisse can play like this every week, then New England will be much harder to beat.
In front of Cisse, Heaps played Nguyen and Rowe and they were terrific, providing the link up play that Juan Toja has ben unable do in the previous games.
Nguyen was so much more influential in the middle of the park instead of out wide, and was at the center of most of New England’s best moves tonight. Not sure if he can do that against the better teams in MLS, but tonight he was terrific.
Also pleasing to Jay Heaps was another clean sheet for the Revolution. That is 4 clean sheets in 7 games for New England tonight, although that is mainly due to Bobby Shuttleworth, who made two really good saves in the front half to keep the game scoreless at half-time.
