New England Revolution striker Taylor Twellman jogged off the field at the end of Friday's training session as he has done over the past few weeks.
There is one slight difference for the veteran striker in this session. Twellman will be available to play in Saturday night's game against Toronto FC at Gillette Stadium.
Revolution head coach Steve Nicol passed the striker fit for duty, saying that he'll name Twellman on the bench for the first time since injuring his knee against Chivas USA on May 11.
"He's not ready for 90 minutes yet," Nicol said. "But he can come off the bench. He hasn't trained in three weeks, but physically, he's back to normal."
Twellman's return coincides with the return of Khano Smith, Shalrie Joseph and Kenny Mansally from national team duty and Mauricio Castro from an oblique strain.
Joseph and Castro are expected to return to the starting lineup, while Smith and Mansally will start on the bench.
Mansally's tardy return irked Nicol. The Gambian striker was expected to return on Thursday, but he left Banjul, the Gambian capital, last night and won't arrive in Boston until Friday afternoon.
Nicol said the Gambian federation should have return his player earlier than it did, but said it wouldn't impact whether Mansally would have started in Saturday's game.
"If he'd been back on Tuesday, he wouldn't have been starting anyways," Nicol said.
Nicol would also like to see his team return to its winning ways at home. The team hasn't shown the form or the performances Nicol would like to see at Gillette Stadium this season. Teams have come into Foxborough and frustrated the Revolution by clogging passing lanes and keeping the Revolution compact in midfield.
But those sorts of tactics won't influence how Nicol will lineup his side or convince him to shift away from his preferred 3-5-2 formation and his emphasis on possession and wide play.
"We would like to think what we do causes problems for other teams, not the other way around," Nicol said.
Revolution defender Jay Heaps said that his team has done well to get results at home, but the side needs to turn draws at home into wins if it wants to maintain its place at the top of the table.
"We've made it exciting for the fans, but we haven't been playing well," Heaps said.
The answer, according to Heaps, is getting off to a better start and avoiding the pitfalls of falling behind early and trying to break down a compact defense later in the match.
The Revs will likely see plenty of compact play from a Toronto FC side that prefers to play five in the midfield and has shown the ability to clog passing lanes with midfielders Carl Robinson and Maurice Edu lying deep in midfield.
"They've added to the team," Heaps said. "They've made it better from front to back with guys who have experience winning championships. They're not an expansion team anymore."
Kyle McCarthy is a contributor to MLSnet.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Soccer or its clubs.
