Welcome to the Wednesday Q&A series, where we focus on one particular topic – today's being the Revs – and ask you to react, share, and discuss in the comments section. However, feel free to ask about anything game-related (MLS, USL, NASL, USMNT, CanMNT, etc.) over the next several hours.
Six months ago, I picked the New England Revolution to win the Supporters' Shield. I was very wrong.
Here we are at the end of August and the Revs have slipped below the red line in the East, have suffered four straight multi-goal losses (including the last two at home), and have a palpable "Dead Man Walking" feel to them. I feel fairly comfortable predicting that the high point of their 2016 season came a few weeks back when they qualified for the US Open Cup final, which they'll be tasked with winning on September 13 in Dallas.
I don't expect them to win. Given my track record this year you're free to take that prediction for what it's worth, but it'd be a brave individual to predict that kind of success for this Revs team.
What went wrong? Here's a list:
• Andrew Farrell was not able to build upon his decent first year at center back. Farrell inherited the spot in 2015 after A.J. Soares wasn't re-signed following New England's appearance in that year's MLS Cup, and had his strong points. But the former No. 1 overall SuperDraft pick got scouted, and his relative weakness in the air made him a target that teams attacked match after match after match, until head coach Jay Heaps finally pulled the plug and moved Farrell back to right back in July.
• The only natural center back on the roster besides Jose Goncalves, Portuguese loanee Sambinha, has struggled in his few run-outs with the first team, even against lower-division sides. That's left Heaps with a rotation of converted midfielders and fullbacks to pair with Goncalves.
• The Revs front office did not address this abjectly clear need during the summer window, via either transfer or trade.
• Jermaine Jones left, a move which I understood and supported (as great as he is when he's healthy, he's almost never healthy for MLS games -- Jones has played only 8 times this season for Colorado. Both guys brought in to fill that void as a box-to-box destroyer and overall game-influencer, DP Xavier Kouassi and former Whitecap Gershon Koffie, have also been injured.
So the defense was bad planning, and the midfield has been bad luck.
Bad fit? That's for the attack:
• The wingers have not delivered. In any 4-2-3-1/4-1-4-1 or 4-3-3, teams have to get serious goalscoring contributions from the wing.
It hasn't happened. Diego Fagundez, who at age 21 should be coming into his own as a Best XI player, is having his worst finishing season in four years, and hasn't picked up his game as a playmaker either. Fagundez used to be most noteworthy for how quick and decisive he was with his movement in the 18, and how little space he needs to get a shot off, but now he's more hesitant and less instinctive. He has just three goals and two assists on the year.
Things are even worse on the other wing from former US international Teal Bunbury, who's contributed two goals and two assists in 1500 minutes. His season in one clip:
He's taken 38 shots, and put just eight of them on goal.
Kelyn Rowe has had the best season of the trio with three goals and four assists, but Rowe is a much different kind of player -- more of an auxiliary playmaker than a true winger. He's never been as goal-dangerous in the box.
• Last year's best forward, Charlie Davies, got hurt. And then it turned out he was fighting for his life (and winning, thank goodness). New England eventually traded him to Philadelphia in a move that Davies himself wanted.
• That left Juan Agudelo as the de facto starting No. 9, even though the Revs haven't always loved the way he and playmaker Lee Nguyen work together. Agudelo often forgets he's a forward and drops deeper into the play than he needs to, which compresses the amount of space Nguyen has to work with.
Yet in mid spring, Agudelo seemed to have have figured things out a little bit, scoring three goals and adding an assist during a five-game stretch. Then, as has happened so often to him in the past, he got injured and has spent most of the last three months working back toward fitness. Any progress that Agudelo and Nguyen may have made together, any chemistry they may have developed, has been lost.
• Kei Kamara came available around the same time Agudelo got injured, so the Revs understandably pounced. Kamara was a 2015 MVP finalist, and Nguyen was a 2014 MVP finalist, but adding two great players together doesn't always get great results. In this case Kamara's strength (open-field play) is not Nguyen's, and Nguyen's strength (quick, intricate combos around the final third, playing to feet and taking space) is actually Kamara's weakness.
Kamara had five goals in 790 minutes this season before the messy divorce with Columbus. In 1249 minutes with the Revs, he has four goals. And as he's become more of a centerpiece for what the Revs do, Nguyen has become less and less effective, with a grand total of one goal and one assist in his last 10 games.
Murphy's Law has been the presenting sponsor of this 2016 season for the Revs and now, as I mentioned above, it's all officially hanging in the balance. New England are two points behind D.C. and Orlando City, and both of those clubs have a game in hand. The Revs have to start picking up points soon, or they'll be done before October arrives.
Their first chance comes tonight at San Jose (7:30 pm ET; MLS LIVE).
Ok folks, thanks for keeping me company this afternoon!
