KANSAS CITY, Kan. – New England coach Steve Nicol told his side time and again about the need to concentrate for 90 minutes in order to obtain a result in Kansas City.
The message apparently did not sink in as the Wizards seized on a series of Revolution mistakes at the back and romped to a 4-1 victory at CommunityAmerica Ballpark on Saturday night.
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“You can't chase the game here,” Nicol told MLSsoccer.com after the match. “The one thing you have to do here is concentrate. If you don't give anything away, then you'll be OK.”
Neither tenet quite applied to a Revolution group that looked ill at ease with the transition to a 3-5-2 formation and struggled to contain the Wizards' high-octane, three-pronged attack. Nicol says the switch was prompted by the narrow confines and the desire to allow Marko Perovic to latch onto knockdowns from the forward pairing of Kenny Mansally and Ilija Stolica.
“We just didn't play well,” Revolution midfielder Shalrie Joseph said. “Defensively, it just wasn't good enough today.”
Persistent errors at the back allowed Kansas City to grab an early foothold in the game through Birahim Diop's brace and they left the Revs with too much to do even after Kenny Mansally grabbed a goal back before halftime. Kei Kamara and Jack Jewsbury tallied after the break to complete the rout and leave Nicol lamenting the quality of the goals conceded by his side on the night.
“The goals were just mistakes,” Nicol said. “The third goal's probably taken well by them, to be fair. The others are avoidable by better decisions.”
The loss concluded a two-game road swing and sent the Revs home on Sunday morning with zero points from two matches. In order to climb back into the playoff race, New England will have to end its two-game skid with a victory at home against Philadelphia next Saturday and start obtaining points more consistently on the road, Joseph said.
“To be one of the best teams in this league, you gotta win on the road and you gotta get points on the road,” Joseph said. “If you can't do that, you're not going to make the playoffs and you're not going to be one of those teams they are talking about. It's just not good enough.”
