FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — Not all is bad in the land of the Revolution.
Although the past few matches haven't yielded the dividends New England coach Steve Nicol hoped they would, he does admit that his side's performances in recent weeks have provided some positives.
New England have not posted a victory in their past six matches (0-2-4), but Nicol said he believes those setbacks resulted more from momentary lapses rather than systemic failures throughout the entire game.
“We've made chances,” Nicol told MLSsoccer.com. “We've scored some goals but, unfortunately, we've lost bad goals. There's no two ways to go about it, we've lost bad goals.”
Those bad goals left Nicol with a bitter taste in his mouth as he reflected upon the Revs' recent run. New England have competed for points in every match and scored the first goal in five out of those six matches, but they must shoulder much of the painful blame for their own tendency to concede at inopportune times.
“In some ways, you'd rather get cut up, then you can say [they cut us up],” Nicol said. “We don't feel as though we've been cut up very often. We feel as though we've made bad decisions and errors.”
Irene hands Revs club-record break
Hurricane Irene handed the Revolution an unexpected weekend off as it swept through the East Coast over the weekend. MLS postponed Sunday's scheduled game between New England and Philadelphia to Sept. 7 to compensate for the storm and secure the safety of fans, players and staffers.
With the date against the Union pushed into next month and this weekend set aside for international matches, the Revs will watch from the sidelines for a second consecutive weekend. The 17-day break between the 2-2 draw against New York on Aug. 20 and the rescheduled match against Philadelphia marks the longest spell without a competitive or friendly match in club history.
Mansally off to Namibia
Revolution midfielder Kenny Mansally departed on Monday to link up with Gambia ahead of their crunch 2012 African Cup of Nations qualifying clash in Namibia on Saturday.
Gambia (three points) must prevail in Windhoek to have any chance of catching Burkina Faso (nine points) at the top of Group F. A victory against Namibia (no points) would set up a decisive clash against Burkina Faso in Banjul in October, though the Scorpions must also make up nine goals in goal differential between the two sides over the next two matches.
Injured midfielder Sainey Nyassi (right MCL sprain) did not join his Revolution teammate on the trip and Portland defender Futty Danso (hamstring) also missed out with a knock. However, fellow MLS players Mustapha Jarju (Vancouver) and Sainey Nyassi (Colorado) were included in Paul Put's squad.
