FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – The punchless New England attack could have used Saër Sène to help perk up their forays into the final third in Saturday night's 0-0 draw with Philadelphia.
Unfortunately for the Revs, Sène won't provide his pace and his predatory instincts to that particular cause for the remainder of the season. The French striker will miss the rest of the 2012 campaign after suffering a torn left ACL in Wednesday's 3-3 draw with Chivas USA. He will undergo knee surgery to repair the issue in the near future, according to a release issued by the team.
“It's a tough blow because it's an 11-goal season for him,” Revolution coach Jay Heaps told MLSsoccer.com. “We need other players to step up, but, certainly, it's tough.”
Losing Sène will force the Revs to rely on others to pick up some of the goalscoring slack. The former Bayern Munich reserve team player assumed much of the burden in front of goal in his first year in the league. New England's second highest scorer, midfielder Lee Nguyen, has scored just five times. No other player has scored more than twice.
Sène's absence will shift some of the responsibility onto the shoulders of Jerry Bengtson (slated to miss Wednesday's match with Columbus while away on international duty with Honduras), Dimitry Imbongo and Diego Fagundez to find the scoresheet more reliably over the final seven games.
While Sène's absence will hurt the team for the latter stages of the campaign, his injury will give those players a chance to show Heaps they can contribute to the side on a regular basis, according to Revolution defender Darrius Barnes.
“He's our leading goalscorer,” Barnes said. “He's an offensive threat at all times. That's what he does: he puts the ball in the back of the net. He's a class finisher. We're definitely going to miss him. It does give an opportunity to guys like Dimitry and Diego to try to put their stamp on the game and try to put some balls in the back of the net. Jay's been talking to us about opportunities. Hopefully, somebody steps up and takes it.”
