FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – The cards haven’t been coming up in the New England Revolution’s favor for much of the season and on Wednesday they were dealt a bad hand once again in a 1-0 loss at home to New York City FC.
The Revolution's missed opportunities again reared their ugly head, and again the home club was stung by calls they feel were questionable and ultimately game-changing.
The first of the lot came in the 8th minute as Lee Nguyen flicked a pass over the NYCFC backline and into the box where Kelyn Rowe was streaking into prime position before Jefferson Mena sideswiped him out of position, resulting in a corner kick.
“It changes it a lot,” said Revolution coach Jay Heaps, on losing out on the early opportunity for a potential penalty kick. “We wanted to come out and strike early and put them under pressure. We felt like we had some more chances to do so. It looked like there wasn’t much ball play on that.
"In the end, even when we’re playing a good team, we have to be able to rally and come back. Unfortunately, we didn’t do that tonight.”
Heaps also felt that his side was stung on the game’s lone goal when Kei Kamara was chopped down by Andoni Iraola as the Revs forward looked to get between NYCFC players to intercept a pass.
As Kamara rolled on the ground clutching his right leg, NYCFC advanced towards the net and into the box where Tommy McNamara found open space to link up with goalscorer Frank Lampard.
“It was a foul, 1,000 percent,” said Heaps, who reviewed the film following the match.
Though Heaps was adamant about the non-call, in the end he admitted that his club must finish on the play regardless and that this time they didn’t do that and it cost them in the end.
“We have to do better,” he said. “In the end it’s a foul, but do we need to drop, can we stay tighter in the box? Yes. We’ve got to finish the play. It’s a foul, hopefully there’s an assessment on that that it was a foul. In the end we have to do a better job of finishing the play.
"The referee is not going to help us out, he obviously didn’t care either way. So, we have to care for ourselves and fix it ourselves.”
