FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – New England Revolution head coach Brad Friedel did not mince words after his club’s 3-0 loss Wednesday to the Montreal Impact at Gillette Stadium.
“I obviously didn’t motivate the players to be up for the game,” Friedel said of his squad, who fell to 2-6-1 this season and sit in 10th place in the Eastern Conference on seven points.
The Revolution allowed three second-half goals and watched an undermanned Impact squad outwork them for most of the match, despite the visitors arriving only a few hours prior to kickoff due to air-travel issues and missing their two best players, Ignacio Piatti and Saphir Taider. A scoreless first half was flattering for the home side as goalkeeper Cody Cropper made five acrobatic saves to prevent an early rout.
Ultimately, the loss – the Revs’ third in their last four games – was another missed opportunity for New England to climb in the standings.
“This was not a game to lose 3-0, but it wasn’t game to win either, because we didn’t create a lot of chances at home,” said Revolution midfielder Diego Fagundez, who had one off-target shot in his 82 minutes. “We all want to win games, but when you don’t play as well as you should, things like this can happen.”
New England played marginally better in the second half, where they recorded all 10 of their shots, though none of them on target – a recurring theme this season.
“We’re not finding those tiny bits of inches where we can finally get a shot on target and I don’t know why,” said forward Juan Agudelo, who had three off-target shots over his 90 minutes.
Defender Jalil Anibaba said there isn't a negative vibe among the players in the locker room, but there needs to be some introspection after a comprehensive loss.
“It’s not hard to keep optimistic and positive, but I think sometimes that can be a little bit dangerous,” Anibaba said. “Because I think at this point and time we need to be more critical of ourselves than just blanket positivity. It’s very clear that everyone needs to be better.”
