Home - 03/15 New England Revolution

My grades:

Saunders: 7
Another nice game. Good positioning

Williams 5
Adds to the offense, but let Tierney have a field day sending in uncontested crosses.

Hernandez 6
Best on the back line defensively. Had agudelo covered on his chance, but defense weak overall.

Wingert 5
Did not stand out negatively, but NE had guys running free through the middle for big stretches

Brovsky 4
Lost on the attack, doesn't seem to defend

Jacobson 5
Was not providing adequate cover to back line, and lost the ball repeatedly on bad passes.

Mix 6
NE seemed to game plan to take mix out of the game, not close to last week, but his cross to Villa late was a thing of beauty.

Grabavoy 5
Mind knows what to do, body often seems unable to do it. Whiffed wide open chance late.

Velasquez 6
Tough in defense being on right wing, but better than ballouchy, and helps with possession.

Villa 9
Total stud. Had two taken away by shuttleworths finger tips. Great goal, great assist. Home opener. Love him. MOTM

Nemec 4
Unable to finish, and clumsy first touch. Can't figure Kreis thinking. Villa needs a partner that can finish

Subs:
Shelton 7
Instant impact drawing the penalty. Quick, smart, should be starting.

Facey 6
Not much time to make an impact, but noticeably better on the ball than other options.

Mullins 6
Nice run onto Villas sweet cross.

As always, Tom, a good assessment. On the whole, I agree, although I thought you were a little harsh on Jacobson. I thought he anticipated the game well and broke up some key plays.
 
I read on BS that the f.cosmos sent some poor interns to distribute their schedules in case anyone felt like going on a trip to Hemspead Carajoland in the future.
 
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I found it funny that the players all ran to their positions for kickoff and had to come back for the pregame photo. First home match kinks.

By the end of the season, I expect we will have a really good home advantage, as our players adjust to the odd geometric configuration of the field in relation to the stands. If you have ever watched college basketball post season tournament rounds hosted in domes, you'll notice how teams often shoot horribly. That's an absolute product of the weird perspective shift going from an arena, where there is a static physical backdrop within your periphery to the "open-ends" of a dome. It's a very real and common problem.

While it won't be as pronounced or obvious, while at home, I would expect us to show substantially use of space than our opponents. I also think you might see a lot of offensive struggles on the right field goal side. That jet stream that carries baseballs hit to right field into the seats , while not as pronounced as when the stadium first opened, is very real and could easily make it absolute hell to send in accurate crosses.

I do like us going toward left in the second half. It puts the wind at our backs and the other team effectively running uphill (ie, against the wind) during the latter part of the match.

None of these factors alone are enough to turn a game around, but these sorts of little advantages will positively impact our team's confidence and negatively impact that of our opponents. If that starts to come to fruition, our odd stadium situation could be worth a few points over the course of the campaign.
 
Think it could have been a higher score if we had another forward that could convert beside Villa, instead of Nemec. Lampard will get us goals from the midfield, but not that many.

Nemec has to come correct eventually. Two weeks in a row he's botched fairly easy opportunities. His size and hold up value are too useful to bench just yet, but he's really got to improve his finishing.
 
Nope. I hope we don't get the Arsenal disease of always wanting to walk the ball into the goal.
 
Every time Grabavoy touched the ball, the stadium moaned.
Thats what SJ thought when they left him available on a free to RSL, where he was a major contributor for many years. He works tirelessly and although isn't the greatest at any one thing, will become like glue in the middle of this roster. Watch. he will start all 34 games this year.
 
Thats what SJ thought when they left him available on a free to RSL, where he was a major contributor for many years. He works tirelessly and although isn't the greatest at any one thing, will become like glue in the middle of this roster. Watch. he will start all 34 games this year.
I didn't think he was that bad either.
 
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Great point Midas Mulligan Midas Mulligan about the jet stream. Mix even mentioned the wind in the post game.

Yeah Mix said that running into the wind in the 1st half made it difficult to attack. In the 1st half NE had the wind advantage and almost scored 3 or 4 goals. 2nd half we had the wind and dominated. It'll be interesting to see if the wind billowing on the 1st base side and then blowing towards the supporters section is a pattern during all home matches.
 
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I have finally had a chance to rewatch the match on my dvr and also review the WhoScored.com stats. The stats that stood out to me the most are:

Mix once again led both teams in touches (97) and passes (77; 88% accurate). Nguyen on the other hand only had 35 touches and 29 passes (82%). Tierney had 14!!! crosses in that match and, despite only completing 2 of them, it seemed like all 14 were dangerous. He looks like a top fullback in MLS. As well as Saunders played, and he did play quite well, Shuttleworth was the best player for NE (8.1 rating and 7 saves). Villa was of course the MOTM (8.8 rating) with 67 touches, 3 key passes, 6 shots (5 on target) and 1 goal. Villa was also caught offside 4 times, but he was playing very aggressively going forward and you have to love that. To compare, Villa had 67 touches and Nguyen, Agudelo and Davies combined for 79 touches. The possession battle was evenly split 50/50 but NYCFC had 20 shots (9 on target) to NE's 11 shots. All in all, it was a great display offensively and we should have scored more goals. Defensively, well, let's just say it was an adventure.