Just over two weeks ago the New England Revolution looked primed to make a run at the playoffs. The club was in the midst of a five game unbeaten streak, sitting in sixth place in the East and closing in on the fifth and final playoff spot while preparing to face the worst team in the league, Toronto FC, at home.<\/p>\n
Fast forward 15 days and the Revs are sitting in ninth place in the Eastern Conference and on a four game winless streak \u2013 their longest of the season. In that current streak, the team suffered losses to Toronto, the Montreal Impact, and, on Sunday, the Philadelphia Union \u2013 all clubs sitting below them in the standings entering the matches.<\/p>\n
Despite the shock home loss to Toronto on July 14, the Revs have maintained a respectable 5-2-3 home record. It\u2019s the atrocious road record of 1-8-2 that has really cost the Revs and made lost points in winnable home games \u2013 such as the Toronto match \u2013 impossible to recover from.<\/p>\n
\u201c[Why we struggle] on the road, I don\u2019t know,\u201d said French striker Saer Sene. \u201cWe are a young team and this makes me sad because sometimes we play a very good game, we do one mistake, and then we give up a goal. This is what we have to do better because\u2026 today I think we allowed them to make maybe 5, 7 or 10 mistakes, but we score only one goal and we make one or two mistakes and they score two goals. I think that\u2019s what we have to do better on the road.\u201d<\/p>\n
That problem of failing to take advantage of their opponent\u2019s mistakes, while getting punished for their own has been especially apparent on the Revs recent three game road trip that saw the club fall 2-1 to Montreal, draw 0-0 with Kansas City and lose 2-1 to Philadelphia to claim just one point in three games.<\/p>\n
The Kansas City result was a positive for the club against a favored opponent, but the two losses came despite the Revs creating more opportunities than their struggling opposition.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think [we should\u2019ve had more points],\u201d said Sene. \u201cThe last game in Kansas we make a very good game. We played very disciplined defensively and that was a 50-50 game. The one point was good last week. Against Montreal, the same [situation as against Philadelphia] \u2013 one mistake, we have one mistake again and it is 2-1, we lost the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we could keep one point in Montreal too and tonight [against Philadelphia] I think we have to take three points because the referee called a penalty\u2026 I think this is a mistake and that killed the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Philadelphia loss on Sunday will perhaps sting the most as it was a game the Revs seemingly were in control of at halftime.<\/p>\n
\u201c[Against Philadelphia] we should\u2019ve gotten three [points],\u201d said midfielder Benny Feilhaber. \u201cWe really should\u2019ve. We did what we needed to do in the first half and then we didn\u2019t complement it with the second half. That\u2019s what happens in soccer, if we don\u2019t score the goals you\u2019re going to get scored on, so three points lost today, that\u2019s for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the scoring end, the Revs could receive some help when Honduran International Jerry Bengtson, who is currently tied for the lead in goals in the 2012 London Olympics with three, returns to the Revs. Bengtson scored the lone goal in Honduras\u2019 shock 1-0 win that eliminated Spain earlier on Sunday before the Revs loss to Philadelphia.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s scoring\u2026 we will be happy when he comes,\u201d said Sene.<\/p>\n
Still, the Revs can\u2019t afford to wait for Bengtson\u2019s return. With a big home match against Kansas City on tap next weekend, three points are a must.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know at home we have to take points, we have to win,\u201d said Sene. \u201cWe showed it against New York and against a lot of very good teams. Next week we have to win. This is not a one point thing, we have to take the three points.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Revs needed to pick up more points on the road to keep slim playoff hopes alive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6256,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[24,3],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/feilhaberfeature3.jpg?fit=490%2C225","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14245"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14245"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14245\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14246,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14245\/revisions\/14246"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}