{"id":38343,"date":"2015-09-19T09:50:20","date_gmt":"2015-09-19T13:50:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=38343"},"modified":"2015-09-19T09:54:21","modified_gmt":"2015-09-19T13:54:21","slug":"five-questions-mtlvne","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=38343","title":{"rendered":"Five Questions: #MTLvNE"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo<\/a>

Photo credit: Chris Aduama\/aduamaphotography.com<\/p><\/div>\n

After bagging six points in four days from Toronto and New York, the red-hot Revolution will look to close the week with nine when they face the Montreal Impact on Saturday at Stade Saputo.<\/p>\n

The first meeting between the conference foes since March will also mark the Revolution’s third game in seven days, and a win would clinch a postseason berth with four games remaining in the regular season.<\/p>\n

With plenty of\u00a0subplots surrounding the streaking selection, let’s take a look at the questions ahead of another intriguing match.<\/p>\n

1. What will the lineup look like?<\/strong> While the notion of having fresh legs after Wednesday’s match featured five changes isn’t totally bonkers, let’s be real: the charge on Diego Fagundez’s battery is on like 5 percent. Ditto for Andrew Farrell, and maybe even Bobby Shuttleworth. With all three probably due for a rest,\u00a0we could see\u00a0Juan Agudelo to get the start in place of Fagundez, and Brad Knighton to take the spot between the sticks. With London Woodberry suspended for Saturday,\u00a0it’s not outside the realm that\u00a0Jermaine Jones takes Farrell’s spot\u00a0at center back while Andy Dorman slots in for Daigo Kobayashi at one of the two holding midfielder’s spots. In short: get ready for more changes, boys and girls. And potentially\u00a0interesting ones, at that.<\/p>\n

2. Will Jermaine Jones go the full 90?<\/strong> That all depends on where he’s stationed. If the inspirational skipper gets the start at center back, then he could very well\u00a0make it to\u00a0the final whistle without incident. But if he takes usual spot in the midfield (wherever that is), then\u00a0he figures to get\u00a080 minutes before he’s spelled by either Kobayashi or Dorman.\u00a0Regardless of whether\u00a0he’s good to go for a full 1.5 hours or just short of it,\u00a0you can bet he’ll\u00a0be leaned on heavily with\u00a0a makeshift lineup around him\u00a0and, oh yeah, Didier Drogba and Ignacio Piatti to contend with.<\/p>\n

3. Can the offense continue to capitalize on its chances?<\/strong> Although the Impact are barely above the red line at the moment, and\u00a0can lay claim to only one win in their last seven,\u00a0the Revolution can’t afford a sudden reversal of fortune in front of the net.\u00a0Not with\u00a0Drogba, Piatti, Andres Romero and Dominic Oduro all anxious to put the first-place Revolution to the test. As such, the guests can’t afford to park the bus at any point.\u00a0But the Impact’s talent up top\u00a0is only half of the equation. After shutting out the Earthquakes and Galaxy in back-to-back weeks, the Impact have shown themselves a resolute side, unlike the Reds and Red Bulls. To that end, the likes of Agudelo, Bunbury and Davies have to figure out a way to break through, even if it means\u00a0pressuring a center back to put one in his own net (sorry, Damien Perquis).<\/p>\n

4. Will Saturday’s game come down to set pieces for the Revolution?<\/strong> It just may. Whenever tired legs are factor, and mix-and-match lineup is employed,\u00a0strong teams\u00a0tend to\u00a0make good use of the opportunities\u00a0outside the run of play. Fortunately for the Revolution, they’ll have a rested Chris Tierney ready to go, and an in-form Agudelo a prime target on those set pieces.\u00a0That said,\u00a0the guests\u00a0also have to\u00a0double-tap the\u00a0screen on their\u00a0soccer brain when it comes to dead ball situations. On Wednesday, it was Lee Nguyen’s quickly-taken free kick in the second minute that caught the Red Bulls off balance, and allowed Agudelo and Fagundez to combine on the opener. More of the same kind of trickeration (sp?) could go a long way again against an Impact side that doesn’t give away\u00a0much on set pieces.<\/p>\n

5. Can the Revolution make it a franchise-best seven-straight wins?\u00a0<\/strong>Collecting 21 points in seven\u00a0games\u00a0isn’t that\u00a0difficult a\u00a0thing to do. Actually, it’s incredibly hard. Heck, it’s never been done in club history, and we’re talking about one of the MLS originals, and one that’s\u00a0reached five title games, to boot. But based on how they’ve come together over the last two months, there’s no reason to think it’s impossible. After walking away with first place with a not quite first-choice XI on Wednesday, there’s no doubt that\u00a0Revolution have\u00a0the depth\u00a0to do it even after\u00a0playing\u00a0twice already this week.\u00a0Plus, they’re\u00a0facing a team that’s only taken six points from their last seven. It won’t be a walk in the park,\u00a0or a stroll in the Stade if you want to be technical about it. But\u00a0if the Revolution can continue\u00a0playing at the standard they’ve set since mid-July, then\u00a0making it seven-for-seven isn’t\u00a0such\u00a0a far-fetched idea.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What questions surround the Revs ahead of Saturday’s match in Montreal? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38345,"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":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3],"tags":[891,119,888,892],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/Juan-1.png?fit=600%2C416","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38343"}],"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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38343"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38343\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38369,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38343\/revisions\/38369"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/38345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}