{"id":43593,"date":"2016-09-11T00:11:12","date_gmt":"2016-09-11T04:11:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=43593"},"modified":"2016-09-11T00:11:12","modified_gmt":"2016-09-11T04:11:12","slug":"firing-on-all-cylinders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=43593","title":{"rendered":"Firing On All Cylinders"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo

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

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. \u2013 It has been a frustrating season for the New England Revolution in all aspects of the field, but particularly offensively where, despite an abundance of talent, the production hasn\u2019t been there. For once, on Saturday evening, the Revolution offense showed just what it was capable of and it was a sight to behold as the team put on a master class offensively in a dominating 3-1 victory over New York City FC in front of 23,235 at Gillette Stadium.<\/p>\n

With Kei Kamara sidelined due to an injury picked up in training this week, head coach Jay Heaps had Juan Agudelo lead an attack that contained Lee Nguyen, Diego Fagundez and Kelyn Rowe. The combination had been a key part of the Revolution\u2019s offense\u2014with the exception of Agudelo\u2019s spell in Europe\u2014since Agudelo arrived at the team in 2013. Yet, due to injuries and various other reasons, the combination had yet to produce the results in 2016 that would\u2019ve been expected of such a talented group.<\/p>\n

Finally, on Saturday, it all came together with Agudelo, Nguyen, Fagundez and Rowe all playing one of their best games of the season and combining for three goals\u2014and many more golden opportunities\u2014as the Revolution matched their highest goal scoring total of the season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that those [relationships] are vital right now,\u201d said Heaps. \u201cThose guys have always had kind of an instinctual feel for each other and quite frankly Juan\u2019s injury [earlier this season] hurt that because I think Juan was really coming into his own and now he\u2019s showing some really good life. I also think the interchange\u2014and I think Kelyn does a good job of where Diego and Lee and Juan are all playing quickly, Kelyn does a\u00a0 good job of reading and he\u2019s really good at opening the space. We really look at what he\u2019s able to do opening the space and that\u2019s huge for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

The interchanges were apparent in the 21st<\/sup> minute when a poor clearance off a Nguyen free kick fell to Fagundez, who immediately picked up his head and picked out a well-positioned Agudelo with a perfectly placed ball. Agudelo ran in behind the defense and blasted past New York City goalkeeper Josh Saunders to make it 1-0.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe started the game the right way and we worked all week on how we could press [New York City FC] and change from that 4-4-2 into a good pressure system,\u201d said Heaps. \u201cI thought Lee and Juan did an excellent job of creating that initial pressure and then Gershon [Koffie], Kelyn and Diego read where to pick up the spaces and they did a good job and from there we were able to get a couple wins in their half and keep the ball when we could. Overall excited that everyone performed tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n

The combination shined ever brighter on the second goal in the 42nd<\/sup> minute. This time Agudelo won a long ball and played it back to Andrew Farrell, who immediately sprung Rowe up the wing. Rowe ran forward before slotting a low cross through the box. Agudelo had pulled two defenders forward with his run and Fagundez dummied the ball, taking another defender out of the play and allowing the ball to roll to a wide open Nguyen. Nguyen then calmly finished it off with the defense recovering.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think personally, it\u2019s the most fun I\u2019ve had all season these past two games,\u201d said Agudelo. \u201cIt\u2019s how I love playing and I\u2019m sure it\u2019s how all of the other players around me are loving it too.\u201d<\/p>\n

The four players were again the catalyst for the team\u2019s third goal in the 58th<\/sup> minute to give the match its final 3-1 scoreline. Rowe picked off a pass near midfield and played Nguyen down the wing. Nguyen eventually sent a low pass to Agudelo in space at the top of the box. Agudelo saw his shot blocked, but fought for the rebound and eventually, while on the ground, played it out to Fagundez who blasted it past Saunders.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a good week of training\u2026 It was a good day Tuesday,\u201d said Heaps. \u201cWednesday was a little bit complacent and there was a lot of conversation that \u2018hey, we had a good game against Colorado, but we\u2019re onto the next game and if we think that we\u2019re going to just step on to the field and beat New York\u2019 and it took a pretty hard conversation that we had as a staff with the players and the leaders of the team and on Thursday it came out and it was night and day. From Thursday on I felt like we were going to have a really good opportunity to get three points tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to a strong week in training, the players partly credited the offensive outburst to a shift in formation to a 4-4-2 over the last couple weeks from the 4-5-1 the Revolution had used almost exclusively during Heaps\u2019 coaching tenure.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s nice,\u201d Fagundez said of the 4-4-2. \u201cI think in the midfield we\u2019re getting a low of touches, where in some games I felt like I wasn\u2019t getting much of the ball. Now I feel like we\u2019re actually moving it more between us four. I don\u2019t know how many touches we get a game, but I think we\u2019re doubling what we used to.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fagundez led the team with 67 touches on Saturday.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have good players that can keep the ball and I think with this formation it helps exaggerate that a lot, so I think we just have to keep going with that,\u201d said Agudelo.<\/p>\n

The team has also shifted strategy a bit due to Kamara\u2019s absence the past two games, playing more balls on the ground and attempting less crosses. The Revolution attempted 12 crosses on Saturday and just 10 the week before in a 2-0 win against the Colorado Rapids. In the team\u2019s last home game with Kamara up top, a 2-0 loss to the Columbus Crew on August 20, the club attempted 31 crosses.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d rather prefer the ball on the ground than getting the ball in the air,\u201d said Fagundez. \u201cI think with Juan you can see\u2014you can give him the ball, he\u2019s holding up the play well, so when we can get him the ball on the ground it makes our jobs easier.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now the Revolution offense will look to build on Saturday\u2019s performance and continue the positive momentum they\u2019ve been building when they travel to face FC Dallas, holders of the best record in Major League Soccer, on Tuesday in the U.S. Open Cup Final, likely the club\u2019s biggest game of the year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Revolution offense puts in best performance of the season in 3-1 win over New York City FC.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43583,"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":[142,891,115,1304,1300,107,888],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/Agudelo-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\/43593"}],"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=43593"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43593\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43594,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43593\/revisions\/43594"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/43583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}