{"id":32578,"date":"2015-03-17T16:08:40","date_gmt":"2015-03-17T20:08:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=32578"},"modified":"2015-03-17T16:08:40","modified_gmt":"2015-03-17T20:08:40","slug":"plenty-of-room-for-improvement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=32578","title":{"rendered":"Plenty of Room for Improvement"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo<\/a>

Photo credit: New England Revolution<\/p><\/div>\n

After opening the season with back-to-back losses and no goals to show for their efforts, the Revolution know there\u2019s plenty of room for improvement going into Saturday\u2019s home opener against the Impact.<\/p>\n

For Revolution left back Chris Tierney, whose play was one of the bright spots in Sunday\u2019s 2-0 loss to New York City FC, the squad must get back to the basics during training this week in order to get win no. 1.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll work to be better in possession,\u201d Tierney said. \u201cIf we tighten things up defensively, then we\u2019ll create more chances for ourselves, as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Overall possession wasn\u2019t the Revolution\u2019s bread and butter during their last year\u2019s season-ending run to the postseason. Then again, they had Jermaine Jones, a player who could win back the ball and quickly kick start an advance, at their disposal to counteract that. <\/p>\n

Without Jones, who hasn\u2019t yet returned to training following sports hernia surgery in February, the need to hold the ball \u2013 especially in the attacking half \u2013 has become more crucial to creating chances.<\/p>\n

But improving meaningful possession isn\u2019t the only item on the agenda this week \u2013 especially after conceding five goals across the first two games.<\/p>\n

While much of the blame has been cast on the growing pains associated with the Andrew Farrell-Jose Goncalves center back partnership, Revolution goalkeeper Bobby Shuttleworth said that it\u2019s up to everyone in the rear \u2013 including himself \u2013 to take the initiative to talk to one another.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to be mentally be tuned in, and keep our organization,\u201d Shuttleworth said. \u201cThere were a couple of times (Sunday) where the communication just wasn\u2019t there. That\u2019s on myself, and the other backs, to make sure we get tighter there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Keeping things tight in the defending half is one thing, but staying committed to stopping their opponent in transition is another issue that Tierney pointed out as a problem area during Sunday\u2019s loss.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we were a little too spread out, so these are all things we\u2019ll work on this week,\u201d Tierney said. \u201cHopefully, we\u2019ll get a good result at home this weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Revs will be aiming to tighten up their form this week as they look ahead to Saturday’s home opener. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32579,"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":[49,1274,892],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Andy-11.png?fit=600%2C415&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32578"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32578"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32578\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32580,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32578\/revisions\/32580"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/32579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}