{"id":32690,"date":"2015-03-21T21:10:58","date_gmt":"2015-03-22T01:10:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=32690"},"modified":"2015-03-21T21:12:18","modified_gmt":"2015-03-22T01:12:18","slug":"the-scoring-drought-continues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=32690","title":{"rendered":"The Drought Continues"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo<\/a>

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

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – Another 90 minutes and New England is still searching for its first goal of the 2015 season.<\/p>\n

Despite being up a man for the final 30 plus minutes, the Revolution were unable to break through Montreal\u2019s packed in defense in a 0-0 draw.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had chances,\u201d Revolution head coach Jay Heaps said. \u201cI think two things – you have to credit them I thought they did a great job. I don\u2019t think there was a guy on the field [for them] that could walk after the game. They really did a good job to get the point, and you give them credit for that.”<\/p>\n

In the 61st minute, Montreal defender Hassoun Camara received his second yellow card of the game for a red card. Camara was beat by Juan Agudelo in the attacking third and Camara grabbed a handful of jersey and pulled Agudelo down to earn his second yellow.<\/p>\n

Both of New England\u2019s two shots in the second half came with Montreal down a man. First, midfielder Scott Caldwell found Lee Nguyen in a seam in the 69th minute. Nguyen quickly turned and unleashed a shot from about 30 yards out but Montreal goalkeeper Evan Bush was positioned well and pushed the shot out of the area.<\/p>\n

Chris Tierney, who was wearing the captain\u2019s armband in Jose Goncalves\u2019 absence, had New England\u2019s final chance. A Montreal foul gave the Revolution a free kick from about 25 yards out on the right side of the area. Tierney ripped a shot over the wall but it was right at Bush.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, things aren\u2019t clicking the right way but I\u2019m not worried yet because I think we\u2019re having chances,\u201d Heaps said. \u201cI felt like the last two games we were dangerous. We\u2019re missing by inches not by feet. We weren\u2019t dangerous at all in Seattle but the last two games we\u2019ve been dangerous. When you take a piece like Juan and you try to insert him back in, it\u2019s going to take a little time. I\u2019m happy with the chances we\u2019ve created, we just need to make sure we finish them.\u201d<\/p>\n

One chance that New England had that wasn\u2019t counted as a shot on goal was off a header in the 72nd minute. Pushing forward on the left flank, Tierney whipped in a cross that found Nguyen six yards out in the center of the area but his header was just inches over the bar.<\/p>\n

Just a minute after Montreal was reduced to 10 men, Heaps went to his bench and inserted striker Charlie Davies, marking the first time Davies and Agudelo played together this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was something we worked on,\u201d Heaps said of having both Davies and Agudelo on. \u201cCharlie is returning from an injury so his minutes have to be limited. He was great all week in training. I thought there was some space for him and we underplayed him a couple of times. Charlie\u2019s got some wheels and he can really open up back fours. On a couple under hit plays, I think if we overhit them he would have been in. And Juan I thought did a nice job when he went out wide. He was able to occupy a defender and we had a lot of play through him once we moved him out wide. \u201c<\/p>\n

Neither striker was able to register a shot on target.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s getting frustrating, but we\u2019re going to watch the film and see how we can create more chances,\u201d Agudelo said. \u201cAs a striker, I think me and Charlie, we have to have at least two shots a game and I wasn\u2019t even able to get one and Charlie wasn\u2019t even able to get one, so I think that\u2019s an important thing we need to look at.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before Hassoun was sent off, New England had registered two shots on target in the first half. First, it was a low shot from Diego Fagundez in the 28th minute but it was easily collected by Bush. Kelyn Rowe had a go from distance just before halftime but Bush had no trouble collecting it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the chemistry is there between all of us, all we need is luck right now,\u201d Fagundez said. \u201cWe need a ball to fall to someone\u2019s foot and someone to tap it in. We\u2019re creating so many chances but no one can finish one or has had a chance to just touch one.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once the Impact went down to 10 men, it was clear they were set to pack it in and play on the counter attack.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen it was 10 men, I thought we were going to be able to score one,\u201d Fagundez said. \u201cBut they went straight defense and it was kind of hard to get into the box. We were playing around the box and trying to get chances in but we just couldn\u2019t get one in.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was hard to open them up,\u201d Agudelo added. \u201cThe only way we could have gotten is out wide and crossing the ball. They definitely packed it in and had some good counters.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for the solution to the Revolution\u2019s goal scoring woes, Agudelo offered that playing a more direct style could help New England solve it\u2019s early season struggles.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think maybe not passing too much in the attacking half,\u201d Agudelo said. \u201cSort of directly playing balls over the top and making their goalkeeper work. We didn\u2019t feel like we made their goalkeeper work.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not an unfamiliar situation for the Revolution, who opened up 2014 in nearly identical fashion. Much like they did last season, they started 0-2-1 with five goals against and were held off the board in each of their first three.<\/p>\n

“Our locker room, heads were down because we felt we left a couple points on the table and had some opportunities and had a couple clear chances that we didn\u2019t take advantage of,” Heaps said. “But we have to take the positive and keep moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Missed chances conspired against the Revolution for the second straight match. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":32693,"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":[891,49,119,888,892],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Juan-1.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\/32690"}],"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\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32690"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32690\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32695,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32690\/revisions\/32695"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/32693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}