![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/stolica.jpg?resize=240%2C300\" "\\"Ilija")
<\/a>The Revs will need a better performance from Ilija Stolica if they are to get a positive result tonight. (Photo by CHRIS ADUAMA\/aduama.com)<\/p><\/div>\n
Dallas\u2019 hottest player is midfielder David Ferreira, who has scored six goals and has tallied 9 assists this season.\u00a0 US National Team forward Jeff Cunningham leads FCD in scoring with 8 goals, in front of Ferreira (6), Brek Shea (5), Atiba Harris (3), and Eric Alexander (2).<\/p>\n
The only good news on paper for New England is that Dallas has a laundry list of players that will be absent from tonight\u2019s matchup.\u00a0 Among the players, Brek Shea will sit out after being sent-off in a contest last week against the New York Red Bulls.\u00a0 Former New England Revolution player Daniel Hernandez, who has anchored Dallas\u2019 midfield all season, will be on the bench tomorrow night because of a hamstring injury.\u00a0 In addition, Kevin Hartman, who has the league\u2019s best goals against average (0.62 with 9 shutouts), will be out with a strained MCL.<\/p>\n
The Revolution should be in reasonably good form – on the injury report, at least\u00a0– for the trip.\u00a0 Jason Griffiths appeared in Saturday night\u2019s match against Colorado and is available for selection after being injured since mid-July.\u00a0Only Edgaras Jankauskas and Zak Boggs, both of whom have played sparingly this season, remain\u00a0on the active\u00a0injury list.<\/p>\n
Even without Shea, Hartman, and Hernandez, Dallas has a deeper roster than the Revolution.\u00a0 Tonight\u2019s game will be a tough contest for the Revs, mainly because they have had difficulty generating any real offense in the recent weeks.<\/p>\n
The keys for the Revolution are simple: experiment with the on-pitch personnel, but\u00a0get conservative in back.<\/p>\n
Experiment in the sense that since\u00a0the post season chances are\u00a0nearly non-existent, it\u2019s time to move players around to see what combinations work.<\/p>\n
Play conservative in the sense that the defense needs to hold strong and not give away any foolish chances.\u00a0 The midfield also needs to start playing well, keeping the ball moving in and out of space so that forwards can actually get\u00a0a few\u00a0chances at goal.<\/p>\n
A win tonight certainly helps the Revolution to keep their post season dreams alive, however foggy they may be.\u00a0But dreaming won\u2019t be enough.\u00a0 If the Revs are to make the post-season for\u00a0the\u00a0ninth\u00a0year in a row, they need to begin by shaping up tonight and playing a strong possession game against FC Dallas.<\/p>\n
As Steve Nicol told the press last Saturday night, \u201cwe\u2019ll either sink or swim, and we better swim.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
With the playoffs now 12 points out of reach, each of the remaining six games for the New England Revolution are must wins.\u00a0 Unfortunately, the Revs\u2019 task will be easier said than done given that their next match is against FC Dallas tonight. FCD has been hot essentially all season long, with a record of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":167,"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":[14,3],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/stolicafeature.jpg?fit=490%2C225&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/883"}],"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\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=883"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/883\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":915,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/883\/revisions\/915"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}