Revolution goal: Get on track
Team lost way after Arena’s departure
FOXBOROUGH — The Revolution roster Bruce Arena built remains mostly intact, but the team has been missing the former coach’s winning touch since he was placed on administrative leave by MLS in August (and eventually resigned).
With Arena in charge, the Revolution were 12-4-7, second in the Eastern Conference. Since Arena’s departure, they’re 2-4-5 in all competitions and down to fifth.
Can they recover some mojo in the final games of the regular season — at Nashville Saturday and home against Philadelphia Oct. 21 — and gain momentum for the postseason?
The Revolution do not seem far off their game, thanks to an attack led by captain Carles Gil. They earned enough points to qualify for the playoffs with five games remaining. But it is difficult to think that with Arena in the last 11 games, they would not have captured another victory or two, plus turned a loss or two into ties.
“We’ve given away a little too many chances,” defender Dave Romney said after practice this week. “We were just doing a defenders’ meeting, looking at clips and how we can clean ourselves up. I think that’s one of our big factors, and just being more cohesive of a unit of what we want to do to the other team. Getting a little bit more clarity this week will hopefully help.”
Interim coach Clint Peay has been adjusting tactics, partly because of injuries. Sometimes the tweaks pay off, but there is little time to work on formation changes.
Arena’s strategy was based on dictating an offensive tempo, a risky approach that can make finding replacements difficult. Outside backs were charged with providing attacking threats, adding width to the offense as well as defending.
And the Revolution have failed to compensate for the loss of right back
Brandon Bye (knee surgery), who was injured in August.
Peay, who has guided the Revolution to a 1-3-1 record since replacing another interim coach, Richie Williams, has confronted the problem by experimenting with midfielder Matt Polster as an “inverted” outside back. The change has added offense, but left the back line vulnerable.
Last week, after falling behind by two goals in the first half of a 3-2 loss at Orlando City, the Revolution regained defensive composure as Peay switched to a 3-5-2 setup. It was too late to salvage a result, but the secondhalf performance seemed promising.
Against Nashville, Peay is expected to go with a similarly conservative alignment, since the Revolution also will be missing left back DeJuan Jones, who is with the US national team playing against Germany in East Hartford.
It might seem ominous for the Revolution that their record minus Arena this year appears similar to the team’s mark before he arrived in May 2019, when he took over a 3-8-4 team. Arena led the Revolution to the 2019 playoffs, and in four-plus years was 60-31-42.
At stake in the final two games are home-field advantage and seeding in the playoffs. The Revolution have lost their last two, both against possible postseason foes in Columbus (fourth in the East) and Orlando (second).
“It is a tough spot as a coach,” Romney said. “You constantly have a changing squad with guys coming back from injury, guys going out with injury, and just trying to put the best team on the field and the best formation.
“It’s nice to be cohesive and play the same formation week to week, but sometimes that’s not what the health of the squad presents. He’s done a good job managing that and we’re going to do the best that we can with what we have this week.”