In this edition of Oppo Research, Hudson River Blue spoke with Jake Catanese of The Blazing Musket to learn more about New England Revolution, New York City FC's opponent for the second time this season on Saturday. Here is your NYCFC vs New England Revolution preview.
1. New England is struggling defensively and offensively
Hudson River Blue: Since NYCFC’s 2-0 win over New England in mid-April, the Revs have lost four of their five games, defeating only Chicago. What has that losing stretch been like, and what are some of the issues with the team that you’re seeing?
Jake Catanese: The New England Revolution are bad at soccer. Some of their early season issues are injury/schedule-related due to the extra Concacaf games, but the basics are the Revs are playing a style that I don't think suits them and are giving away a lot of cheap goals. Combine that with the fact they've had two games effectively end by picking up first-half red cards, and you can see the recipe for disaster manifest at the bottom of the standings.
The losing stretch, in particular, has been kind of brutal, with multi-goal losses to Miami, RBNY, and Philly giving up 11 goals in total, and then actually playing well in a 1-0 loss up in Toronto.
Obviously, Miami is going to score on you, but some of the goals against RBNY, in particular, seemed preventable — a Route One ball over the top that both center-backs misjudged, and an immediate response goal late after the Revs got back to within one. The Revs offensive struggles have been well known, and I think that is a style/tactics thing, but the defensive issues need to be shored up ASAP. Hopefully the return of starting fullbacks DeJuan Jones and Brandon Bye will help balance out the formation on both ends of the field.
