FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – The New England Revolution continue to click in all facets of the game and with Saturday’s 2-1 win over the visiting New York Red Bulls they became the hottest team in MLS, going 5-0-2 over their last seven matches as they sit atop the Eastern Conference.
“It was an Eastern Conference match,” said head coach Jay Heaps after the Revolution’s win. “I thought it was hard fought both ways. I thought we came out and started that game on the right foot and really did a nice job for the first 15-20 minutes.”
The key coming into the match for the Revolution was the control of play over the first 20 minutes of play.
They knew that the Red Bulls were coming in on very short rest after playing on Wednesday and although New England did expect New York Red Bulls to adjust their lineup, the plan remained the same.
“I wasn’t expecting as many changes as they made,” Heaps said. “But our game plan was to stay the same and the first 20 minutes we wanted to pin them and test their back line and I thought we did that.”
They did just that and capitalized in just the ninth minute with Charlie Davies heading home a London Woodberry cross for an early Revolution lead. As the first half played on, Heaps felt that his central midfielders were too far on top of the back line, so he made an adjustment at halftime that would pay off.
“Going into the second half we felt that the game would open up a little bit,” Heaps said. “We wanted to be mindful of that. We made a little tactical change. We thought that Scottie [Caldwell] and [Andy] Dorman were sitting on top of our back four a little too much. That wasn’t helping at all. So we switched that and I thought in the second half we did better.”
Opening up more room up top led New England to their second goal in the 60th minute, a six-player collaboration around the box that ended with Teal Bunbury’s second strike of the season.
Despite allowing a 73rd minute goal for New York, the Revolution defense, which has allowed just three goals during the current seven-match unbeaten run, held firm as New England departed the night with their third straight victory.
Craig Forde covers the New England Revolution for MLSsoccer.com.
