Revs drop two goal lead, tie Columbus
By: Sabin | June 16th, 2007In a stunning effort of mediocrity, the New England Revolution squandered a two-goal lead and came away from their match with last place Columbus Crew with just one point. I credit two people and two people alone with this result: James Riley and Jeff Larentowicz. The former is not a quality replacement for Michael Parkhurst — currently with the U.S. Men’s team in the CONCACAF Gold Cup. The latter gives away too many passes in the midfield.
On the bright side, however, Pat Noonan showed some of his old fire and made his first goal of the season, and — surprisingly — Adam Cristman raised his stock by scoring two goals and playing an otherwise impressive match: one in which he didn’t fall over on his own.
More on all of this later, but color me disappointed with tonight’s result.
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Category: Team News
Tags: Adam Cristman, Columbus Crew, James Riley, Jeff Larentowicz, Michael Parkhurst, New England Revolution, Pat Noonan, Team NewsSubscribe
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Comments
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It’s a big day for squandering two-goal leads … NY was up 2-0, now down 3-2.
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Seating Plan FC are an English club and Im requesting any American reading this to spread the good word about us. Please. We need to tap into the USA market. Please reply on this page to tell me of your heroic work over-seas.
From your brother over the Atlantic, Matt Dellow (SPFC Manager).Posted from
United States -
Can we talk about Wells Thompson?! I still don’t understand why he’s starting. Mediocre moves and a propensity to dribble into traffic. This rookie needs to learn how to pass and a some other move than that high school round-tree crap that works 1 out of every 10 tries. We can’t give up the flanks if we’re going to be serious contenders this fall.
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Thompson does have that annoying tendency to not look up, and he demonstrated it often in this week’s game. He does, however, have some fairly significant positives. The first is that when he’s not dribbling in to opponents’ paths, he hangs on to the ball well. Secondly, he’s crazy tenacious both offensively and defensive. Third, he’s as fun to watch as he as frustrating. Remember Khano Smith last season? Thompson maybe shouldn’t be a first-stringer, but he has the makings of one, I think. And yes, we definitely need to hold our flanks. Can Thompson do it? Nicol seems to think so, and from what I’ve seen, he can if he works at it.
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Hey Sabin. Between your comments and the comments to your post, you hit on the two highlights:
1) Riley: he’s just not a quality defender, at least centrally. I don’t know what he is, but know it’s not that. I’ll take Larentowicz under advisement, but have never been all that impressed with “Big Red.”
2) Wells Thomspon drives me batty. He does fight like hell and I love that, but the defining moment in Saturday’s game was when he had the ball in Columbus’ third and, after getting stopped going inside, he twisted back and, after a LOONGGG turn, he tried a run down the flank…where he again came up empty. That amounts to wasted energy, it stalls his teammates’ runs, movement, etc. essentially taking them out of the game. I agree with backseat: he needs to have the word “PASS” tattooed on his hand till he gets the meaning.
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Interesting that Franchino is out for the season. Seems like we may have an opportunity here to beef up our outside midfielders. Perhaps we can sweeten something up by getting rid of Thompson.
As for Smith on the left side, he definitely has a lethal left footed cross – perhaps the best in the league. Unfortunately, he can be quickly neutralized if he can’t win the “punch the ball down the line 15 yards and race the defender to the ball” contest (I call this the “Smith” move) and I think he has real problems with defenders that play him tight. His first touch isn’t particularly soft. That being said, his crosses to Twellman and Chrisman can’t be ignored and teams have to defend that play or it’s game over.
Think we could get Albright over to the revs?
That would be one sweet move. As for Larentowicz, I think he’s solid. He won’t make the national team but he’s consistent and gets the job done. For a defensive midfielder, I don’t think you can get much better.
I don’t want to go on too much more, but how do we take advantage of Chrisman, Noonan, and Twellman? It sure would be nice to have all three of them on the field. I also think Chrisman has earned the label of “tenacious” defender. I’m not convinced that Thompson can add that one to his resume yet.
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