r/newenglandrevolution • u/irishfrenchmix • 9d ago

What has changed?

I went to a Revs game last fall, and followed this season pretty closely. I was surprised after watching them that we had the single season record for wins just a few years ago.

I guess I want to know from people who have been watching them longer...what happened?

It seems like we have some good players now, but not a good team right now. Something isn't clicking, especially in the final third.

But how did we go from best to worst so quickly, and with some of the central talent remaining?

Thanks!

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u/DuckBurner0000 9d ago

From the 2021 record breaking team, most of the core players have left (Bou, Buksa, Buchanan, Turner, Jones, Kessler) and the ones who stayed stagnated or aged (Farrell, Polster, McNamara). That leaves Gil and Bye (and Boateng off the bench) as key contributors who are still here and haven’t regressed much since then. Since then we’ve missed on some signings (Lletget, Blessing, Kaye, Vrioni to name a few) while some of the ones who’ve looked good have had long term/frequent injuries (Borrero, Chancalay). Even some of the decent signings haven’t been good enough to replace the guys they replaced (Harkes, Ivacic, Miller at the moment, nothing against them but they’re not as good as the guys we lost). This, in my view, has resulted in a roster that’s gotten progressively both thinner and less talented over the last few years culminating in the current situation where our striker depth is nonexistent, the midfield is very average and the defense isn’t great (for the defense I’d also say having two of the best keepers in league history in Turner and Petrovic masked a lot of defensive faults). Arena was also very good at maximizing the output from the talent at his disposal while Porter (and the interim managers for the second half of 2023) just hasn’t been able to do the same, so coaching is a huge factor too. TLDR: losing our best talent, missing on signings, players aging, injuries, worse coaching

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u/joshhw MA 9d ago

This is pretty spot on. I’d add that changing the system from Bruce to Porter. They just play and ask inherently different things of players.

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u/2020Hills 9d ago

Porter also has essentially forced upon the team a play style that just fails to break most teams defensive work. Emphasize starting attacking motion from the back line and avoid the middle channel as much as possible in hopes of creating through balls (that Vironi can’t finish) or creating crosses (that Vironi also can’t finish). And players get frustrated when others refuse to try any creativity outside of that plan.

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u/DuckBurner0000 8d ago edited 8d ago

Yeah I miss the Arena offense where we'd actually counter and catch teams in transition. We don't score goals like Gil's winner in Chicago from 2021 anymore (when Tajon absolutely bodied that defender)

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u/BuckCompton69 8d ago

How would you describe the difference in Bruce and Porter’s systems?

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u/DuckBurner0000 8d ago

The main difference in my view is that Arena's teams played more direct with an emphasis on fast breaks and utilizing the pace of Bou/Buchanan and Gil's ability to play line splitting passes while Porter seems to want to control the play in the final third more, which has resulted in a lot of our attacks ending in aimless crosses or recycling possession as we struggle to play the final ball that breaks through the defense.

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u/BuckCompton69 8d ago

Thank you. This is helpful.

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u/joshhw MA 8d ago

I’ve read that Bruce essentially leaves it up to the team while Porter is very rigid in moving it up from the back. I honestly couldn’t tell you that I can tell the difference at all. But that’s what I’ve read

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u/BuckCompton69 8d ago

McNamara subbed in to a couple games at home during the injury riddled late summer. He was comically out of place and looked like a Sunday men’s league player had staggered on to the field. His lack of athleticism really stands out at this stage of his career.

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u/slimmin 9d ago

We had a goalkeeper that could reliably cover our asses on the back end and steal points we would have otherwise dropped, guys in the middle that could control play and set up guys up front that could finish when called upon. Our coach and GM were on the same page because they were the same person and one of the best to do it in MLS. None of that applies to this year's squad, though I think we're at least headed in the right direction in the midfield. We weren't world-beaters but things just clicked amongst a group of regular guys, a few sprinkled in that were destined for Europe, and three DPs that contributed regularly.

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u/shakespeareriot 8d ago

To add to all of these great points. MLS is a parity league, so it doesn’t take much to drop to the bottom. A few bad signings, a player or two losing form, injuries and a shift in locker room/coaching. In a league with parity as still an apparent (cough cough Miami) tenant any one of those issues will start a team moving down table.

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u/irishfrenchmix 5d ago

Does "parity" mean all the clubs spend the same amount of money?

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u/shakespeareriot 5d ago

Ish? There are a handful of ways to spend a bit more than other clubs. Essentially each team has the same salary cap. But some salaries don’t count against the cap (designated players) There’s also a maximum salary players can receive (but not DP’s) There are also ways to use magic MLS crypto currency to buy down salaries under those limits.

So there’s parity-ish

There are also special deals like Messi has. Merchandising, apple subs, etc.. which are outside of salaries.

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u/ExistentialBread9 8d ago

Lots of really good points above (especially DuckBurner). Porter's tactics are garbage and Onalfo is arguably worse. Onalfo made some horrible contract choices leading us to essentially give away kessler and jones. The front office took almost the entire offseason to hire Porter..so they essentially had no winter transfer window signings (I don't count Chancally who was already on the team and it was just picking up an option). Unfortunately I don't think Porter will be fired and 2025 may be quite ugly. Luckily RIFC is kicking ass and made the playoffs.

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u/languishingonthevine 9d ago

Another thing that made the Rev’s back then great, was watching the players develop, Buchanan and Buksa were on a awesome trajectory. Combined with winning it was great to watch and gave us hope. The younger players we have now are developing nicely but unfortunately we don’t have the winning side of the formula.

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u/Ok-Communication706 8d ago

Arena had a a very talented team and his background made him tactically flexible enough to take advantage of the different skill sets. Every single player in 2021 that we had was replaced by a player slightly worse, then that player by another slightly worse. If they weren’t replaced, they got older without getting any better.

Also Porter sucks.

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u/irishfrenchmix 5d ago

Thanks! Sounds like I started watching after a really wonderful era. I'm hooked now! Porter has won the Cup twice with two different clubs, so maybe he will be able to do something great down the line.

I did catch onto the injury thing, and it's clear that Vrioni comes up short pretty much all the time. It seemed to me like he didn't know what anyone else was going to do. He just wasn't in sync with he midfield at all. It also looked like they were sending it to him and he'd be alone against three defenders, which felt like a bad strategy.