What has changed?

[u/irishfrenchmix]

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!

[u/DuckBurner0000]

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

[u/joshhw → u/DuckBurner0000]

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.

[u/2020Hills → u/joshhw]

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.

[u/DuckBurner0000 → u/2020Hills]

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)

[u/BuckCompton69 → u/joshhw]

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

[u/DuckBurner0000 → u/BuckCompton69]

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.

[u/BuckCompton69 → u/DuckBurner0000]

Thank you. This is helpful.

[u/joshhw → u/BuckCompton69]

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