Season Preview: New England Revolution
/A franchise empathetic to the Buffalo Bills, Atlanta Braves, and every team that chased the Chicago Bulls in the 90's, the Revs have shown over their 16-year history in the league that they are perpetual contenders and forever runners-up---a key member of the 'almost was there' club. That was harsh, but I don't mean to be. The club, with just a little bit of support from Robert Kraft, could have been---and still could be---a super power in MLS. The trio of Clint Dempsey, Shalrie Joseph, and Steve Ralston, and then the often forgotten (outside of New England) prowess of Taylor Twellman dominated the mid 00's period of MLS, and New England reached the MLS Cup finals on four different occasions between 2002 and 2007. Now, after a couple of down years, the franchise has reloaded and found itself a new era of young up-and-comers a decade later. 2013 Review: 51 Points, 3rd in the Eastern Conference, lost to Sporting Kansas City in Conference Semis
| Player Added | Position | Acquired from: | Player Lost | Position | To |
| Paulo DelPiccolo | M | Waiver Draft | Chad Barrett | F | Option Declined |
| Brad Knighton | GK | Trade (Vancouver) | Ryan Guy | M | Option Declined |
| Charlie Davies | F | Free (Randers) | Tyler Polak | D | Option Declined |
| Steve Neumann | M/F | SuperDraft | Matt Reis | GK | Retired |
| Patrick Mullins | F | SuperDraft | Clyde Simms | M | Option Declined |
| Teal Bunbury | F | Trade (Kansas City) | Juan Toja | M | Option Declined |
| Jossimar Sanchez | D | Supplemental Draft | Bilal Duckett | D | Waived |
| Daigo Kobayashi | M | Trade (Vancouver) | Matt Horth | F | Waived |
| Alec Sundly | M | SuperDraft | Gabe Latigue | M | Waived |
| Juan Agudelo | F | Out of Contract |
2013 opened for the Revs with expectations of justhoping to make the Wildcard round. Really, anything better than finishing above Toronto was the end goal, and while maybe I'm slightly exaggerating the situation a bit, I don't think many thought they would finish 3rd in the East. Jay Heaps definitely sat upon a seat of growing embers, and fans were gradually getting more and more anxious to see progression from their second-year manager after replacing long-term icon Steve Nicol.
2013 will be remembered for many things across MLS, but Revs fans will, perhaps paradoxically, be hard-pressed to think of many good things outside the breakout year of teenager Diego Fagundez---who is being heralded as the foundation of many great, wonderful scoring-type things for the Revs in the future, and one of the future stars of MLS --- and the addition of Defender of the Year Jose Goncalves. Let me be one of the first to throw that "it may be a bit premature" out there. Fagundez is a great talent, but it's probably a bit unfair to place such expectations on an 18-year-old at this point. Scoring 13 goals at that age is going to get you attention, but doesn't guarantee stardom.
While it's been pointed out that his goal tally was impressive--- partly because it was fifth in the league and not inflated by penalty kicks---I'm not yet convinced that he's bound for all the glory people think. In fact, I'd wager that he won't likely equal his tally from last season for a couple of reasons.
A) An observance I've made over the last few days suggests that he creates many of his own shots at the goal off the dribble. I'm not sure that if he continues this trend he can be as successful.
B) He creates below-average shots-per-90 minutes rates. Among the top 50 goal scorers, the average shots-per-90 is roughly 2.6. Fagundez averages a paltry 2.0 in comparison.
C) Over half those chances (52%) he fired off hit the target (29 of his 55 shots). While that is above-average, it may be a less-stable metric year-to-year, as is finishing rate. He needs to continue to create a high volume of chances before I'm ready to get on the bandwagon.
Now, there is some hope. The addition of Teal Bunbury gives the Revs someone who is going to take shots at a better-than-league-average clip. This could take some of the pressure off Fagundez, allowing him to be slippery with his electric speed, getting into dangerous locations, and keeping his finishing rate high.
There is also the case that New England has quite the creative midfield core, which only got deeper this week with the addition of Daigo Kobayashi. Adding him to the grouping of Kelyn Rowe and Lee Nguyen is rather intimidating and could help the young attacking midfielder, as he may not have to create so many shots for himself.
I'm not trying to be a wet blanket and 'poo poo' everyone that is drinking the Fagundez Kool-Aid. The youngster is an incredible talent, both on and off the ball, and he'll probably be a large contributing factor to why I watch so many Rev games this year. I do think there could be some undue pressure on him at this stage in his career, and it's crazy to think this club is going to live and die with him.
Outside of Fagundez, the Revs have been stock piling young and exciting talents, such as the aforementioned Rowe, with Andrew Farrell, Scott Caldwell and even Dimitry Imbongo. They're a young team that has a lot of helium at this stage. Add to it the top-scoring collegiate talents of Patrick Mullins and lesser heralded (yet equally exciting) Steve Neumann, with the recently acquired Bunbury, and maybe the long-awaited break out season of Jerry Bengston--who seems to save all his goals for the Honduras national team---and you realize 'holy crap' they've got weapons in abundance. Truth is, they shouldn't struggle to find the back of the net this year.
A good indicator for their offensive success last year was, of course, Chris Gluck's Possession with Purpose (PWP Index) stat that ranks them in the upper half (9th) in MLS and 4th among their Eastern conference foes. The loss of Juan Agudelo is a bit disappointing to some of their supporters and certainly with their front office that seemed pretty determined to keep him around against all odds. But with the quality and quantity of the youth available, as well as the off-season additions, this club could very well take a step forward in the attack.
The real question for me is going to be the defense. Jose Goncalves came out of pretty much nowhere to have a lights out season and win defensive player of year honors for MLS. It's not so much a question of whether he'll regress so much as I wonder what the likelihood of the defense as a whole regressing.
The backline should remain, for all intents and purposes, intact from last year. The big question is whether we'll see Bobby Shuttleworth or Brad Knighton between the pipes as a goal keeper. This is an entirely different conversation, and I want to set it aside of the time being. The defense wasn't necessarily great so much as it was a bit lucky in some cases. Sure their PDO as a whole is under the 100 mark, indicating that they have actually gotten a bit unlucky as a whole, but they earned just 95 percent of the shot totals of their opponents, and their overall xGD was negative, which both imply that they not only surrendered more shots than they created but also surrendered shots in more advantageous locations for the opposition. Neither are good things, and both are critical points for the defense. Now those numbers don't tell us that New England will regress or that they will certainly allow more goals than what they last year, but simply what they did produce was not as we expected and that they played above what they likely should have.
Now, as for the Shuttleworth vs. Knighton---WWE Royal Rumble face off---I'm a bit torn. Personally, I know Matt Reis had been there for a decade, but Shuttleworth was---in my opinion---a good keeper, and there was an argument for letting him stay in the net after Reis returned from injury. Now with Reis retired and the Revolution acquiring Knighton, it becomes an interesting battle. Our early advanced indications point to the fact that Brad Knighton, despite only seeing 540 minutes, was a better keeper. Now those numbers are only indicators, and they do come with a clear set of caveats. Neither keeper has enough empirical evidence that one is necessarily better than the other. That said, I expect that Brad Knighton will win the job, and his performances will stick right in and around what we thought of Matt Reis.
Overall I could see really two vastly different scenarios playing out with New England. The first is that they come out like gangbusters. Their defense holds, the youngsters take another step forward, and they overtake New York, who I believe may be somewhat overrated, and possibly even Sporting Kansas City (don't tell Matthias I said that), staying in contention for a supporters shield for most of the year.
The other side is that, with all the significant improvements that other clubs have made compounded with some struggles by the a young core, it could leave the team in an early hole. Early disappointing results could very well culminate in them missing the playoffs entirely.
The East going to be a dog fight, more so than what the Western Conference is thought to be. Because of that, clubs such as Toronto FC, Chicago, Houston, D.C. United and New England are all fighting for the last three spots, assuming that New York and Sporting play up to their potential. Though, given the strange inconsistencies of both of those franchises, anything remains possible. Youth lends itself to variability, making New England's projection hard to pin down.
Crowdsourcing Results
New England received a wide range of votes, earning at least 10% of all votes for every placement between 4th and 10th in the Eastern conference. Overall, just 34.4% of voters felt that New England was a playoff team.