Offseason Outlook: New England Revolution

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by Harrison Crow (@harrison_crow)

Bruce Arena doesn’t believe in stats. 

Like, not the fact they exist. He’s been very vocal over the years as to how unhelpful he feels they are, due to the fact that there are a lot of circumstances that drive their results.

While his candid thoughts and hesitant approach concerning analytics have understandably rankled the analytics community, it’s Bruce Arena, you know? He has a specific way he likes to do things, and he’s not going to change. 

The reality is he’s spent over 20 years crafting and refining his own personal processes for distilling information; an artful approach he trusts and has been proven both in concept and reality over his tenure in Major League Soccer. It’s not that more information isn’t better or can’t be helpful but the lack of trust in what that information implies and how to alter decision making from it. 

This past weekend Arena spoke about the possibility of the team signing a defensive player. He doesn’t need numbers to know how bad of a team they were defensively. He knows they weren’t good defensively, he might even probably identify they were bad. But to whatever historical degree they were bad (and it 100% is historic) doesn’t matter to him or for his purposes. He singularly exists to build the infrastructure of this team into a perennial winner.

Analytics or not, Bruce Arena can be a very good coach. You don’t need the results or even the fact that they got to the playoffs as a means for determining this, though many feel it gives the thought more credence. The problem with using results and the playoff berth achieved as a result is that they are more driven by way of luck and their respective peers choking more than any strong coaching or leadership Arena might have provided.

Instead the prime example is the atmosphere, the change in the day-to-day environment that has been reported and how the players’ general demeanor was out on the pitch after he took over the reigns from Brad Friedel. 

Something consistently forgotten about in sports isn’t just “locker room mentality.” If anything, we’ve lost touch with what that means and it’s become such an intangible that many deny its existence. We hear so many cliches and also how “athletes are people too” that the meaning of it all just kind of washes gray and becomes noise.

A workplace environment is crucial to success for every professional. The quality of your work, your enjoyment of that work, and pushing yourself further to be even better has a lot to do with your professional surroundings. While we get a lot of cliche jabber about this topic in the sporting community, it's important to translate it to what you do to properly relate to the impact that Arena had on this team and organization. Anyone able to instantly improve upon such an environment is doing a massive thing for those that work for them.

One other perhaps not very minor but maybe silly thing which has been vitally important to Arena’s effectiveness in his short tenure with New England is picking the right eleven players to occupy the right spaces on the pitch more often than not.

It’s a little thing, but just playing his best players where they’re best set to play is very important. Bruce Arena has, in a very short period of time, figured out how to make talented players able to execute their talent in a way that has given New England a chance to not suck. I know that sounds like a simple thing which any responsible coach would do, but we see coaches around MLS struggle with this concept every year.

Areas of Depth

As I’ve alluded, New England has top level “difference makers” (I hate this term but you, as a reader, know what I mean) around the front attacking four. 

Two designated players (Bou and Gil) extremely gifted in creating goals, a TAM attacking player (Penilla) with a positional versatility that allows him to fit in three of the front attacking four positions, and three domestic attacking assets (Bunbury, Fagundez and Rowe) which have shown the ability to provide better than average MLS quality even if it’s a bit inconsistent.

Adding to this already full group is reports that the Revolution could will add a third designated player to their stable, striker Adam Buska from Pogoń Szczecin in the top Polish professional league. Which is... interesting.

Additionally, they have some interesting attacking depth in Tajon Buchanan and Justin Rennicks as well as a couple of lesser known home grown players Nicolas Firmino and Damian Rivera which could potentially be options off the bench.

The central midfield is pretty well set, but lacks a real standout performer. Luis Caicedo has been pretty good but also been wildly inconsistent. Wilfried Zahibo has been solid with the ball at his feet but defensively he hasn’t been very good and has moments where he leaves it to those around him to mask his deficiencies. Scotty Caldwell looks to be the lone legit central midfield back-up for the Caicedo-Zahibo pairing which, in MLS, is actually pretty good. It also means you might even see some potential garbage minutes for young Firmino in a couple games this year.

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Once upon a time, Caldwell was an MLS Cup starter (2014) but hasn’t really grown past the fringe MLS starter tag, and while he holds a full hand of well rounded skills, not one of them really stands out. Caldwell isn’t going to suddenly become an amazing central midfielder but he’s a league average, and perhaps between the sum of his parts and the right tactics, he may be a capable midfield option for New England this season. 

Lastly, it appears this team has three left backs with the recent signing of Sinovic. I’m a bit skeptical of that acquisition, but who knows what Alexander Büttner will bring and Sinvoc has done a job for Vermes nearly the whole decade minus a few sick days.

Areas of Need

Outside of the left back position, basically the rest of the backline needs to be fixed in some capacity. 

It’s probably unfair to lay all of New England’s defensive failings at the feet of the back four. Some of it can be attributed to the inadequacy and inconsistency of the defensive capabilities of the central midfield, as well as the lack of tactical instruction. 

But more so on the backline than anywhere else on this roster does the problem of talent become a real issue. Andrew Farrell has some limitations as a center back and while he’s built for this era of ball playing center backs, off the ball he lacks awareness and concentration to track runners and lurking center forwards.Unfortunately, neither Mancienne nor Delamea are any better in this category and have honestly looked worse at times.

While some of the outstanding number of goals surrendered was more of an issue with depth and injuries this past season I’m not letting Mancienne nor Delamea off that easy. Both played over 1,000 minutes on a team that gave up over 50 goals this season and had the third highest xGA in ASA history (there is little real difference in defending between Arena and Friedel eras)

I know the response to this is that neither Delamea, Mancienne or Farrell aren’t really *that* bad and they’ll be better this year <insert some random reason>. The problem is you’re probably right to some extent. Each of them, in their own separate vacuum, is actually, probably, just fine defensively. They’re all fine defenders. Not great, probably not always good. But fine. The unfortunate issue which is the inevitable downfall is they all seem to have the same issue of awareness and concentration as mentioned. This has allowed the opposing attack to consistently penetrate the 18-yard box and take high leverage shots on a consistent basis. This isn’t a 2019 thing, it’s been happening for TWO YEARS.

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Something has to change with this back line. Starting the season the way you ended it is handicapping your upside as a team and doing it straight out of the gate is such a terrible decision. It’s essentially doing the same thing over and over (or three years in a row) and expecting a new result. There won’t be one. The defense will still be an issue and your ability to be a playoff team will be in jeopardy.

It’s doubtful that they do anything. But there is a need for a center back who doesn’t lack that specific defect or even someone that will help push this trio to be better. Like, go get Brad Friedel to show up after the game and wait by their car. 

But seriously, something, anything... go get A. J. Cochran from Phoenix Rising (I’ve been saying this for ... three years, the dude is an MLS caliber CB) he’s cheap and would honestly fit perfectly alongside Farrell. 

I’m also not enamored with Brandon Bye at right back either. He’s fine with the ball at his feet, if not around league average and that’s about what he brings. He’s positionally aware but not physically or technically gifted in terms of other right backs in this league. He’s what everyone would want as their number two right back and instead he’s their starter which again is not a positive for this backline. 

2020 Outlook

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The one area of the roster I haven’t touched on has been keeper... oh, what's that?

Let me help you out, Paul. 

Here are some fast facts (sorry, Jenna Fischer):

  • Third highest G-xG in ASA history (-10.69)

  • Third highest shots against per 96 minutes minimum 100 shots faced in ASA history

  • MOST saves made per 96 minimum 100 shots faced in ASA history

  • The highest average xG per save in 2019.

Essentially the dude was nails last season and was the entire reason why the New England Revolution made the playoffs in 2019. THE.ENTIRE.REASON.

Without Matty Turner the Revolution give up an easy 10-15 more goals putting them at a total of 67 and near threatening Cincinnati for the most goals given up in MLS history. Regardless of home many goals Gustavo Bou goes on to score.

A friend told me that I should use the lede “Revs were frauds and if Turner wasn't superman last year they'd have missed the playoffs by 5 points”. They aren’t wrong and going into 2020 without an impacting defensively-minded signing, or a step forward in growth by Caicedo or one of the centerbacks. This team isn’t going to be much different incarnation from it’s 2019 version. They will, very likely, score buckets of goals. They will, also very likely, give up buckets upon buckets of goals. 

There is a rumor going around that they’ve been shopping Diego Fagundez. Since adding Buska allows Arena to move Bunbury to the bench and be a super-sub either up top or out wide. Fagundez could also garner the type of TAM needed to make a play for defensive minded player who could impact games.

Outside of off loading Fagundez or even Bunbury this team is largely who it is at this point. That might be bad, it might be nice to have a lot of things in place going into a season for once---something that hasn’t always been the case under past regimes. I suppose it all lands on how optimistic you are on the state of this roster and how you perceive they performed last year. 

The underlying metrics point to this team being pretty flawed  with some strengths. If true, the question then becomes can those flaws be massaged out and or hidden/minimized through team orchestrated tactics? It would seem that this is the route that Arena is headed but with so much of the off-season still to go, all we can do is wait and see.