Bruce Arena: “Hopefully in the next week we can do a little bit better and get some guys back.”
The New England Revolution have been dealing with a lot of absences recently, but they’re hoping that will change soon.
This week, the Revs headed north of the border for games against Toronto FC and the Montreal Impact without Gustavo Bou, Dylan Borrero, Giacomo Vrioni, Maciel, and Henry Kessler. The first four weren’t available due to injury and the last was because of his vaccination status. The team lost Wilfrid Kaptoum midweek due to a non-contact injury.
The Revs tied TFC 2-2 on Wednesday before losing 4-0 to CF Montreal on the weekend.
Head coach and sporting director Bruce Arena noted that his team was “physically intimidated” in the first half of Saturday’s game. He then lauded the recent efforts of his players.
“I give our guys credit,” Arena said. “They’ve been working for many, many weeks shorthanded, battling every day, getting some results in games, so some guys didn’t play well tonight, others did. I can’t fault them.”
The Revs went with a five-man back line on Wednesday with Omar Gonzalez and Christian Makoun partnering with Andrew Farrell. The four-man back line returned on Saturday with Farrell pairing with Jon Bell.
Arena explained that personnel and fitness were factors in deciding the formations.
“We lost Kaptoum from the other night, and Gonzalez and Makoun hadn’t played 90-minute games in a while, so it would have been difficult to play them back-to-back in a short period of time, so that was part of it as well,” Arena commented.
Saturday marked the Revs’ third loss in 18 outings. They’ll look to avoid consecutive losses when they host the LA Galaxy on Sunday, Aug. 28. Arena hopes that his team will have more players available soon.
“We have an awful lot of injuries,” Arena said. “We have guys that are back in Foxborough that should have been on this trip playing, so that hurts our team, but hopefully in the next week we can do a little bit better and get some guys back.”