While not being aware of any clamoring for its triumphant return to inboxes around New England over the last two months, Weekly Tactical Watch is back. And with just two post World Cup games from the Revolution in the space of four days being played, along with impending arrival of Jack Harrison and Brayan Ceballos departure, there is much to keep an eye on.
Somewhat surprisingly the Revs came back from two months off with Luca Langoni and Ilay Feinngold both unable to start either of the two games. Langoni was able to feature off the bench and is hopefully working his way back to full fitness, Feingold needed a minor procedure during the break and isn't available yet.
This threw up the unexpected selection of Matt Polster as the Revs' starting right back for the games against Toronto and Atlanta. On other other side at left back the undroppable Will Sands carried on where he left on in May. Oh how we long for the days of Dejuan Jones and Brandon Bye.
This outside back pairing featured from the start in both games and offered little to no attacking support in advanced positions to the wide players in front them. This limited the creativity possibilities and space to operate for Peyton Miller, Griffin Yow, Marcos Zambrano and Langoni when playing out wide.
Against Toronto whoever was on the right side found little joy getting forward. When coupled with Dor Turgeman's inability to run in behind and stretch the opposition back line meant the left sided attacker as the only outlet.
Yow, initially, was able to get on the ball in open space down the left, as was Miller when they switched sides. Neither found much help, however, when they did get on the ball. This was due to Turgeman's aforementioned lack of runs in-behind, no overlapping run from Sands and no runs out of the middle from Alhassan Yusuf.
On the right, Polster's deep positioning and limited range of passing allowed Toronto's left back to mark Miller and then Yow tightly and limit their ability to make anything happen. The Revs attacking play suffered greatly as they did well to keep the ball and advance away from their goal and cross over into Toronto's half but then couldn't pull Toronto around enough to create gaps and overloads. The game fizzled out to a meager 0-0.
Against both Toronto (left side) and Atlanta (right side), the Revs had no width on the right, limited advanced involvement from the outside backs and only able to exploit the advanced left space. Images thanks to the must follow MLS Analytics on BlueSky
Saturday night's 34,000+ crowd (10 thousand of which enjoyed the game for free, don't forget) was, of course, treated to a guns blazing 4-1 victory over the hapless Atlanta United. But even in that game with Revs able to attack and find gaps and goals nearly at will, the outside backs could barely join in on the fun.
The possibility of a front four of Harrison, Gil, Langoni and Turgeman with Miller in the mix as well does give the Revs plenty of attacking talent. Do they need to once again have the best outside back duo in the league? No. They do need a bit more from these two spots however to fully unlock the capabilities of the players in front of them.
