Top Stories

Revolution continue strong home form with win against short-handed Red Bulls

RevsWin (Getty)

The days of Gillette Stadium being a place teams could come and grab easy road points appear to be over for now. The New England Revolution are seeing to that with some of the best home form in the league.

Riding goals from Lee Nguyen and newly-acquired forward Jerry Bengtson, the Revs dominated a short-handed New York Red Bulls side on their way to a 2-0 victory on Sunday.

Nguyen opened the scoring in the 24th minute with a long-range blast off a Chris Tierney pass and the New England defense made that lead stand up as the Revs limited the Red Bulls to just three shots on goal.

Bengtson came on as a second-half substitute and made a rousing debut for the Revs, scoring in the 84th minute to seal the victory and signal his intent to earn his place as the team's new Designated Player.

The Red Bulls were hit by injuries heading into the match and played without newly-named MLS All-Star First XI selections Thierry Henry and Heath Pearce, as well as regulars Rafa Marquez, Markus Holgersson and Jan Gunnar Solli.

Here are the match highlights:

 

What did you think of the match? Starting to take New England seriously as a playoff contender? Think the Red Bulls are coming back down to earth, or still think they will be a force in the East once their top players are healthy?

Share your thoughts below.

Comments

  1. the v-league is better than it was say 7 years ago…but it’s still only slightly better than NCAA college ball…

    Reply
  2. Bengtson looked a bit of a lightweight, despite scoring. Didn’t really hold the ball up, lost whatever little possession he had, even strayed offside on the goal sequence…Looking at the limited highlights from Honduras, and considering last night’s goal, he seems like a poacher with speed. But in Heaps we trust, so I am shutting up.

    Reply
  3. Nguyen is a quality player; PSV just doesn’t recruit stiffs into their team. Just because he played in the V-League, doesn’t make him a laughing stock when he was making way more than MLS was offering.

    Don’t know what kind of contract he signed with the Revs, but if it is short term, you can bet he will get a good transfer if he keeps on playing this way.

    Remember, Wenger saw Nguyen play with the Arsenal 1st team during a training stint few years ago, and said he didn’t look out of place.

    Reply
  4. agreed. Nguyen is gradually looking better. technically fun to watch. but i would argue that the v-league is competitive. i lived in hanoi for a while, saw a few games. there are a mix of local/asian/euros and s. americans there. decent technique. physically calmer. and hot as hell!

    Reply
  5. Nguyen is looking more and more impressive as the weeks go by. He set up two more quality chances in the 2nd half but Rowe failed to finish both. He proves that it doesn’t matter where you played .i.e. V-League, if you’re quality, you’re good in any league.

    He is letting Klinsi know that is he’s not to be forgotten.

    Reply
  6. The fact is Red Bulls cannot play on an artificial surface! Which guy in his right mind after playing Champions league etc. would want to play on a surface where the ball pings and pongs. Its a shame to have all these top athletes play on such surfaces. I can’t even watch these types of games on a TV.

    Frankly, I don’t know how and why a Nesta signs on (probably for cameo appearances and last hurrah’s for big money!)

    Reply
  7. As long as you’re talking short-handed, you could note Shalrie Joseph and Matt Reis combined for 17 minutes tonight. But no, you should probably go back to talking about New York.

    Reply
  8. And Spencer guys are unbearable, narrow 70 yard fields and booting the ball around. It may get results for 2/3 but it is ugly as hell and I wish it would go back to Scotland where it belongs… Even the Earthquakes, with all that talent, have reverted back to booting the ball up the field again recently.

    Reply
  9. I wonder who they will replace him with at the end of the year when he inevitably fails…

    In all seriousness, I love the style of soccer that these younger coaches are playing: Kreis, Olsen, Heaps, Hackworth, Pareja, Rennie (sometimes, he needs to unleash his lineup more, I’d rather see them win 4-3 than 1-0).
    Then you have Marsh, who hasn’t done much yet, we’ll wait and see if it’s because he doesn’t have the roster he wants (although all these aging Italians, seems like a Bradley protege thing).
    The worst is Arena, who could have the all time best 11 facing 5 year old girls and he would look to grind out a 1-0 win with a set piece goal.
    Also these Yallop, Kinnear,

    Reply
  10. So… Is it too late to say that maybe the hiring of Jay Heaps wasn’t completely because he was likely the cheapest candidate?

    Reply

Leave a Comment