Toronto FC blanked by New England Revolution, lose first home game of season
The New England Revolution are currently leading the MLS standings for a reason, and they showed their quality against a Toronto FC side that could not convert their chances on Saturday night at BMO Field.
Toronto’s starting XI was adjusted before kickoff for a second straight week, as Matt Hedges picked up a lower leg injury during warmups. Shane O’Neill thus came in for his first start of the season in Hedges’ absence.
Both sides were battling it out in the first 18 minutes of the match as action was end-to-end; including Lorenzo Insigne catching Revolution goalkeeper Djordje Petrović off his line by attempting a shot from way out, though the ball went just wide of the post.
One minute later, Bobby Wood capitalized on a mistake from TFC centre-back Sigurd Rosted, calmly slotting the ball past Sean Johnson for the opener in the 19th minute.
The Reds had numerous opportunities to tie the game at 1-1 throughout the remainder of the first half.
Just two minutes after conceding, Richie Laryea went on one of his trademark solo runs, weaving through the opposition’s defence before taking a shot with his weak foot, which did not test Petrović. In the 25th minute, Brandon Servania struck a powerful shot from distance, but no dice once again.
The home side would have gone into halftime with a bigger deficit if it wasn’t for their goalkeeper Sean Johnson making two crucial saves on back-to-back cracks at goal from New England.
Head coach Bob Bradley made a substitution at the hour mark as he brought on Adama Diomande for Brandon Servania. In need of a goal, Toronto played with two strikers for the remainder of the match.
The visitors doubled their lead in the 62nd minute as DeJuan Jones pounced on the loose ball after Sean Johnson made a save on Carles Gil’s shot.
MLS Deadline Day signing Aimé Mabika came off the bench to make his Toronto FC debut. He replaced O’Neill, who appeared to leave the game with a cramp.
Toronto kept pushing late in the second half to pull within one goal, as they won a few corners but nothing materialised. The men from Massachusetts leave The Big Smoke with all three points. This is the first time since April 8th where Toronto FC failed to score a goal.
Post-game, Bob Bradley commented on his team’s performance:
“Frustrating, slow start. In too many cases, a team that was frustrated, trying to find a way to get back into the game. You could see the frustration on the field,” said Bradley.
Bradley briefly touched upon about the first goal that was conceded tonight.
“Sigurd [Rosted] is a good man, he apologised inside the locker room. A mistake on that end and we paid for it,” Bradley said.
Bradley spoke about the team failing to score tonight.
“We get in spots where we have chances for crosses, but we don’t do well enough to make more out of those. We’re still not consistent and as strong,” Bradley said.
Mark-Anthony Kaye also spoke on the match:
“We started the game a little slow, missed touches, missed passes. When you’re playing at home you have to dictate the tempo from the first minute, and we struggled to do that,” Kaye said.
Kaye also talked about his responsibilities in the past two matches, being the leader in the midfield amongst two younger players in Servania and Coello.
“My responsibility is to keep a level head, make sure the emotions are controlled and make sure there’s balance in whichever way we’re playing, said Kaye.
Kaye spoke about his recent performances and how to bounce back.
“I’ve had a couple games now where I haven’t been as clean as I want to be on the ball. I’m battling against the current a little bit. I’m just trying to continue to push because once the breakthrough happens, I’ll be back to my best and will help the team,” Kaye said.
Kaye then commented on TFC’s upcoming Canadian Championship match with CF Montréal.
“It’ll be a good test for us. Hopefully the level of the contest will bring out something in us, guys will go out there and compete. It’s a real opportunity to get to Champions League, we have a good opportunity to get there” said Kaye.
Toronto FC’s next match is the Canadian Classique against Hernán Losada’s CF Montréal on Tuesday at BMO Field. Kick-off is set for 7 p.m.
What to say? TFC needed to win this game and they came out flat. The season is now about a third done, they’re sitting in 13th, can’t score and haven’t looked capable of going on a run.
I commented last year that I don’t believe in the tear it down philosophy of rebuilding for a number of reasons but one key reason is the players get used to losing. I think that even with the roster turnover this year the team is too comfortable with poor results and this is a key factor in why they are underachieving.
I was willing to see if Insigne was going to help but he’s been back for 4 games and we have 2 losses, a draw and a win. Clearly Insigne isn’t enough to turn this around by himself.
What to do about it? Realistically there is little TFC can do on the roster front. We have who we have. That leaves TFC with one move they can make this year to try and salvage the season – change the coach. It’s not clear this will improve things but it has to be tried. Clearly Bradley can’t get the best out of the squad. He’s had lots of time to implement his philosophy. Note I don’t think that the poor performances are all on Bradley; the players need to be better as a team but if Bradley can’t light a fire under them, maybe someone else can.
Changes need to happen because if nothing does this is another lost season.
You know what they can do ! How about something that no team that claims to be a “big club”does, which is playing without a third DP, just get it done ! Mike Bradley can save his father further embarrassment by announcing his retirement, lets free up some cash and stop this moronic decision to sign two superstar DPs but leaving them playing with scrubs.
Bob bradley has been a complete fraud since 2009. This is mostly on him he doesn’t use subs well, his adjustments when does try to adjust are laughable. For example yesterday his first change was to bring on diomande who hasn’t done anything in 3 years instead of taking off a gassed sapong moving berna and insigne up in a 4 4 2 and bringing the young legs of rutty in a struggling midfield but we are talking about the worst coach manager in the league. Insigne was all over the map yesterday because he has completely tuned out this scare crow of a coach and feels he has to do it all which isn’t what needs to happen. This team needs to fire bob and manning asap if these clowns are allowed another transfer window throw away another season or two. Chants of fire bradley need be going from start to finish every game.
We were on here calling for a new coach just 15-20 games into last season and there was nothing premature about it. It was apparent then that Bob was not a good enough coach but the excuses were rolling in. “It’s not his team”, “we only have one DP”, “he needs new players”.
What will the excuses be this time? “There’s only two DPs not three”, “the bench isn’t good”, “we need to sign a World Cup winner to be able to win games”.
And if I’m Laryea I’m begging Nottingham Forest not to send me back to TFC.
Going to be another season without playoffs unless Bradley is fired Monday morning. Cannot wait until the summer again and just settle for missing playoffs with both Insigne and Berna getting older. Why sign them if they wanted to rebuild?
Laryea is too good to be playing in MLS. From a CAJMNT perspective he should be playing in Europe, maybe not at Nottingham again but in Germany, Netherlands or Belgium. I really hope he gets another European move this summer.
Once again, we were poor in every area of the field. Tactically we were out played. We were out hustled. We were outmanned in the middle of the park and that has to come down to horrendous coaching. Bradley has had more than enough time to implement his strategy and to most fans, we still do not know what that is. He is not getting the best out of our DP’s. They have no confidence in the system. You can see every game they only trust each other and no one else.
Kaye has been a waste of money, his past percentage must be below 60% and shows no leader, ship or drive in the middle of the park.
Last night we brought on the least fit player to fulfil a role of number 10 when the team was getting out run. His touch was horrendous, he was getting in peoples way and then had the audacity to complain to his midfielders.
Why would you bring him on? Surely Insigne in the 10 role bringing on a young athletic teammate on the left side would have been 1000% better.
Bradley has to go.
Very well said Stuart, apparently according to some fans MAK has been our best midfielder, he brings nothing on the offence side of the ball and his work rate is lacking, I paid extra attention to him at the game last night and just do not see why Bob went out and brought him to Toronto. This midfield will be over run by every team in the league, it prevents Insigne and Berna from getting the ball in dangerous positions, not good going forward, MIDFIELD MUST BE ADDRESSED !!! SURE WE HAVE DEPTH AT THIS POSITION BUT THEY ARE ALL BRUTAL
Priso is looking like a better midfielder than Kaye! Has Kaye has one of the worst first touches I’ve seen from a midfielder and his passing is always off. I liked him at LAFC but he has been very poor for us and below expectations.
Has Bradley been sacked yet?
Are you guys finally starting to understand?
Insigne, 1 goal 0 assists in 313 minutes…if Bernardeschi doesn’t score or assist next game, this will be his longest run without a goal or assist since he’s joined…
Insigne & Bernardeschi combining for a total of 107 accurate passes, 65 & 42 respectively. On match day there wasn’t a single pair of wingers who came anywhere near that total of passes made in the entirety of the MLS. There are midfielders on Man City that don’t make 65 passes a game. These two are having to do everything themselves.
Is the Sapong hype train over? He has no touch, can’t dribble, not a good finisher, no pace. Why is he here? Is he honestly better than Kerr? Is the disparity that big? This is Patrick Mullins 2.0 stealing minutes from Perruzza under Javier Perez. All this signing does is slow Kerr’s development.
Diomande, another one. Why’s he here? Two strikers on the field, two wingers on the field, two fullbacks on the field, how many crosses did you see played into the 6 foot tall strikers? Mabika is 6’6, how many times did you see him get in the box for crosses to be played to him? Great stuff. Did Hedges go down in warm up just like Petretta the other week? Fire the physios if that’s the case.
The only real positive takeaway in that game was Coello. Everything we expected Fraser & Priso to be, he is. Tons of passes, forward passes to players in between the lines, good stuff. Hard to drop him even when Osorio comes back. Might be time for Servania or Kaye to take a seat.
Fire Bob immediately and bring in Tata IMMEDIATELY. Zero delay just get it done.
Result and details of the Sun May 7/23 MLS NEXT Pro game between Toronto FC II and FC Cincinnati 2 played at York Lions Stadium.
http://www.rocketrobinsoccerintoronto.com/reports23/23tfc216.htm