Photo: Paul Rudderow

Who: Philadelphia Union at New England Revolution
What: Regular season game
Where: Gillette Stadium
When: Saturday, August 13 at 7:30 pm
Watch: TCN, MLS Live, Direct Kick
Whistle: Robert Sibiga; Linesmen: Craig Lowry, Brian Poeschel; Fourth Official: Alan Kelly

When New England Revolution signed Kei Kamara, there were three options. First, Jay Heaps’ team could speed up transitions and find new ways to get the powerful striker running at retreating defenses. That hasn’t happened. Second, Kamara could act as a passing hub, forcing defenses deep into the box to give space to the Revs’ quick midfield then checking back to play connecting passes that get Kelyn Rowe and Teal Bunbury behind the back line. That hasn’t happened either. Third, New England could keep playing the same type of game they were playing, only with Kei Kamara up top instead of Charlie Davies or Juan Agudelo. Seems like it could work… but also seems… man, just less than ideal.

Revs key passes vs Orlando two weeks ago.

Big guy in a little game

Essentially, Jay Heaps went Nic Cage in Gone in Sixty Seconds. He swiped Kei Kamara from Columbus, then proceeded to try and drive his big, powerful, souped-up striker through all the narrowest alleys. Predictably, Kamara has been stuck in quite a few spaces too small for his open field game. Since moving to the northeast, the man who nearly dragged the Crew to a title last season has suffered more than twice as many fouls as he did in Ohio and has seen his shots per game drop from 4.0 to 3.2. That’s a significant fall off for a player whose expects to spend a lot of time as the finishing move in the Revolution’s Mortal Kombat combos.

Kamara’s woes reflect broader problems with New England’s overall play.

Revs key passes vs Toronto last weekend

When the attack sets up in the final third, Kamara isn’t attracting much attention until the ball is played wide. The problem? The Revs aren’t that big on playing the ball wide in the final third.

Take a look at New England’s key passes over the past three matches (two in MLS play and Tuesday night’s US Open Cup semi-final win over Chicago). Most key passes — which indicate a pass that sets up a shot — come from central positions. But even more alarmingly, those that come from wide are often cutbacks toward the top of the box. The Revs boast one of the most potent aerial threats in MLS history and they keep playing the ball to his feet.

To sum up, Kamara has scored four league goals in the 12 games he’s played for Jay Heaps. Only one of those was a header. And it was off a corner kick (in other words, a situation in which almost everybody plays an aerial ball).

Revs key passes vs Chicago last Tuesday

Too many cooks, or too many diners?

A big part of the problem is that Heaps has built a team that seems like it’s filled with creators but is actually chock full of guys who are more comfortable going for goal. Diego Fagundez and Kelyn Rowe can be wizards with the ball, but both still struggle to fight off the demon that tells them shots from outside the box are likely to go in. Similarly, Teal Bunbury is a striker playing on the wing, and his straight line runs tend to end with crosses that match the accuracy of Dick Cheney on a hunting trip. Bunbury prefers to run at an angle toward goal so he can set up his own shot or lay off a simple pass. Below, you can see him heading towards goal when Nguyen finds him behind Kamara. Instead of setting up a hard, low cross, Bunbury is at best preparing for a shot. Only a bit of luck grants Kamara his tally.

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The result of all this is a team with a ton of attacking talent that can’t create space around their best distributor. Nguyen hasn’t recorded an assist in eight games, and the Revs have gone 2-5-1 over that stretch. Even weirder, New England has only scored eight goals since Nguyen’s last assist, with three of those coming against a Columbus team that was visited by the Men in Black sometime in February and wiped clean of soccer knowledge (they’ll be back in 2017, though, mark my words).

Not the defense you are looking for

Five goals in seven games is simply untenable for a team that was never going to float on defense alone. And the Revs have compounded their defensive frailty by blowing their transfer budget on Kamara and plugging London Woodberry and the Woodettes into the hole created by Andrew Farrell’s return to right back. Je-Vaughn Watson may be the answer, but he’s certainly not a clean sheet guarantee.

Watson doesn’t solve the basic problem that has plagued New England for almost two seasons now: Who is organizing this defense? Brad Knighton and Bobby Shuttleworth are excellent and still-underrated shot stoppers, but neither has been able to corral the athletic and headstrong defenders in front of them. Watch below as a bad tackle and penalty prevents New England from the embarrassment of watching Giovinco score from the center of the box without anybody closer than five yards to him.

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Opposing coaches have figured it out. The best way to attack the Revs is to move the ball wide, send an overlap to create space for a winger, and drive the ball inside off the wing. This allows you to avoid Scott “Son of BC” Caldwell and go at the back four directly.

The major benefit is that now you can build quick combinations on the edge of the box. Going alone against Andrew Farrell, Watson, or the (let’s just say it) overrated Jose Goncalves isn’t a great idea. But all that 1v1 skill doesn’t translate into an organized defense, and the Revs aren’t sure how to handle quick 1-2s. Some players step up, some drop back, nobody ends up very close to an attacker. Just look at Orlando shred through the defense two weeks ago.

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OCSC didn’t even need an overlap because as soon as they attacked from the wing, the Revs backed off and every loose ball belonged to the purps. It is a recurring theme for New England’s defense that once the basic organizational structure breaks down, they become extremely tentative and invite trouble.

A pass through the center of midfield finds one Chicago player goal-side of his man and two others with enough space to play a quick pass or collect and turn.

Perhaps no photo better sums up their struggles than a look at how the defense is organized in the buildup to Chicago’s goal Tuesday night. A ball is played through the center of the midfield (yikes) and the Revs have three defenders marking three attackers. The outside defender is wide of his attacker (double-yikes) and both central defenders are a yard or two away from their attacker, meaning that anybody who receives the ball will have time to take a touch and establish position before they are challenged. Basically, the Revs are inviting a ball into the most dangerous creative area of the pitch.

Sure enough, David Accam will score after Michael De Leeuw is given enough room to turn and create the exact sort of havoc that New England has not handled well all season.

Philadelphia questions

The craziest thing about the Alejandro Bedoya signing (beyond the fact that the Union just signed one of the best Americans on the planet right now) is that Philly has somehow convinced the world that they might not play Bedoya in the one open spot they have in midfield.

Jim Curtin has said some version of the following sentence over and over since Bedoya signed: “We don’t have a No. 8, but we have an Alejandro Bedoya… you figure it out.”

This led MLSSoccer’s Andrew Wiebe to “piece together” where Bedoya will play.

The thing is, if this is a puzzle, there’s only one hole, and only one piece.

If Tranquillo Barnetta had dropped into a deeper role and really fit in well, maybe we have some questions to answer. But he hasn’t. Barnetta has been anywhere from solid to decent to disastrous trying to marry his attacking instincts with transition defense. You can almost see him having to pull himself back to cover space when Brian Carroll leaves the center.

With Carroll out for 3-6 weeks (thanks, KYW/PSP pod!), there’s absolutely no way the less positionally disciplined Warren Creavalle and Barnetta can co-exist and maintain a solid front to cover a defense that has seen far too many counterattacks ramp up to full speed without hitting any midfield resistance over recent weeks.

Perhaps in future road games, with a healthy Carroll, Curtin can shift Barnetta wide and play Bedoya in front of two holding mids. But not this Saturday, and definitely not until Carroll or Edu are healthy again.

Unless the Union try to get too smart for their own good, Bedoya will be deployed alongside Creavalle on Saturday with Barnetta returning to the attacking role he was only just figuring out when Vincent Nogueira left town.

Barnetta: A winger without a wing

It’s better to call Barnetta an attacking midfielder than a No. 10, because, as Wiebe accurately writes, the Swiss midfielder is “not necessarily a dyed-in-the-wool No. 10.” Instead, he’s a central winger.

Barnetta thrives by pushing his defender back — or simply curling through zonal defenses — and popping up with enough space to turn toward goal. Much like a winger might, he then attacks the first man he sees while looking for a diagonal pass forward so he can run past his marker into the space. Many of these movements map onto those of a wide player, and, indeed, that was Barnetta’s stock and trade for years.

The other big question for Philly is in defense, where a shaky performance from Ken Tribbett has kept the right center back spot an open question. Joshua Yaro hasn’t played since that yucky Montreal loss, but it would be no surprise to see him returned to the lineup against New England’s quick attackers.

That said, Curtin may want to stick with Tribbett to counter Kei Kamara’s aerial presence (while Kamara has only a single headed goal in 12 games since joining the Revs, he has created chaos by knocking balls down off set pieces).

Prediction: Union 3-2 Revolution

Both of these defenses are struggling, but the Union have the better pieces. With Bedoya bedding in, things won’t be perfect but they should be better. And more importantly, Barnetta’s move forward means Jim Curtin can start Ilsinho wide but insert Fabian Herbers or Walter Restrepo if CJ Sapong again refuses to push the defensive line deep.

This Union team has all the pieces to hang with everybody except, perhaps, Toronto in full flight. But putting it all together will take a few games now that the roster is set and Mo Edu close to return. The key is getting Bedoya’s role figured out before Edu joins the first eleven, and that starts Saturday in Foxborough.