Bruce Arena: “The game became a bit of a circus with time wasting”

The New England Revolution lost their fifth game of the season as they fell to D.C. United 3-2 on Saturday. Head Coach and Sporting Director Bruce Arena was quick to realize the shortcomings of his team after the match.

Well, there were clearly some individual mistakes,” Arena said. “I think on two of the goals, we turned the ball over, probably in the middle third of the field. We made some technical mistakes, clearing the ball, I think, on the first goal. [On the] second goal, we did a terrible job dealing with the player in front of the goal. Give them credit. Good cross, have to finish it, but really poor marking on our part. The third goal, again, I think we turned the ball over. One on one in the penalty area, they get the shot off and our goalkeeper is not able to save the ball. So, down 3-1 in a half where we really didn’t play that bad. But, boy, we made some really poor mistakes and they cost us dearly. And again, we’ve conceded an awful lot of goals and just some really poor play.”

The head coach ended up saying that his side deserved to lose the match. While controlling possession, New England ended up dropping points to their Eastern Conference rival.

As Arena mentioned poor defending and poor giveaways were the culprits once again for the Revs who now find themselves at the bottom of the Eastern Conference. Winning the shot battle along with having more expected goals wasn’t enough for the Revs this time around.

Still, Arena said that the game became a circus towards the end of the match.

“The game became a bit of a circus with time wasting and everything else, but we put ourselves in that position,” he said. “You know, we can’t point the finger at the referee, because the whole thing was a mess with them going down, I think it was three or four guys they checked for concussions or whatever and the time wasting and all of that. But we put ourselves in position for that, so we have no reason to use that as an excuse.”

Eight minutes of stoppage time was given but New England was still unable to find the game-tying goal. The ability to steal points from opponents has evaporated since the end of the 2021 season.

Now the Revs will look to get back on track when they face an Inter Miami CF squad that is on a three-game winning streak. New England will hope that they will be the ones wasting time and picking up three points on that occasion.