Less than ideal conditions in New England / Kari Heistad
By John Marshall
After wins at Seattle and home against Chicago, the Earthquakes fell to the New England Revolution at snowy Gillette Stadium. New England took control early with 2 goals from Kelyn Rowe in the 21’ and 37’ and coasted from there to get their first win on the season as well as their first goals. San Jose gave up turnover after turnover and struggled to maintain possession for most of the game.
Ratings based on a 1-10 scale:
- Horrible
- Awful
- Poor
- Flawed
- Adequate
- Good
- Very good
- Great
- Superb
- World Class
David Bingham: 6
Bingham made some nice saves and I don’t think either goal could be blamed on him. Really didn’t have a lot of support but kept San Jose in it as much as he could. More often than not he was the one Earthquake who consistently played good defense. I would still like to see Bingham be more of a general at the back as it seems at times that he isn’t directing the defense well enough.
Marvell Wynne: 5
Wynne did well fighting off attackers but also made a lot of mistakes in the match and eventually was subbed off due to injury. I had a hard time deciding on what to give Marvell for the match but nothing stood out to me to earn a 6.
Victor Bernardez: 4
I was surprised how slow Bernardez looked at times during the game. He was beaten a few times by the Revolutions’ attack and didn’t ever look comfortable. He was constantly busy at the back and he made some very suspect decisions that almost led to goals.
Clarence Goodson: 6
Not a bad match for the veteran center back, who is starting only his second match since his long term injury last year. Cleared one shot off the line early in the match and did his best to marshal the back line but struggled to do so. He did well to earn the penalty though and was easily the best defender for San Jose. Did almost take out Bingham in the 80’ and I’m not sure if that was an error in communication or just poor decision making.
Shaun Francis: 2
Shaun was plagued by sloppy play throughout the match. Poor passes and poor touches in the middle of the field and consistently lost his mark on defense. The first goal started from a bad pass by Francis and ended with the shot deflecting off his head into the back of the net. The second goal found Francis napping on the rebound and Rowe capitalized with an easy tap in. To cap it off he was absolutely burned by Agudelo in the 42’ and was caught napping by Newman only to be bailed out by Bingham. Didn’t do much right at all.
Jean-Baptiste Pierazzi: 4
I really don’t remember Pierazzi doing much in the match. He looks to have had good distribution as per Opta stats but it felt like he was napping most of the game. He had a golden opportunity to score at the death but instead skied it from a yard out.
JJ Koval: 5
I would have like to see Koval play the whole match personally because I thought he was doing well for most of the match. He was kept very quiet though and I don’t see anything more than adequate as a fair rating.
Sanna Nyassi: 4
Nyassi struggled to get going in the first half and that likely led to being replaced by Shea Salinas at half time. He made too many mistakes and gave up possession too easily which hindered his ability to use his speed up the wings.
Matias Perez Garcia: 3
I haven’t seen MPG make as many mistakes in a game as he did against New England. Numerous attacks broke down when Matias made passes behind teammates or tried to run through defenders and failed. Numerous times his free kicks were short of the targets and unthreatening. Maybe the fact that I expect so much from MPG is why I rated him so poorly but I really struggled to find bright spots from him.
Innocent Emeghara: 4
Let’s be honest, no one had a good game in Foxborough for San Jose. Innocent was no exception as he had his worst game in his young MLS career. Too many easy giveaways and was muscled off the ball more than he should have been. It seemed like Emeghara was trying to do too much at times and caused him to make unnecessary mistakes. Looked better in the second half but still wasn’t clicking.
Chris Wondolowski: 4
Sure Wondo got the penalty kick goal, a very well taken one at that, but spent the majority of the match struggling in possession and making poor decisions. His second half was much better than the first and had a nice shot in stoppage time that required a nice save by Shuttleworth but still left a lot to be desired.
Substitutions
Shea Salinas (for Nyassi HT): 6 MotM
Shea had a much better game than Nyassi did and he did well to build the attack on the wings. I thought he made the biggest impact on the second half by maintaining possession on the wing and working a few nice one-two passes with Innocent.
Adam Jahn (for Koval 46’): 6
Jahn’s size was a welcome sight to the San Jose attack and he did well to create problems for the Revs’ defense. He had a volley attempt go high late which was given as a corner and had some nice passing sequences.
Cordell Cato (for Wynne 55’): 4
With the injury to Wynne, Cordell was thrown into an unusual spot for San Jose, being asked to play at right back. The decision to have Cato come on instead of defender Ty Harden was likely to bring on more attacking presence while down 2-0. Safe to say the experiment didn’t go as planned as his defense was suspect and he never really got into the attack.
