Sweeney: Despite a great win, Revs lacked a killer instinct against NYRB

FOXBOROUGH — Make no mistake about it, Revolution fandom: getting a result against one of your oldest rivals in Major League Soccer is a great thing.

For the first time in over a season-plus — New England had lost its last four against its guests at Gillette, the New York Red Bulls, Saturday night, including a game in the US Open Cup in '17 — the Revs came up with a massive three points. You have to admit it whether you want to or not: the Red Bulls are a talented side, have been for the last few years, and after Bradley Wright-Phillips found the back of the net in the eighth minute, many figured it was going to be one of those nights for The Boys In Blue.

But a little something strange happened along Route 1: the Revs defense stymied the Energy Drinks the rest of the way, and New York only managed to get another three shots on goal, with Matt Turner stopping all three.

On the flip side of the equation, New England amped up the offensive energy, and finally managed to beat Red Bulls keeper Ryan Meara as Diego Fagundez broke a two-month scoring drought with a dagger from distance to end the first half of play level at 1-up.

Yet even before Teal Bunbury — he of the eight goals in his last 11 matches, and of the 25 goals as a Revolution player to tie him with Clint Dempsey (remember him?) for 10^th in New England’s all-time scoring ledgers Bunburys — managed to slide and knock home Cristian Penilla’s cross (and seriously, what great build-up to the goal, with Luis Caicedo winning the ball and practically lobbing it to Penilla on the other side), the Revolution had plenty of opportunities to make it 2-1.

Or 3-1.

Or yes, even 4-1.

And no, we’re not talking about the ignored shouts for penalties, the second of which drawn by Krisztian Nemeth earning a solid “VAR” chant from a majority of the 21,576 here at The House That Brady Built (although scoring from the spot would have been nifty, too).

No, we’re talking about the series of opportunities that the top half of the Revs attack had between the hour mark and a few minutes before Bunbury scored, but for some head-scratching reason chose not to take. In the match blog, I didn’t detail every single opportunity, but believe me when I say that there was a little too much unselfishness inside the box during that stretch. Passes were made when players had plenty of room to shoot, and that gave the New York back line plenty of time to close down and deny.

If anything, New England is a top-heavy team, and has been for years. Between Fagundez, Bunbury, Kelyn Rowe, Juan Agudelo, and the recently-departed Lee Nguyen, to name five, there is no doubt the Revs can score goals. I’ve said it many times: MLS is a finisher’s league, and to be able to raise a trophy, whether it be in September for the Open Cup or on the first Sunday in December, you need to be a team with the ability to poach. You look at the last five or six years, and the team that wins MLS Cup is generally one of the top five teams in overall scoring for the league that year.

In short, you need to be ruthless when it comes to scoring goals, because the other team on the pitch has players that are deadly, too. You need to take the opportunity when it presents itself. Certain players — Nemeth, for example — are paid an obscene amount of money to play this sport, and for the amount of money they are making, they need to not just pick and choose when they are going to shoot, or simply lay the football off to another player.

Quite simply, New England should have absolutely demoralized New York last night -- and seriously, it’s always fun to send those teams back to that city with their tails between their legs, isn’t it? — en route to jumping up to fifth place in the Eastern Conference (my God, it felt like the Revs were never going to get out of sixth).

Yes, we’re pleased with the victory, and gaining five points over the course of eight days is a wonderful feeling.

But if the Revolution had more of a killer instinct Saturday, the result would have been much, much, much more satisfying.