Revs' defensive options on the bench have been that way for a reason

FOXBOROUGH — With Antonio Delamea suspended for Saturday night’s match at Toronto FC, Brad Fridel hinted Tuesday at — and all but confirmed — Jalil Anibaba returning to the starting XI after spending last Saturday night’s match against Chicago on the bench.

“Jalil is ready to go,” he said during his usual Tuesday morning media junket in the bowels of Gillette Stadium. “Jalil’s been excellent all season for us, and playing alongside Michael (Mancienne), so there’s no issue there.”

So that settles the centerback positions — which should come as no surprise, seeing as Friedel has used multiple combinations of that trio in the back for the last six matches — but what about the others? We can surmise that Andrew Farrell will be at right back, with Brandon Bye at left back: Bye has slid into that role every match since the Aug. 4 draw away to Orlando City, and has performed — with the exception of his one mistake last Saturday night — admirably.

But what about defensive options on the bench, filling out the rest of the squad?

Revolution supporters and Blue Level denizens alike have noticed the apparent lack of defensive options in the final seven spots in the matchday roster over the last eight games: with the exception of Cristhian Machado, who has been in the squad or has started (two starts at central defensive midfield) since Aug. 4. Between Delamea and Anibaba either starting or sitting the bench since Mancienne’s arrival in Foxborough in mid-August (both started at LAFC two weeks ago, with Mancienne in London attending the birth of his son), defensive substitutes have been limited to only them, as well as the spot run-out for Wilfried Zahibo. Instead, the bench has seen itself filled with attacking options, such as Juan Agudelo, Brian Wright, Zachary Herivaux, Diego Fagundez (on Sept. 5), etc.

It has led to the belief that the defensive options in Claude Dielna — a designated player who wore the captain’s armband for a majority of the first half of the season — and Gabriel Somi are no longer in Friedel’s plans. Dielna has not been a part of the match day squad since he played 85 minutes at left back in the 2-0 loss to New York Red Bulls on July 21, while Somi last played in the 2-1 defeat to Minnesota United on July 18; Somi has made one match day squad since then, the trip to Orlando City, and did not get off the bench that night.

And that brings us back to the opening phrasing: with Delamea suspended, and with Anibaba pairing up with Mancienne for Saturday, it means that there is no better time than this week for Dielna or Somi to get into the squad rather than watch the match on TV from home.

The question is: will they?
When we asked Friedel that question before training Wednesday morning, he reiterated — then went into a little further depth about the topic than ever before — his mantra of players’ efforts on the training pitch being the deciding factor.

“Every single player on the roster, starting every Monday, has an opportunity to get into the squad the next weekend,” he said. “It comes down to their attitudes in training, it comes down to their work ethic, and it also comes down to who we’re playing and tactically what we want to do.

“It’s all-encompassing and we have discussions with the staff before training, then we have training. We watch training after (it is recorded from a scissor lift at the training pitch), and then we meet for a few hours after training and talk about what we want to do the next day; we go through each player individually, and we revisit the following morning about who the squad is, and we start whittling it down from Monday.

“Claude and Gabriel are no different than any of the other players in the team. If they come out with the right attitude and work hard, absolutely they have an opportunity to get into the squad and the team … Actions will speak louder than words, in this case, so you see the squads when they’re named. When people are in and people are out it generally has to do with one or all of the factors that I just mentioned to you.”

He added: “It’s a very simple process. There are no personal feelings toward it. It’s, Come out and show us what you have, and us as a staff — believe me, if you’re doing really, really well, the staff will notice. If you’re doing really, really poorly, the staff will notice. It really isn’t more complicated than that.”

Friedel noted that another reason for the attacking-heavy benches over the last eight matches?

“We were in a situation where we need to win games, we need to score goals,” he said.

He also noted Machado’s versatility — as we noted back when the Revolution acquired him back in late July — has allowed him to, in some cases, only use the Bolivian international as a potential defensive option.

“If you need a right or a left back, for instance, in a game, (Machado)’s one that can do that,” Friedel said. “We’ve always had a Tony or a Jalil, or when Michael’s been involved, and again, it all comes down to the situation: the opponent, tactically what we want to do, and keep in mind in some of the games, we can go to three in the back.

“We have Andrew Farrell at right back who is comfortable sliding into centerback, so even if there’s no bodies on the bench, so to speak, there’s always one, if not two options that will sort itself out during the game.”

He added that one player in particular — Kelyn Rowe — has the ability to move back and forth from an offensive, attacking-minded skillset to that of a defender, much like he did this past Saturday after swapping Bye off for newcomer Guillermo Hauche at halftime.

“All the players we want to bring in, we want them to have a little bit of versatility to them, just in case you need them: with the way MLS is, you can’t go to your Academy and grab players openly, you have to have them on the roster, full contracts, things like that. You don’t have the luxury of (doing that) when you have injury or suspension problems, so with that being said, you have to change things around and have versatile players like Kelyn, which helps out,” he said.