Sweeney: Despite small points gap, playoffs are a distant thought; poor results north of the border; give Friedel more time

Four takeaways/extraneous thoughts from Saturday's debacle in Toronto:

On Tuesday, Brad Friedel will maintain the playoffs are still within reach: And sure, he has every right to do that. That’s his job, to keep the fans engaged, to keep the players focused on the matters of seeing out the regular season. And mathematically, the Revs are still within striking distance.

But will it really matter? Like we've said before, more than likely not.

Here’s the current playoff picture after the Eastern Conference tilts through Saturday night:

5. Philadelphia (47 points, 0-0 draw against Columbus, 31 matches played)
6. Montreal (40 points, 5-0 loss to DC, 31 matches)
7. DC United (38 points, 5-0 win, 29 matches)
8. New England (35 points, 4-1 loss to Toronto, 30 matches)
9. Toronto (33 points, 4-1 win, 30 matches)

And just a reminder of the remaining schedules:

Philadelphia: vs. Minnesota (10/6), vs. Red Bulls (10/21), at NYCFC (10/28)
Montreal: vs. Columbus (10/6), vs. Toronto (10/21), at New England (10/28)
DC United: vs. Chicago (10/7), vs. Dallas (10/13), vs. Toronto (10/17), vs. NYCFC (10/21), at Chicago (10/28)
New England: at Atlanta (10/6), vs. Orlando City (10/13), at Real Salt Lake (10/18), vs Montreal (10/28)
Toronto: vs. Vancouver (10/6), at DC (10/17), at Montreal (10/21), at Atlanta (10/28)

Given the Revs are still five points off, yes, it’s easy to have that belief. But if the Revs lose and Montreal lose next Saturday, and DC wins on Sunday, DC will be sixth, Montreal seventh, Revs eighth or potentially ninth if Toronto beats Vancouver.

If the Revs lose next Saturday, the chance to overtake Philadelphia is out of reach. DC may stumble, but do you see the Revs beating Atlanta at Mercedes-Benz? Do you see the Revs beating Real Salt Lake on the road, at Rio Tinto, at elevation? Right now, I can’t even see the Revs beating Orlando City.

They may maintain the playoff push is still on… but is it really?

That’s three trips to Canada, with only one point taken: Remember the days when going to Canada meant three points (seeing as they couldn’t get points on the road in the Lower 48)? In 2018, that’s not the case: May 5, 4-2 defeat to Montreal, May 26, 3-3 draw with Vancouver, Sept. 29, 4-1 loss to Toronto. Thankfully, no more trips to Canada this year.

Revs offense… I laid it all out for you: I did. I watched hours of film, broke it all down. Read this. They tried to do some of those things in the first half an hour, but I don’t know what happened after that. They just weren’t creative in a wide-open game with plenty of flow. Guillermo Hauche wasn’t involved with the attack, and neither was Diego Fagundez when he came on. Juan Agudelo had one try that was solid, making Alex Bono jump to make a stop; otherwise, not good, too slow. Teal Bunbury, other than his hold-up play, too far out.

I want to see what Friedel does in the winter before we completely blow this up: I was reminded last week that it takes more than two transfer windows to rebuild and recreate a team, and that is a fair assessment. Several of the players who Friedel has brought in are good gets that we expect to see back next year (i.e. Cristian Penilla, Luis Caicedo). We expect the summer signings to return, too. It’s going to take at least one, maybe two, additional windows to turn this team around. Are they better now than they were last year? In some ways yes, in some ways no. If anything, the attitude about this team, their work rate, is higher than I’ve seen it; and they are in games pretty much until the end. But there are still the bad mistakes which have caused New England to drop point after point after point, the lackadaisical defense, the un-ruthless offense, which should not be happening.

I say give it two more windows. Yet if there is no playoff football in 2019, if the same mistakes are being made … then by all means, certain jobs should be lost, heads should roll, etc. I know several people who are ignoring the sales calls from the Revs ticket office because the product on the field this year is not what they are expecting for what they pay for tickets. If the Revs want those calls answered and the ticket sales to go up, they need to spend some money for quality this winter.

The fans, as they say, are fed up, and have been fed up for a while. They don’t care about the in-game positives we mentioned two graphs ago.

They care about results, they care about winning trophies.