Sweeney: The kids are alright, a look at the defense for next week, and another takeaway from Saturday's 4-4 draw

Three quick takeaways, my friends; strap yourselves in, grab your coffee and crullers, and away we go.

Those kids… they are alright

There are many out there who don’t care for MLS SuperDraft; they think it a waste of time. With the rise of the development academies throughout Major League Soccer, SuperDraft’s importance has dropped down the pecking order. I personally don’t think that’s true, given the talent that was available back in January that some teams — a lot of teams — didn’t even give a second glance at.

Yet on Saturday night, two players obtained by the Revolution through this mechanism — Tajon Buchanan and DuJuan Jones, the Nos. 9 and 11 picks this year — contributed to three of New England’s four goals Saturday night.

You can read what I had written about while watching film on both Buchanan and Jones back in late December/early January here.

There have been plenty of calls from Revs Colony to play the kids recently, given that the veterans really haven’t been able to get the job done, and I think that in time, playing all the kids will happen. I would put Buchanan and Jones in there with Justin Rennicks, Isaac Angking (when he gets healthy), and Nicolas Firmino and just let those kids, all under the age of 21, run wild. All five are attacking players, and match them up with a player like Carles Gil — or even Kevin Vang, when he signs his Homegrown deal — just look out.

A lot of other teams are playing their kids and are achieving favorable results, and I think that now the Revolution have a nifty youth corps in the first team roster; it was only a matter of time before the Revolution Academy matured, and we’re getting closer and closer to that happening. I feel that’ll happen when Vang, Tyler Freitas, Trevor Burns, Colby Quinones, and Eliot Jones sign Homegrown deals.

Time for all of these kids to, at some point, all play together — obviously, we’re still waiting on Angking to return from his knee injury — to see what fans can expect in 2020… you know, unless the club exercises options on the older guys and keeps this spiral going.

So how does the defense line up next Saturday?

With Brandon Bye and Jalil Anibaba serving suspensions next Saturday, we’re expecting a somewhat patchwork back line against the Union.

As it stands, the Revs will have Edgar Castillo, Michael Mancienne, Andrew Farrell, and — if Antonio Delamea can’t go Saturday — Luis Caicedo or Jones playing at right back.

Mancienne missed his third game of the season Saturday with plantar fasciitis, which isn’t serious. He should be able to feel better rather quickly with some anti-inflammatories. Delamea is in the concussion protocol, and if he misses Saturday, then so be it: you never want to take a chance with a head injury.

But if Mancienne’s P.F. doesn’t heal up, we’re wondering: does this mean the end of Gabriel Somi’s exile? Will he get the chance? There aren’t many other defenders in the queue, which is something we’ve harped on for months now.

If the Revs lost that one, I don’t think Brad Friedel’s job would have survived the road trip

I, like many of you out there, felt the same way entering stoppage time: Kansas City would have scored a fifth — and honestly, they would have if they stayed within themselves and didn’t try to do too much — in second-half stoppage time. With the Revs playing down to nine men and with their backs against the wall, it wouldn’t have been too far out of their character to, a) Leave someone unmarked at a critical moment, or b) Ball-watch and be slow to react at a critical moment. That would have led to the fifth goal, the decisive goal, which would have put the Revolution even further under the cosh after 10 matches. They would have been 2-7-1 with only 7 points instead of 8, and at -10 instead of -9 for goal difference.

And looking ahead, with Philadelphia being able to score and Chicago being able to score, if they had lost all three matches on the trot I would have to think that spells the end of Brad Friedel’s tenure as manager -- or at the very least start the hot seat rumblings. The team is in the basement again, and after the first nine matches where the offense just hadn’t been able to get out of its own way, a loss to SKC plus the potential for two more losses and a further hole would have been it.

If I have to be honest, I don’t think a change in manager would help this team. Not one iota.

And yes, I know that I’ve said that it takes more than three transfer windows to completely re-make a team, but we have to call the team out and point out that they erroneously retained a great deal of last year’s team. We knew these results were coming — hell, I wrote that last year back on Sept. 1 — we just didn’t know how bad the offense would fail to produce so far.

And no, it has nothing to do with gelling: they’ve been together since January, and some of these players have been together since 2013. Time to call a spade a spade, and it’s time to say it: the front office personnel has failed the fans with options that are either too old or too poor quality to play for the Crayon Crest.

Would I say that if the Revs held on and won? Yes, I would have. The time has come for changes to be made.

I will continue to rail about this until things are done.