Embarrassing, shameful, humiliating; take your pick to describe what happened to New England's soccer club on Saturday night. Brad Friedel's unit brought it to Philadelphia in the first half, but whatever momentum developed in the first half completely disappeared in the second. Defending was stagnant, any offensive-minded possession was uninspired, and most importantly there was evidence of quit in nearly every play.
Let's take a look at the starting 11...
PARTING THOUGHT
I wonder if Friedel resorts back to the 4-5-1/4-3-3 for the foreseeable future. I wouldn't be surprised if the club's coaching staff goes with a more conservative approach to avoid any more games where they concede any more than three goals -- which they haven't been able to do in the last three games.
Jalil Anibaba and Antonio Delamea will likely be considered for next game's lineup and it would be easy to choose Anibaba to start alongside Mancienne, throw Luis Caicedo into the defensive center midfield. The direction could be to direct the team to stay compact (instruct the wingers to prioritize defending over getting forward) and frustrate opposing teams' attacking players with nine players behind the ball at most times.
It certainly isn't the most prideful of strategies, but it may be enough to keep them in games long enough to have hope to earn points in any given match. If this isn't the solution for Friedel, I'm curious to find out what he has on his mind, because time is running low for him to figure things out to keep them out of the conference's last-place position -- where they currently reside.