The New England Revolution will try to bolster their postseason position in a home match against Charlotte FC on Saturday night in Foxborough, Mass.
The Revolution (13-6-10, 49 points) are winless in September at 0-1-3 in their past four matches, causing them to slip into a three-way tie for fourth in the Eastern Conference.
“We’re not satisfied just with that,” New England interim coach Clint Peay said. “We want to get the highest seed that we can possibly have so we can secure home-field advantage in the playoffs to the best of our ability.”
New England played its last three matches on the road, so this will mark its first home match since Sept. 2, a 2-2 draw with Austin FC.
The Revolution nonetheless clinched a playoff spot with last Saturday’s 2-2 draw at Chicago.
“We still have a couple of tough games to go and that’s going to be our goal moving forward,” Peay said.
Carles Gil scored against Chicago for the Revs. He has a career-high nine goals and 13 assists to lead New England this year.
Charlotte (7-10-12, 33 points) is also 0-1-3 this month, but the team has remained out of playoff contention with five matches remaining.
“We’ve had the majority of the ball, more passes, more crosses in the box, but we need to work on that final bit of quality,” Charlotte captain Ashley Westwood said of recent offensive shortcomings. “That’s the only thing that is missing.”
Charlotte has been blanked twice in its last three matches. Road matches have been more problematic, as the club has scored only one goal in its last three road outings.
Peay and the Revolution are trying to test some adjustments to see what might work best this fall.
“We had some formation tweaks in terms of how we want to carry forward and be more offensive and be a little bit more connected,” Peay said.
The Revolution defeated host Charlotte 1-0 on Henry Kessler’s goal Feb. 25 in their second game of the season. That was his only goal in seven matches this season with New England, as the defender has been out since early April because of a hamstring injury that required surgery.
–Field Level Media