Everyone’s asking me these last couple of days, “What’s wrong with the Revs.” My answer, “Plenty, but don’t panic.”

Let’s get the hard stuff out of the way first. The Revs were taught a lesson by their old rivals from Houston on their home field on Sunday. As with the Real Salt Lake game the previous weekend, very few men in New England uniforms had much to brag about.

The sync was just off, the Revs weren’t passing well from the outset and they let the Dynamo dictate terms all afternoon.

The temptation is to point the finger at the front players again, but let me offer another theory – the passes they are being asked to receive often would make as great a hold-up artist as Inter’s Zlatan Ibrahimovic look like Mr. Bobbles.

It’s not the individual effort level; it’s the quality of the individual efforts. There are guys doing a lot of hard running and defending who then panic and don’t seem to be reading their teammates when the Revs win the ball. When the subsequent giveaways inevitably take place, it’s then a deflating experience for the whole group.

My esteemed colleague, Paul Gardener, wrote a critique of the game (that he must have watched on Telefutura) for Soccer America’s e-newsletter in which his analysis hinged on the fact that the Revs pushed Shalrie Joseph up high late in the game at “forward” for the last 20 minutes. First of all, SJ was playing attacking mid after Pat Phelan came on. The fact that the Revs tried a couple of long balls from the back in the final couple of minutes was, for Gardener, evidence of the Steve Nicol’s reliance on old-school “Brit” coaching.

Without going at the point full bore – and it’s a point that doesn’t hold much water given the context of Sunday’s game and the Revs history of trying to play through the midfield – I only bring it up because it puzzles me so much that anyone covering this league doesn’t know by now that Steve Nicol above all else values skillful soccer and players who pass and control the ball. Do you not think he would have preferred to have Steve Ralston or Taylor Twellman out there if healthy? And, Joseph scored last time he played the Dynamo. Anyway…

And I’m going to give Matt Reis a complete mulligan on the first Dynamo goal. He’s logged six-plus seasons of super-reliable service that give him the right to make a mistake like that every once in a while. Besides, the Dalai Lama was miles offside when he got the little flick on Stuart Holden’s shot that caused it to scoot underneath Reis’ body.

OK – call me Glass-Half-Full Feldman – but here are my bright spots from Sunday, in reverse order:
4.    Mike Videira. Not nearly as impressive as he was in his substitute run out in Salt Lake, Videira nonetheless showed flashes of what he’s capable of. If he can pick up his speed of play a half a beat and take up the right spots in the midfield, his skill and vision will end up being big plusses for New England
3.    Barra Revolución Latina. A late-arriving crowd meant they didn’t show up on TV as well as they might during Kristina Akra’s opening sideline segment, but this Hispanic-oriented supporters group is reportedly looking to bolster the home atmosphere and give the fans in the Fort a run for the noise-making money. I’d love to see/hear it.
2.    Darrius Barnes. Can you think of one real mistake the guy has made in starting six games as a rookie so far? Don’t you blame that goal on him, by the way, no one closed Holden. Oh, and Ching’s goal on the corner was not his responsibility either.
1.    Stephane Assengue. The Revs’ 18-year-old from Cameroon has a long way to go. But in his MLS debut Sunday he exhibited a clean first touch, a desire to get into the flow of play and insane quickness. What a story it would have been if he’s been able to finish off his chance.

On now, it is, to Chicago’s Toyota Park. I’ll preview the Revs-Fire match by talking to  play-by-play man JP Dellacamera, Nick Firchau of the Chicago Sun-Times and Revs color analyst Greg Lalas. Please send your email questions to RevRadio@revolutionsoccer.net.