By Danny Picard
CSNNE.comFollow @dannypicard
BOSTON -- @font-facefont-family: "Times New Roman";p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormalmargin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; a:link, span.MsoHyperlinkcolor: blue; text-decoration: underline; a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowedcolor: purple; text-decoration: underline; table.MsoNormalTablefont-size: 10pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; div.Section1page: Section1; In Steve Nicols eyes, it felt like a loss.
The New England Revolution coach wasnt pleased withSaturday nights 1-1 draw with the Chicago Fire at Gillette Stadium. It gavethe Revs a point, but considering they had eight shots on goal, New Englandscoach thought his team should have walked away with three points.
Instead, the Revolution extended their current winless skidto six games.
Its disappointing because, to be honest, it feels like aloss, said Nicol after the game. We come in at halftime, one down, and weshould be three up.
Defensively, weve been great this year. But tonight wedefended terribly. Saying that, moving forward, we created chances.
At least one of those chances was finished. Revolutionforward Rajko Lekic scored just his second goal of the season on Saturdaynight. It came in the 48th minute, and tied the game at 1-1.
Lekic stood wide open in front of the Chicago goal, andreceived a pass up the middle and through traffic from midfielder Pat Phelan.Lekic took the ball, turned, and fired it into the right side of the net.
On the one hand, it looks simple, but if you panic,certainly it becomes a lot harder, said Nicol on Lekics goal. But he kepthis cool and just stroked it. It was a great finish.
Lekic hadnt scored a goal since April 23, so getting one togo in and break an eight-game drought, was a huge confidence booster.
Im here to score goals, said Lekic after the game. So itwas a tough time for me, and when I saw the ball in the net today, it was a bigtime for me.
I saw that Pat Phelan had the ball, and he was trying toshoot it on goal, and I was thinking, If Chicagos defender missed the ball,Im all alone there. And he missed it.
The Revolution missed many chances on Saturday night. And inthe final 10 minutes, they also took away several high-quality scoring chancesfrom Chicago.
It was a 10-minute span that Nicol said was a result of hisplayers losing their legs.
We were trying to get forward, and you cant do that whenyoure tired, youre going to leave holes, said Nicol. And Matt Reis made acouple saves in the last 10 minutes. Other than that, I thought we pushed thegame, most of the time.
-- Midfielder Benny Feilhaber missed his fourth straight gameon Saturday night. Going into the game, the thought was that Feilhaber wouldreturncoming off the benchfrom a sprained right ankle against the Fire.
But Nicol and the team are playing it safe, and took thedoctors orders to be cautious.
The doctors looked at him again, and just felt that, thattype of injury, three weeks was pushing it, said Nicol. Had it been the cupfinal, hed have been available. But we always listen to the doctors advice.
Danny Picard is on twitter at http:twitter.comDannyPicard.