(W)Revs Wrap: Hatcheting the New Guy; Twellman!

My impression that Ryan Solle is essentially "this year's model" of Jeff Larentowicz - who I like just fine, by the way - led me to write a bit of a harsh profile on the new kid. That's posted over on The Offside, where I elaborate on my fears using DC United's Justin Moose as the vehicle.

In other New England Revolution news, looks like they're shipping out to Cancun, Mexico shortly (or they've already gone - don't know, don't care), an event covered on both the official site and over on Soccer New England. For my money, Soccer New England writes the better piece, not least because they inserted this significant detail:

"the Revolution have been training indoors at Gillette Stadium and Jay Heaps is looking forward to feeling the sun on his back again..."


Whoops. Not that one...here we go:

"With just over four weeks until the Revolution kick off their regular season campaign in Chicago, Nicol admitted that he will treat the games on the Cancun trip a little differently to those in Bermuda, in which the main aim was to get as many players time on the field:"

"'We’ll probably get everybody a game again but we will be looking to get the squad together that will probably start.'”


Sounds like we need to watch those rosters, kiddies.

I mentioned the Revs filling out their developmental roster on The Offside yesterday, but figure it belongs over here as well. So, welcome to Adam Cristman, Chris Loftus, Gary Flood, and Brad Knighton - and welcome back to Miguel Gonzalez (more on him here and here). So long as you don't remind me too much of Jeff Larentowicz, I'll be way nicer to you in my profiles.

Finally, it's time to explain the "Twellman" exclamation at the top of the page. With a hat-tip on to The Magpie, who actually found the piece for me, I'd like to pass on a nice article about Revs forward Taylor Twellman and how he's adjusting to having some more change in his pocket. In reference to that, the one line that jumped out at me was this one:

"Despite the increase, Twellman sounds like someone that has yet to earn a spot in New England's starting 11."
"'I've still got to earn my keep on this team,' he said after a recent training session."


To add some more gushing to the gushing in the article, I fully embraced Twellman as a player, if not a concept, during last year's unlikely run to the final, notably in the second game in the series, where he chased all over the field like he was trying to put out a fire (sorry...pun unintentional), barked at Ivan Guerrero (who I still really like, in spite of it all), and just generally fought like hell. It's not often you can see a player's desire to win, but there was Twellman's positively blazing for all to see. Seeing him deep in the defense deep in the game during the MLS Cup final sealed what can only be described as a man-crush.

So, good to see he's making some money these days. The man deserves it.

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