Toronto FC relying on youth against New England Revolution, to close out season

Toronto FC will finish its season with a relatively similar group to the one they started with after management elected not to make moves prior the closing of the MLS transfer window on Thursday.

They were able to stand pat thanks, in part, to the emergence of younger players who helped the club ascend to second place in the Eastern Conference.

In the absence of veterans such as American international Michael Bradley, midfielder Benoit Cheyrou and defender Ashtone Morgan, youngsters Jay Chapman, Marky Delgado and Tsubasa Endoh stepped up, helping the Reds string together a season-high three-game winning streak.

“I think their emergence and showing they’re maturing quickly helped us to, for various reasons, give the guys a lot of minutes and they’re showing maturity, which is important,” said Toronto FC coach Greg Vanney. “I also think, as we get guys back, we’re going to be integrating already a lot of guys back into the group and to add another person that we needed to integrate into the group, it really had to be the right person.”

As TFC (9-7-6) tries to extend its home-unbeaten streak to nine games on Saturday when they play host to the New England Revolution (6-8-8), they could see the return of Bradley (knee sprain), who hasn’t played an MLS regular season game since May 21.

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“He is questionable, we’ll see. We pushed him a little bit more today with some action, and he felt pretty good,” said Vanney. “I think we’ll see now what the response is now over the course of tonight and tomorrow to see if he might be available.”

Saturday concludes a four-game home stand for the Reds who have not lost at BMO Field since falling 4-3 to the Vancouver Whitecaps on May 14.

The match sees the end of a busy week for Toronto, who defeated the Columbus Crew 3-0 on Sunday before blanking Real Salt Lake 1-0 on Wednesday evening. The Reds set a club record with a ninth clean sheet in the win over Real and have a league-leading six shutouts on home turf.

Defensive improvements were a point of emphasis for Toronto this season and the adjustments made has seen the club concede and average of 1.05 goals per game this season compared to 1.71 last season.

“Anytime you’re disappointed about how things were defensively one season, you’re going to do everything to fix that. Not just bringing in players, but (changing) mentality and our mentality defensively has been exactly what it needs to be here: be difficult to play against, when you get scored on once, don’t let it turn into two and three goals against,” said defender Drew Moor. “Protect one-goal leads, be comfortable having to defend, at times, for five, 10, 15-minute spans whether it’s at home or on the road.

“You have to be comfortable defending, you have to be comfortable being uncomfortable and I think this team has embraced that.”

The Revolution have won just two of their previous seven games. New England sits sixth in the Eastern Conference barely in the playoff picture as seventh-placed Orlando City SC also has 26 points with a game in hand.

New England has just one victory away from Gillette Stadium this season (1-6-4), which came on June 18 in Vancouver. Despite the recent struggles, the Revolution have had success in Toronto, winning their last three trips to BMO Field and are undefeated in six consecutive north of the border.

The two sides played to a 1-1 draw in their only other meeting of the season back in April.

NOTE: Cheyrou (hamstring), Clint Irwin (quadriceps strain), Daniel Lovitz (knee) and Morgan (toe) will miss Saturday’s match.

Dhiren Mahiban, The Canadian Press