New England Revolution: Brad Friedel exclusive on stable of attacking talent

This offseason, the New England Revolution added Carles Gil to an already loaded stable of attacking talent. Brad Friedel is excited to see how it all pans out.

When Sir Alex Ferguson built his first dominant Manchester United team in the late-90s and early-00s, he based his team on a stable of quite brilliant strikers and goalscorers: Andy Cole, Dwight Yorke, Ole-Gunnar Solskjaer, Teddy Sheringham.

The next generation was then founded on the prolific quartet of Wayne Rooney, Cristiano Ronaldo, Carlos Tevez and Dimitar Berbatov. And throughout his almost three decades at Old Trafford, he supplemented these forwards with brilliant midfielders, wingers and deeper-lying forwards like Ryan Giggs, Eric Cantona and David Beckham.

Ferguson understood the importance of having a variety of sources of goals, not being dependent on just one or two players.

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On a much smaller scale, that is the kind of set-up that the New England Revolution now have. Their attacking players may not have the same qualities as Rooney, Ronaldo or Yorke and Cole, but they provide flexibility and a wide range of options. Head coach Brad Friedel is aware of the plethora of weapons that he has at his disposal. Here he is on his stable of attacking talent, speaking exclusively to us-bookies.com:

"“There’s no doubt that there’s a big competition for places and that’s what pre-season is for where we will see who is going to fit best into our system and then we’ll maybe have to make some moves accordingly. Right now as a staff, we’re very happy to have the wealth of talent going forward as we want to add goals to the team and now we have a lot of talent to choose from so right now we are looking forward to seeing how all of the players will combine. We will just have to see how the season pans out and who is going to get the minutes.”"

Now, the likes of Teal Bunbury, Christian Penilla and Juan Agudelo may not be the household MLS names that everyone thinks of when they consider the best attackers in the league. And they may not be the elite goalscorers and creators that Atlanta United or Toronto FC or LAFC all boast. But there is power in quantity and there are few teams in MLS that have the depth of attacking options that Friedel and the Revs do.

And when you new DP addition Carles Gil to the mix as a creative, crafty midfielder who can provide service from the midfield to the centre-forwards and wingers, suddenly, this is an attack that could very easily come together quite nicely.

There are weaknesses in other areas and the Revs poor second half of the season perhaps had some fans questioning the coaching capabilities of Friedel — once the high press of early-season was figured out, Friedel and the Revs did not have a plan B to turn to. And yet, they still managed to score 49 goals, more than the Columbus Crew and the same as the Philadelphia Union, both of which made the playoffs.

This is a deep offensive squad. What that will look like on the pitch, only time will tell. But Friedel is excited to see it all pan out. And, actually, I am too.