Revolution's playoff hopes take massive hit with 3-1 loss in Houston

BOSTON -- The Revolution are in serious jeopardy of missing the postseason for the first time since 2018. Facing a must-win road match against the Dynamo on Tuesday night, New England allowed two goals in the final 20 minutes to fall 3-1 in Houston.

The loss dropped the Revs to ninth place in the Eastern Conference, three points below the playoff line with just three matches remaining. To make matters worse, every team around New England owns a game in hand.

Tuesday's loss came just four days after a disappointing 2-1 defeat to the Red Bulls in New York. The Revs have just one win in their last seven matches.

"We lose many, many games, many chances to try to be there," said captain Carles Gil, who scored New England's lone goal on Tuesday night. "I think maybe we don't deserve to be in the playoffs because I think we are not now a competitive team. Me the first one, of course. So yeah, difficult, difficult moment for everyone."

Other than Gil's seventh goal of the season, the only bright spot for New England was goalkeeper Djordje Petrović, who kept the club in the match with a career-high eight saves. But even the 22-year-old Serbian didn't stand a chance against  Houston's Fafà Picault late in the match, who scored goals in the 76th and 85th minute as the New England defense left Petrović out to dry.

"We played poorly. There's no excuses," New England sporting director and head coach Bruce Arena said bluntly after the loss. "You can come up with a million of them. But we were we outplayed on the evening. We looked like a tired team, but also a team that didn't play together and we played poorly. It was a miracle that we were in the game, to be honest with you. So we've got no excuses, we deserve to lose the game. And I've got to accept the responsibility for the performance of that team. It wasn't good."

New England will close out the season with a home match against CF Montreal on Saturday, followed by a home match against Atlanta United on Oct. 1 and a road match against the Chicago Fire on Oct. 9.

"I don't know what the probability of us qualifying for the playoffs would be, I don't think it's great," said Arena. "We're certainly going to try to win our last three games, but we tried to win tonight. We tried to win in New York and we've come up short and we had a very poor homestand as well before this. So there's no excuses. It was all there for us and we have not performed up to our expectations."