MONTREAL – Saturday evening was bittersweet for Kei Kamara; emphasis on the bitter.
The prolific striker scored his first two league goals since joining the New England Revolution – that after getting off the mark with a goal in the U.S. Open Cup midweek – but the Revs saw the two-goal lead Kamara helped build slip away in a monumentally frustrating 3-2 loss to the Montreal Impact.
“It’s good to score goals, but I want my goals to count,” said Kamara, who now has seven goals on the season after bagging five before the trade from Columbus. “(I want) goals that are going to help the team get a point or three points. It’s really tough to say you scored goals and nothing really came from it.”
Despite the frustration, Kamara did draw positives from the attacking performance on Saturday as last year’s MLS leading goal scorer finally broke through in his sixth league appearance with the Revolution.
Head coach Jay Heaps was also happy to see Kamara put his name on the scoresheet, although he reiterated that the 31-year-old forward is an all-around contributor, not just a goal scorer.
“He’s been helping us score goals,” Heaps said. “Tonight he scored two, but he’s been dangerous for us and he’s a handful. He definitely makes teams play a little differently against us.”
Unfortunately for the Revs, it was errors at the other end of the field that proved to be their undoing.
“I feel like we’re getting more goals, but on the defensive side, we’re not good enough right now,” Heaps said. “We’re giving away, in my mind, poor goals.”
All three goals the Revolution conceded on Saturday could be traced back to mistakes. Miscommunication led to Michael Salazar’s first goal, while a missed clearance and slack marking offered Salazar the necessary space on his second. Ignacio Piatti converted from the spot for Montreal’s third.
It was a 15-minute sequence either side of halftime that undid all of New England’s good work in the opening half hour as the visitors built what appeared to be a comfortable 2-0 lead.
“Good first half, then just miscommunication on the first goal and the second two goals we just gifted to them,” said Chris Tierney, who had the assist on Kamara’s second strike. “Just really amateur hour stuff from us. It wasn’t good. There’s not really much else to say about it.”
The loss was a disappointing end to the Revolution’s five-game road swing, on which they went 3-2-0 including a pair of Open Cup victories. They’ll finally return home for a pair of games at Gillette Stadium next week, beginning on Wednesday night when they’ll host New York City FC.
While Tierney said it’ll be good to be home, it won’t mean anything if the Revs don’t make the most it.
“More important than getting home is getting points,” he said. “We’ve got to win these games at home. Coming down the stretch here, second half of the year, and teams are going to run away if we keep playing this way. We have to improve and start taking points.”
