FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – The New England Revolution entered their Wednesday night match vs. Portland with four players on their injury list, three of them dealing with hamstring strains of some variety.
In the 30th minute the carnage continued when striker Charlie Davies hit the Gillette Stadium turf holding his right leg with what was later described as a groin injury, forcing him out of his first start in seven matches.
Following the 1-1 draw with the Timbers, Revs coach Jay Heaps did not have any official update on the injury, but expressed his disappointment in seeing Davies go down after working his way back into the starting role up top.
“Him going down was a pretty big blow,” Heaps said. “You hate to burn a sub and then you hate it to be Charlie, a center forward who was champing at the bit to get a goal. He’s the one guy on our team that really had a hunger for a goal a little bit ahead of everyone else. It was tough to see him go down.
“I’m not sure how bad it is … he walked off and he’s getting treatment. We’ll see if he can turn it around.”
While Davies had come off the bench in the Revs' previous five matches, Heaps had lined him up to start in this match dating back to last week.
“Let’s be honest, he’s a new father and he’s up a lot of hours and it’s a lot of work for him on the field,” said Heaps. “Then we get him back and he carried a big load on the pitch for us. So we’ve been legging him in. Tonight was the night we had him marked in to start.”
Heaps is likely to practice caution when evaluating Davies, with the Revs set to host Orlando City SC on Saturday evening.
Despite the recent rash of injuries, and the quick turnaround between matches, the Revolution manager was confident that whoever is available to go on Saturday will be primed for action.
“It’s early enough where guys are fit and ready to go,” said Heaps. “I think once we wash this [game from our minds] and we get our regens in and our training in tomorrow and the next day, we’ll reassess it. I have no hesitation that our group is going to be ready to play on Saturday.”
