New England Revolution v CF Montreal: Courtois targets strong mental approach

CF Montreal head coach Laurent Courtois has urged his players to prioritise their mental approach when they travel to New England Revolution on Wednesday.

Montreal snapped a four-match winless streak in MLS at the weekend with a 2-1 win over Charlotte FC, but they have registered back-to-back victories in the league since March.

They sit 12th in the Eastern Conference but still have an outside chance of making the playoffs if they can string together a run of positive results.

Courtois did not get over-excited by the win over Charlotte and is already looking at how to improve to get another three points on the board.

“I am happy, we are talking about things that are positive, but for me, there are always both [no matter the result],” Courtois said.

“It comes down to the mental approach. The message got through [against Charlotte], but if we look at the details, we could have conceded again, and then we would be talking about something else entirely.”

Meanwhile, New England are bottom of the table, three points worse off than their opponents.

They suffered a 3-0 loss to Orlando City last time out and are now winless in three matches, but assistant coach Pablo Moreira is confident they can bounce back.

“All three goals were given up on set pieces, which is a tough one to swallow, and then through the run of play. So, [we’ll] just build off of the positives and look forward to the game Wednesday,” Moreira said, as quoted in the Blazing Musket.

“It’s more that mentality after [conceding] and trying to improve that.”

Back home on Wednesday. pic.twitter.com/cfAMNwcbMR

— New England Revolution (@NERevolution) September 16, 2024

PLAYERS TO WATCH

New England Revolution – Aljaz Ivacic

Saturday’s 3-0 defeat at Orlando was the 12th time this season New England have lost a regular season match by multiple goals, the most such losses this MLS season.

The 12 multi-goal losses are New England’s most in a single season in club history, and Aljaz Ivacic will be desperate to keep a clean sheet.

CF Montreal – Josef Martinez

Josef Martinez has scored eight career regular-season goals against New England, tied for his most against any MLS opponent (D.C. United, Orlando).

No player has scored more goals against the Revs over the last 10 MLS seasons.

MATCH PREDICTION: NEW ENGLAND REVOLUTION WIN

New England and Montreal have each won three of the last six meetings in the fixture. The Revs scored 13 goals in their three wins while failing to score in the three defeats.

The Revolution are winless in three straight regular-season home matches (D2 L1). It has been four years since they went four straight home league games without a win (D4 L1 from March-September 2020).

However, Montreal are winless in 14 straight away matches in all competitions (D4 L10), including losing their last three away from home. Montreal’s only longer road winless run in all competitions since joining MLS in 2011 was a 34-match run in 2013-14.

OPTA WIN PROBABILITY

New England Revolution – 52.5%

Draw – 24.3%

CF Montreal – 23.2%