Three things to watch for against New England Revolution

If ever there was a time to be considerably better than we have been in the last few weeks, it's now. I mean, that time was also last week, too, so there's no exclusivity about that fact.

At any rate, we're facing New England Revolution, which is more trivial a detail than you'd think. We could be facing a seventh-division Brazilian team and we'd have to worry about the same things.

But let's get on with it, shall we?

Last week, we watched for...

Will we be rusty?

I don't know if rusty is what we were, but we weren't good. So there's that.

Will we be relaxed?

Nope. Although for, say, 10 minutes we were.

Something more practical: Who plays at right back?

Well, Rich Balchan's out with an injury, so the choice was easy: Chris Wingert on the right, Abdoulie Mansally on the left.

This week, let's watch for...

Will Olmes Garcia get a goal?

Let's be clear, though: This question is about a lot more than just Olmes Garcia. Garcia might actually be in a brilliant run of form over the last few weeks, but we'd all be forgiven for not knowing that. The service to him — and to the forwards generally — hasn't been great. I mean, we did play Atlanta, Chivas and Seattle all very badly, so there's probably an argument for that. I don't know, though. I'm grasping at straws here.

But we're reaching a point where he needs to just score a goal — not for us so much as for himself. Results don't care who scores — still, though.

Will we escape without a red card?

Please, please, please yes. After Tony Beltran's red against Portland and Luke Mulholland's against Chivas, well, we could use a good run without a sending off.

Who starts in the midfield?

Well, let's see: No Luke Mulholland, probably no Kyle Beckerman, maybe no Ned Grabavoy, and maybe no Sebastian Velasquez — we're left with Luis Gil, John Stertzer, Javier Morales, and Cole Grossman in the midfield. So maybe that's our starting group.

Excuse me while I go breathe into a brown paper bag for a minute.