Make no mistake about it.

This New England Revolution team is not good. And they didn't play all that well tonight either.

I would guess that there's probably at least 13 teams in the league who would have won this match. DC United isn't one of them.

United had more opportunities than their opponents tonight, but they couldn't put any of them in the net. I'll keep saying it as long as it's true. Every decent chance was either disrupted by a bad pass, shot straight at Matt Reis, or headed straight into the ground. 

D.C. didn't deserve to win this game. They didn't even deserve to tie it. They were too disorganized in the attack, and the decisive moment of the match came down to a defensive breakdown.

One of the keys for the match going in was to shut down Shalrie Joseph, who is the Revolution's best player by a wide margin. He's probably also their second and third best player. The job of keeping Joseph in check was handed to Stephen King, in what was his first time ever starting as a lone central defensive midfielder. King did well defensively, and also get involved in the attack when available.

United's fullbacks Marc Burch and Devon McTavish also put in strong performances. They were tasked with marking Sainey Nyassi and Kenny Mansally, and they did so well.

Ineffective tonight: Pablo Hernandez, Chris Pontius, and Andy Najar. Each could have had better chances, but ultimately failed to put enough shots on target. Hernandez's shot that went straight at Reis after being set up by Boskovic really resonates with me.

The only real difference between the two teams at the end of the night was lazy marking by Branko Boskovic on Chris Tierney's free kick assist to Pat Phelan. We're learning more about the Montenegran each week. He was clearly the organizer of United's attack tonight, but apparently he's not the greatest at being a focused defender when he needs to be.

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So what's next for D.C. United?

Fire Olsen and promote Chad Ashton to head coach?

Play for the shorts?

The team only has a week to figure it out as FC Dallas will be coming to visit RFK Stadium next Saturday.