Fire forwards need to build on performance against Revs

While the Revolution will probably look to forget about Thursday night’s match and move on, the Fire gained more momentum in just one game than I would’ve thought possible. Chad Barrett, who notched the game’s opening goal and later added an assist, was probably flying the highest of any member of the team after the win. His fourth minute tally came on an excellent left footed finish and the match may have played out entirely differently had he not delivered on that chance. That goal, combined with Tomasz Frankowski’s brace, is very encouraging considering that perhaps the team’s biggest concern heading into this season was whether or not our forwards could produce goals consistently.

For me, however, that question is still a serious concern and I think that the jury is still out on the forward partnership of Barrett and Frankowski. After all, Barrett is still better known for squandering quality chances than he is for scoring goals, and even Thursday night’s performance won’t make fans forget the truckloads of opportunities he wasted last season. I still think that his touch is mediocre for a starting forward in MLS (although it was much better than normal against New England), and it shouldn’t be ignored that he never even looked like troubling Real Salt Lake’s defense in week one.

With that said, I have never seen Barrett play as well as he did Thursday night. When you consider that in his four most recent games dating back to last year he has scored two superb goals (his other one was a great left footed finish in the second leg against DC), I would at least say that things are looking up for the guy.

Actually, in my opinion the most important aspect of Thursday night’s win was not that Barrett played as well as he did. Instead, I would argue that the amount of confidence that he can take away from the win over New England may turn out to be the most important outcome from this match. Barrett has been widely regarded as a player possessing loads of untapped potential, so hopefully the confidence he takes away from this game will allow him to elevate his performance to the level he showed Thursday with much more consistency as the season goes on. If he doesn’t, look for Chris Rolfe or Andy Herron to see a lot of starting time up top.

I also think that after two games it’s too early to judge Frankowski. Scoring two goals over the first two games of the season is impressive, but his first finish was just the tap in of a messy goal-mouth scramble. His second goal was much better – he delivered an excellent ball to pick out Barrett in the box and then made an intelligent run to coolly slot home the resulting cross – but aside from those two moments, the Fire’s biggest off-season acquisition has been nearly invisible over two matches. Overall, Frankowski’s performance on Thursday was a solid one, but I still don’t know whether Fire fans should expect him to perform consistently game in and game out over the course of the season. Only time will tell.