"We weren't tired, we just didn't take our chances," Nicol said.
The New England starting 11 was missing several key pieces from the squad that had came into the game with the best record in MLS. Shalrie Joseph was sitting out a red card suspension, Kheli Dube and Abdoulie Mansally were out with injuries, and Michael Parkhurst was given the weekend off after returning from U.S. Olympic team duty in China. Still, Nicol wasn't using injuries or other absences as an excuse, either.
"We started off poorly, and it's always hard to try and pick it up after that," Nicol said. "We had enough ability and strength on the field tonight to have done a better job."
Defender Chris Albright agreed. "You can say we had a lot of games in a short amount of time, and the travel's tough, but we're not making any excuses," he said. "We came out really slow and (Buck Shaw Stadium) is a tough place to play. But we have to be better, we have to start better, myself included."
Goalkeeper Matt Reis, who was forced off the field after suffering an injury in the 55th minute, ending a consecutive-minute streak at 7,795 minutes that began Sept. 3, 2005, was even more blunt. "We weren't at our best tonight, and San Jose thumped us," Reis said.
The Revolution went down a goal in 11th minute on a bit of bad luck, when what looked like a hopeful Ronnie O'Brien volley from the right side found the back of the net.
"The first half we played poor," Nicol said. "It took us the whole half to figure out how to play on the field. We go into halftime down 1-0, which is probably fair enough, but we still had a clear chance (to win)."
In the second half, New England came out much brighter, and almost scored an equalizing goal in the 61st minute when Sainey Nyassi stole a poor San Jose back pass and had an open shot from just inside the box. But Earthquakes goalkeeper Joe Cannon came off his line to stop Nyassi.
The game went San Jose's way from there. Ryan Johnson, Scott Sealy and O'Brien scored in the game's final 20 minutes to finish off the scoreline, which came after the Revolution dominated the Quakes in a 2-0 win at Gillette Stadium earlier this year.
"In the second half, we had a one-on-one with the goalie which could have made it 1-1," Nicol said. "Then, five minutes later, Steve Ralston's going for it and gets brought down -- the referee plays on -- and they go to the other end and score to make it 2-0.
"4-0 doesn't look good on paper, but there were probably two moments in the game (that made the difference), the Nyassi chance, 1-on-1 with Joe Cannon and then the (no foul call)," Nicol continued. "Those were two key things in the game. By the end of the game we're chasing it."
On a night where little went right, the Revolution also got another injury scare when Reis was pulled from the game.
"The first kick of the game, my right groin tightened up," Reis said. "It wasn't too bad, but when I came out in the second half, and the first goal kick didn't have that much behind it -- it was a situation where I wanted to make sure it didn't get worse."
Reis said he should be back in goal for the next match. But while the news on Reis is good, missing so many key players has made life difficult for New England lately.
"It makes us switch a lot of guys around," Chris Albright said. "We had to pull Jeff (Larentowicz) out of midfield and put him at center back. Shalrie (Joseph) has been the best player in the league this year, so (we) miss him, his presence in there, but tonight we never made (San Jose) feel uncomfortable, and that's something we've got to get better at."
With the loss, the Revolution fell out of first place in the Eastern Conference, where they remained even having not played a league game for more than a month. They can move back atop the division Wednesday night when they play D.C. United at home.
"We'll sort that out. We've still won a lot of games," Albright said. "We stay on an even keel, we're not hanging our heads."
Or making any excuses.
Dreary night for Revolution
Jose could return to England
