Brad Friedel was a problem for the New England Revolution.



He wasn’t the problem.



The Revs fired Friedel just 46 games into his tenure as head coach on Thursday, less than 24 hours after the team suffered an embarrassing 5-0 loss at the Chicago Fire. The defeat was a good encapsulation of the issues that plagued New England under the former U.S. international. The Revs had nothing in the way of attacking ideas, failed to finish the few opportunities they did create and made a slew of basic individual errors in defense to allow a five-spot against a Chicago team that had been shutout in three straight games heading into Wednesday’s match.



The loss was New England’s second consecutive five-goal defeat, dropped the Revs to 2-8-2 on the season and pushed their goal differential to a staggering -19. It was a pathetic performance, the type of game where you could almost see the players quit on their coach.



New England was justified in...