FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – Jay Heaps is an emotional person. He was as a player and he is as a coach.

It’s no surprise, then, that the New England Revolution’s current run of form – five straight losses and just one win in the last 12 league games – has hit him hard. Heaps takes every setback personally, and he expects his players to channel a similar frustration on Saturday night against New York City FC.

“There has to be emotion,” Heaps said. “There’s always going to be emotion in everything that you do. Obviously you don’t want it to be false emotion and you don’t want it to be too much emotion, but there’s got to be a reaction.”

While the on-field reaction will have to wait until this weekend, there was evidence of that emotion amongst the players on Tuesday morning when they called a meeting to discuss their recent struggles and set the tone for an intense week of training.

“The past couple months haven’t been good enough from everybody,” said Andrew Farrell. “We all know it. Not to call anybody out, but we all needed to talk about what’s going on.

“It was good for us and now I think we’re ready to go, ready to roll.”

Saturday night’s meeting with NYCFC is the Revolution’s only home game in the month of July, and with the Eastern Conference as tight as can be – second place and ninth place are separated by just six points – the importance of three points this weekend is not lost on any of the players.

“Enough is enough,” said Farrell. “Every week we say it’s got to be better, we’re going to turn it around, and we haven’t. This is a crucial point in our season where three points will go a long, long way, but another terrible result will put us at the lowest that I’ve been in this club.

“We really know the importance of this game. It’s huge. Everybody knows it and we’re ready to work hard to get to where we need to be.”