RBNY Fan: 3 Final Thoughts on Houston 2-0 NY Red Bulls

Posted Monday, August 06, 2012 by YAHOO Sport

Some losses leave you angry as a fan, while others are results that you immediately stop thinking about once the final whistle sounds. It's hard to be overly upset about how poorly the New York Red Bulls played against Houston Dynamo on Friday night en route to a 2-0 loss, largely because of how lackadaisical the New York squad appeared right from the start of the game. I'm not suggesting that the Red Bulls don't care that they lost a match. It is worth noting, though, that every RBNY supporter I've spoken with over the past 40+ hours has had a similar thought: I wish we all would have seen a little more fire and passion from the roster in their past two Major League Soccer games.

3 final thoughts on Houston 2-0 NY Red Bulls: Missed

I had a bad feeling about Friday's match over a week ago when I first learned that Dax McCarty would be unavailable due to yellow card accumulation. As expected, the Red Bulls missed McCarty's ability to shut down opposing players before they entered the attacking third, and New York generated just about nothing of their own from out of the back on Friday. One player may not have made that much of a difference for New York at Houston, but the Red Bulls without McCarty were nothing short of awful.

One thing I noticed during the team's friendly against Tottenham Hotspur on Tuesday evening was how much McCarty really is an end-to-end player, one who simply doesn't stop running hard until the conclusion of the contest. "Lifeless" and "asleep" were two words some fans posting online following Friday's match used to describe the Red Bulls. Nobody can say with any certainty how well or how poorly New York would have played on Friday evening had McCarty been in the team. It's not as if the Red Bulls have gone undefeated in 2012 with Dax in the starting lineup. With that said, I'm hoping McCarty keeps himself healthy and out of card-trouble up through December.

3 final thoughts on Houston 2-0 NY Red Bulls: Explanation

The last update on Wilman Conde asking to be subbed off with 20 minutes to play came from the MLS website on Saturday. According to that story, RBNY head coach Hans Backe was "not sure" why Conde made the request. That's not going to cut it for a large portion of the New York fan base who feel as if their favorite team phoned it in on Friday night. I wouldn't have a problem if Conde admitted that he was gassed because of the heat, or even if he felt that he was close to aggravating a nagging groin injury and thus he thought it was best to call it an early evening. The lack of an adequate and honest update only feeds suspicions that Conde just couldn't be bothered to finish the final 20 minutes of the game. That's not good for the player, the team or the supporters.

3 final thoughts on Houston 2-0 NY Red Bulls: The right duo

I understand Backe wanted to rest some guys to have them as second half options, but Friday's game was yet another reminder that the duo of Thierry Henry and Kenny Cooper up top is the right one for this team. Sebastien Le Toux got the nod on Friday night, and he was mostly an invisible man throughout both halves. The stat sheet found on the MLS website claims that Le Toux finished the game with a single shot. I honestly don't remember this moment, and I can assure you that I have absolutely zero interest in watching the full match replay in order to find this attempt.

Cooper is currently New York's leading scorer this season, and he is just four goals behind Chris Wondolowski for the league lead. It's an enormous understatement to say that "Coop" has earned his place in the Red Bulls starting eleven. Let's hope Backe realizes that moving forward.