The New York Red Bulls will start a six-game stretch when they host New York City FC on Thursday night at Red Bull Arena.
On Tuesday afternoon, Head Coach Chris Armas, Captain Sean Davis and center-back Aaron Long met up with the media via a Zoom call to share their thoughts ahead of another edition of the New York Derby.
The Red Bulls’ Head Coach highlighted NYCFC’s attacking firepower as something to pay close attention throughout the 90 minutes.
“It's no secret that they have dangerous attackers, no matter which way you look, whether it's [‘Taty’] Castellanos, Héber, [Jesús] Medina, [Gary] Mackay-Steven, [Ismael] Tajouri-Shradi if he's healthy but was hurt a bit, [Alexandru] Mitrita and [Maxi] Moralez,” said Armas. “I mean there’s DPs, there’s quality. This is an interesting trait of their team, so what does that mean? Does that mean that they sit back and just try to? No, that means that they're really dangerous in transition because they have guys that can run and understand these big moments to go.
“So if you're them again, you're thinking about creating these, whether it's out of possession or even transition moments from transition, that's what I think the game that they're going to want to play in. So we have to understand that, and I think we do. The other thing that we know that they do because they have certain player qualities, they enjoy big switches of the field and can challenge backlines because they have guys that can run. With their quality up the field, and if they can create overloads and isolations, they can become dangerous.”
Long believes that it will be important not to concede first like they did against Columbus Crew SC and FC Cincinnati in MLS is Back play.
“Yeah, I think just defensively for me, I don't want to concede the first goal,” said Long. “I think we're very good when we get leads, and I think in Orlando, in the first half we gave up a goal against Columbus and Cincinnati, and I feel like you know if we can hold a zero for as long as we can, get the first goal, get the lead, make teams have to come to us, and then we can really press them and try to hit them on the counter, I think that'd be good for us. That's something that we've been focused on as a backline, it's just holding the zero, and getting the first goal.”
The team knows that it's only one point off the Eastern Conference’s third place, and the last weeks have been important to reflect on the Orlando performances.
“Yeah, I think that there was a lot of time to reflect on the tournament,” said Davis. “Take the positives, take the negatives. Look at video, you know, look at ourselves as a team, and what we need to do to improve and I think we walked away from that tournament feeling like we didn't show our best, and we shot ourselves in the foot at times. We have to limit mistakes, and we have to continue to be aggressive on both sides of the ball, whether that's pressing or generating chances.”
After Thursday night’s game, New York will prepare for its next game, which will be away against Philadelphia on Tuesday night.
