2015 New York Red Bulls Report Card: Bradley Wright-Phillips

Last year, Bradley Wright-Phillips tied Roy Lassiter and Chris Wondolowski's single-season scoring record with 27 goals. Without Thierry Henry alongside him, many questioned if he could replicate that performance in 2015. He answered, scoring 17 goals, good for a tie for 5th on this season's MLS goal list. He also added seven assist, a place we all are not accustomed to seeing him. You could argue BWP had a better all-around season compared to last year. He set a team record, scoring 49 goals in all competitions over two seasons.

Player Stats

34 Appearances

33 Games Started

2865 Minutes Played

17 Goals

7 Assists

Player Grade: A

Things done well:

BWP lost Henry as his wingman, but adapted quickly to the lone striker in RBNY's new 4-2-3-1 set. It allowed him more space to make runs past opponent CBs. After a few games, he started getting great chemistry and through balls from Sacha Kljestan.

Only 2 of BWP's 17 goals came off PKs, compared to 6 of his 27 last year. He had 3 multi-goal games while tripling his assist output. As defensemen were distracted from not allowing BWP to score, he did a great job at dishing the ball off to unmarked teammates through his hold-up play. Besides Luis Robles, BWP can be considered the team's iron man since coming on board. Since his Red Bulls debut on 8/25/13, he has appeared in 73 of the team's 74 regular season games (unused sub @ Chicago 3/23/14).

Things done poorly:

After such a successful 2015 campaign, there isn't too much to point at for improving as a striker.  After missing two PK attempts in Week 16 against Vancouver, BWP relinquished his spot kick duties to Kljestan. And he had a tough time finding the back of the net against Columbus in the Eastern Conference finals.  It's a good thing that pretty much the entire starting lineup is scheduled to be back for 2016.  He is going to need their service to make a deep run in CONCACAF Champions League in addition to their unfinished business for MLS Cup.