Garde-ing against Montreal

The Red Bulls are back on the training field getting ready for their next league match up while the cloud hanging over their heads is still smarting from their exit in the CONCACAF Champions League tilt against Guadalajara.

Still a tough way to get eliminated after not scoring in two legs down in Guadalajara and on Tuesday night in Harrison, you wonder what their mental make up will be when they continue their season in league action and how they have fared at training before their early afternoon tilt.

“We are ready to go but need to see where everyone’s fitness levels are, but going back to Tuesday night it’s always when you play after big matches you have a lot of reflection in all moments to think about.” said Jesse Marsch.

“What we’ve done, what we could do better, what was good, things we need to work on and overall really pleased with out group and how they played and how they played the game. The way they went after the game and it wasn’t our night.

We had total control of the match, but we came up just a little bit short. I think a lot of the tactics of what we put into place, the approach we had was all good, but we were just unlucky on the day.”

Jesse Marsch also discussed the chatter around the social media RBNY world about not playing Kaku from the start against Guadalajara. The club spent six million dollars to bring him here from Huracan in Argentina and gave his answer to the media.

”I know what the dialog is out there. Why didn’t Kaku play, well he’s still integrating himself with the tactics and what we do here is that the tactics are very important.” said Marsch.

“The understanding of roles and the ability to understand what each person’s role is on the day, that’s why it was 20-1 in shots. It wasn’t random it’s because we totally smothered a really good team and made the game our game.

Talk about long balls, guess who plays the fewest amount of long balls in the league, the Red bulls. But when you play a team that is strict man to man, they are waiting for you to play anything underneath and anything thru the midfield and try to score.

The only real chance they got in the whole series was the goal they scored which we tried to play underneath they stepped in front and they punished us. You have to understand how to play that you want to play and adjust on the day that you have to adjust the way the opposition wants to accomplish.”

But now this means taking on the Montreal Impact and an early battle for staying above the playoff line as the Red Bulls remain just above it with the same amount of points with a rare exception as the Impact have played one game more than the Red Bulls which is the one tiebreaker that is in their favor.

But in five matches in all competitions to start the season the Red Bulls have only been scored upon once and that was against Club Tijuana in the 2nd leg of the Quarterfinals in the CONCACAF Champions League.

“It’s a testament to our back line and the way we play it’s tough to score against us and I think we pride ourselves on being hard to play against and we are showing that this year.” said Alex Muyl, “If we continue to keep clean sheets it’s going to go well for us throughout the year.”

So that means the Impact under their manager in Remi Garde are having scoring issues with three players tied with scoring a single goal, it is Midfielder Jeisson Vargas that leads the club with two and right now that looks to be a problem for an Impact side who usually doesn’t have a problem scoring at all.

“He is very tactical and has them playing in some version of a 5-3-2, I think their roles are clear they are very organized so it should be a fun match up, it won’t be easy“ said Marsch, “Ignacio Piatti will be back he’s obviously a major factor for them, so we have analyzed them already and we will prepare the team Friday.”

On some injury news Kyle Duncan is preparing himself for surgery with his torn ACL in his right knee and for Connor Lade he is still recovering from his right high ankle sprain and Marsch said he is week to week.

He is not sure when he will be ready to get back in but when Lade does he can fit in as either a left or a right full back with Duncan done for the season. But now is the time for the Red Bulls to get back into league action and try to get another three points on the day to face the Montreal Impact.