New York Red Bulls 1, Toronto FC 3
A second-half Tom Barlow goal was not enough as the New York Red Bulls (9-8-4, 31 pts) lose at Toronto FC (8-8-3, 27 pts), 3-1, on Wednesday night at BMO Field.
Toronto FC quickly go up 2-0 from a Jozy Altidore goal and a penalty-kick goal from Alejandro Pozuelo in the first 26 minutes.
New York responded in the second half as 56th-minute substitute Derrick Etienne Jr. found Barlow to cut the deficit to one, 2-1, in the 63rd minute.
TFC regained its two-goal lead in the 72nd minute as Ashtone Morgan stole the ball off the foot of Michael Amir Murillo and beat a diving Luis Robles to the far post.
Barlow, who scored a brace for New York Red Bulls II just one week ago, tallied his second career league goal. In 16 appearances combined between Red Bulls and Red Bulls II, Barlow has 12 goals this year.
Etienne tallied his first league assist of 2019 and became the 19th different Red Bulls player to tally an assist on the season.
With Etienne Jr. becoming the 19th player with at least one league assist for the Red Bulls in 2019, New York tied Columbus Crew SC (1998) and LA Galaxy (2011) for most players on one team with at least one assist in a single season.
Centerback Aaron Long recorded his 100th career start across all competitions.
New York completes their back-to-back road trip on Sunday at Orlando City SC. Sunday's match is slated for 7:30 p.m. EST and will be broadcast live on FS1, FOX Sports Go, and New York Red Bulls Radio on TuneIn.
Scoring Summary:
TFC - Jozy Altidore (Endoh) 6'
TFC - Alejandro Pozuelo (PK) 26'
NY - Tom Barlow (Etienne, Jr.) 63'
TFC - Ashtone Morgan (unassisted) 72'
Misconduct Summary:
NY - Michael Amir Murillo (caution, unsporting behavior) 23'
NY - Kemar Lawrence (caution, unsporting behavior) 25'
TFC - Tsubasa Endoh (caution, unsporting behavior) 51'
NY - Marc Rzatkowski (caution, unsporting behavior) 69'
NY - Bradley Wright-Phillips (caution, unsporting behavior) 86'
New York Red Bulls: Luis Robles ©; Tim Parker, Aaron Long, Kemar Lawrence, Michael Amir Murillo, Marc Rzatkowski, Cristian Casseres, Jr., Alex Muyl (Derrick Etienne, Jr., 56'), Kaku, Vincent Bezecourt (Bradley Wright-Phillips, 64'), Tom Barlow (Daniel Royer, 69')
TOTAL SHOTS: 20; SHOTS ON GOAL: 7; FOULS: 14; OFFSIDE: 0; CORNER KICKS: 14; SAVES: 1
Toronto FC: Quentin Westberg; Justin Morrow, Laurent Ciman, Omar Gonzalez, Richie Laryea, Alejandro Pozuelo (Ashtone Morgan, 63'), Jacob Shaffelburg (Jonathan Osorio, 55'), Marco Delgado, Michael Bradley, Tsubasa Endoh (Chris Mavinga, 76'), Jozy Altidore
TOTAL SHOTS: 9; SHOTS ON GOAL: 4; FOULS: 12; OFFSIDE: 1; CORNER KICKS: 3; SAVES: 6
Referee: Silviu Petrescu
Assistant Referees: Cory Richardson, Gianni Facchini
4th Official: Yusri Rudolf
VAR: Guido Gonzales Jr.
Attendance: 24,462
CHRIS ARMAS, HEAD COACH – NEW YORK RED BULLS
Strange to walk away with no points on a night where you dominated statistically?
Yeah really disappointing because I told the guys what my dad told me, if you are going to do something do it right, which means do it all the way, which means you have to do it for 90 minutes and you have to have a good start on the road and you can't take plays off. So, when that happens, part of it is decision making, part of it is alertness, part of it is not being ready, not being ready. And it wasn’t the whole team right, a few plays that we take off and now you’re on the road against a good team and you to chase it, which we are more than happy to do because what else can you do. So, we talk about if you want to win games, what’s necessary so you can do most of the things most of the time. You can win some derby matches but if you want to be the last team standing, it’s an all the time thing. We’ll learn from it, but the best thing is that we know we are a good team and to come on the road, and yeah 20 something shots and 15 corner kicks, and yeah maybe it is the little more out there, it’s going to be hard. When you give away a few goals, especially at 2-1 when we are right there and we make few changes with fresh legs, and it seems like a blunder of a goal.
A positive on the night is you get a good performance out of Tom Barlow, his second goal, 6 from Brian White and two from Tom, and those guys are starting to come along.
Yeah look there is a lot of belief in each of those guys and I think our confidence in Tom to start him tonight in a big game, and I think he met the demands against a tough game against good centre backs, top centre backs, and we know that Brian has contributed in a big way. We keep moving some of the younger players along and get more minutes for Brad and we’ll re-group and we can see that rely on certain guys more and more.
Orlando on Sunday, the third in a week, another one in the Eastern Conference, a 6-point game, how do you bounce back from this one?
Yeah, we get home and we get the extra day of rest, this was short rest, and so we don’t play until Sunday. We get ready in every way, we learn from this performance, we take a hard look and we reassess where we are at and come up with a plan to go to Orlando and put in another performance on the field that we can feel good about. Overall, we have just had to clean up. Some of the games in the last couple of months, that we haven’t gotten the results, and you can throw the open cup in there, and talk about Philadelphia when were up 2-0. There are certain moments when we let ourselves down. We’ll get ready for Orlando. It takes a lot and the guys put a lot physically and emotionally into the Atlanta trip and game and then the New York City game, its right there and of course we are coming from behind in both of those games, to win and tie in Atlanta. I was asked the other day, “Is this a trap game?” Certainly not, but sometimes to ramp it up again is a challenge. We’ll be ready for Sunday, and in many ways, this gives a lot of hope to where this thing can go. And I’ve said we’ve put in different types of game this year, long ball and another team that was probably 25% long on the day. In many ways they abandoned the principles in what they are doing, and they win 3-1, good for them, I’m sure they feel they executed their plan.
LUIS ROBLES, GOALKEEPER – NEW YORK RED BULLS
So many numbers where in your favour tonight, certainly frustrating to walk out with no points.
Yeah very frustrating. The plan is always to win your home games and get a tie or a result on the road and we felt tonight was a great opportunity to do that and to start the way did is concerning. It is the second game in a row that we have given up a goal so early, and then not to play well the first half, we’ll address it. The second half was great, you can’t fault the effort, we created a lot of chances, even the last twenty minutes of the first half, we were creating chances and making it very uncomfortable. And then for us to get the goal to make it 2-1, it felt like we were in it and then to concede the third goal it was tough to overcome, very tough to overcome.
That third goal, it was just kind of a bizarre play…
Yeah it is still a little tough to swallow. Their guy makes a hustle play, he never gives up on it. We should have done better to make it difficult for him. I felt like in the situation between Kemar and myself, we didn’t make it difficult. Kemar knew I was coming for the ball and it was just one of those things, when it was happening in real time, and him and I are going for the ball, there is that moment, I realize I am not going to get to it and for it to go off of Kemar’s heel the way that it did is unbelievable. But it is inexcusable, we are professionals here, for us it is not about limiting mistakes, it’s about not making mistakes. And unfortunately, we made one and it sort of made it an even a more difficult battle to come back from. Because I thought at 2-1, it was there, the game was there for us. I got to be better on this play, I have to make that play, so my team stays in it. So of course, it is a difficult one to digest at the moment.
In this stretch, all these 6-point games in the Eastern Conference, points are obviously important at this time.
Yeah there is a lot of teams in the East right now that are playing really well. Atlanta won tonight, New England is a completely different team, we saw them in the open cup just how dangerous they are. That is just to name a couple. Then of course teams behind, like Orlando, we have them on the weekend. It’s not going to be an easy task. Then of course Toronto, they have made some really good moves, they have put together a good team, so they are going to be competitive. But I love this team, and I feel like we have everything it takes to be competitive and to be a top team. We’re still figuring it out, but I am very confident through this development and progression, we are going to get there and hit our stride and we’re going to be dangerous.
TIM PARKER, DEFENDER – NEW YORK RED BULLS
It's been a while since the back four have been together, the best back four in the MLS last season, how difficult is to have everyone on the same page on a night like tonight.
I think collectively it wasn’t good enough. As a back four of the three goals we give up, we give up two easy ones, and then the first one, collectively wasn’t good enough to get pressure on the ball to deny the service, and then obviously Jozy makes the most of it. But it’s not as hard as it is to get back together, it's more of us finding that rhythm that we have to find.
The knock you had a month ago, physically how are you feeling?
I feel great, it was a weird injury, a little ankle roll that kept me out for a week and a half. But I recovered quickly, I didn’t miss much, I didn’t miss too much of beat. It felt good to be back out there.
A night where they took advantage of the limited opportunities they had, and you don’t take advantage of the opportunities that you had.
That is the way we looked at it as well. We didn’t give up much, we had a bunch of shots, a bunch of little chances here and there, make some half chances thrown in, that if we convert early on it might be a different game.