While the New York Red Bulls are the lone unbeaten home team in the MLS, they are growing weary of settling for so many draws.
With five home matches left, the Red Bulls are 7-0-5 at home heading into a visit from the Philadelphia Union on Saturday night in Harrison, N.J.
New York (10-4-12, 42 points) enters this week in fourth place, three points ahead of fifth-place New York City FC and four behind the Columbus Crew. The Red Bulls are tied with St. Louis City for the most draws in the league.
The Red Bulls are playing at home for the first time since a 3-1 win over FC Cincinnati on July 20 in a contest that snapped a run of five straight draws. New York returned from the Leagues Cup break last weekend and pushed its unbeaten streak to nine (2-0-7) by settling for a 1-1 tie at Charlotte FC.
Elias Manoel scored the tying goal but the Red Bulls saw only three of their 19 shot attempts go on target and did not convert any of their nine corner kicks.
“When we have 12 draws, it’s too much,” head coach Sandro Schwarz said. “But this is what we must analyze differently. I think this draw today, is OK against this very good team.
Philadelphia (6-11-9, 27 points) is one point behind ninth-place Atlanta United for the last playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. The Union fell off the pace by enduring a 0-6-3 skid from May 25-July 13 but are 2-1-0 in their past three MLS matches.
Philadelphia headed into the break scoring eight goals in consecutive lopsided wins over New England and Nashville but took a 1-0 loss to Columbus last week, marking its fifth shutout defeat this season.
Coming off a loss in the third-place game of the Leagues Cup, the Union conceded the go-ahead goal in the 75th minute after surviving a shaky first half that saw them allow five corners in the opening few minutes.
“We’ll need guys to step up for sure,” Philadelphia coach Jim Curtin said. We’ll have a few changes, but not a ton, just because it’s a big game again so we can’t really afford to just rest and rotate a ton.”
–Field Level Media
