Red Bulls Moving On

Without the services of star striker Jozy Altidore and with the knowledge they will not have those services ever again, the Red Bulls put forth a good effort at home on Thursday night to down Chivas USA by the score of 1-0. The win for New York put an end to a 3 game winless skid. The areas of weakness for New York were evident as they failed to develop anything encouraging for most of the first half, but for their part defended well and limited Chivas USA to hopeful shots until the end of the first half when goalkeeper Jon Conway came up big on a breakaway. With a makeshift center midfield, the wings were forced to provide most of the creativity during an improved stretch in the second half. As the game wore on, Dane Richards became increasingly dangerous on the right flank, and eventually provided the perfect cross for Juan Pablo Angel to head home for the game winner in the 75th minute. The goal was Angel's 2nd of the campaign.

What I took away from this game is that while Jozy is a great young player, the club may be better suited without him since the large allocation will help us address areas of greater need. We can only hope they are addressed over THIS summer transfer window, and we are not left to wait for yet another year. With Angel up top, and Wolyniec and Echeverry being serviceable, with the possibility of even using Mike Magee up top, I think we have other positions to look at first. Coach Osorio really wants his left-footed center back (I just want any second back that isn't named Andrew Boyens), and we could really use a more creative center midfielder, someone like Amado Guevara without his well known personality issues. Magee doesn't seem ready to make a huge impact there after the injury seasons. Claudio Reyna simply doesn't play that type of game. When all is said and done, if losing Jozy means we can improve ourselves in 2-3 positions I think you have to say this has the potential to be a good thing.