BRONX, N.Y. – New York City FC dropped their fifth point of the week on Wednesday – and they only have themselves to blame.
After a series of mistakes in NYCFC’s 3-1 loss at Atlanta United last Sunday, “naïve” defending led them to concede an 86th minute equalizer to draw the New England Revolution2-2 on Wednesday night at Yankee Stadium.
Despite those two results, or lack thereof, winger Jack Harrison isn’t worried about the club’s late-game defensive woes from their first two seasons resurfacing this year.
“It’s only one match and we’ve been doing really well this season,” Harrison said. “No individual is to blame. It’s a team thing and unfortunately we just gave up a late goal today. I don’t think it’s something to be concerned about. We definitely will look over it however and see what we can do to prevent this in the future.”
Xavier Kouassi’s goal was the first the Pigeons allowed after the 75th minute this season. That’s a far cry from the high number of late goals they allowed during their first two seasons.
Instead, Wednesday night’s draw echoes the loss City suffered two weeks ago at Real Salt Lake, where NYCFC walked away feeling like they let a lesser team pick up a result. Like the loss at RSL, the game against the Revolution was the second of three within a week. NYCFC will host the Philadelphia Union on Saturday before taking a ten-day break ahead of their Open Cup contest against the Red Bulls.
After Wednesday’s game, goalkeeper Sean Johnson said the off days are far from his mind.
“You can't really look forward to the time off,” Johnson said. “You gotta take every game as it comes. Every game is an opportunity to climb the table. You talk to any guy in the locker room [about] the amount of games we have in a short period of time, I don’t think anyone is complaining. I think it’s a good thing to get on the field multiple times a week and do what we love to do. We die to play games.”
The question going forward is if Wednesday’s result was an aberration. Head coach Patrick Vieira said he felt the team had a strong enough balance that would allow them to bunker in and hold leads when necessary. That was the strategy when he removed Harrison to insert Frederic Brillant as a third center back after New England brought on forward Juan Agudelo. Despite the extra man in defense, City allowed the equalizing goal, with Brillant missing the interception.
Johnson said he did not think the number of games City played over the past month was the concern but rather how they see out games. Mikey Lopez disagreed, saying that he remained confident that the team’s unity will help them better grind out games.
“I don’t think it’s a problem for us,” Lopez said. “It’s just one game for us and I think we have the mentality and the team to go pretty far in the league and the MLS Cup.”
