HARRISON, N.J. – In a side that struggled mightily from top to bottom, it’s often the stars that shoulder the burden of the blame.
For the Red Bulls, that meant that Designated Player and former Golden Boot winner Bradley Wright-Phillips found his way into the crosshairs.
Perhaps a victim of his own stellar track record, New York’s inability to find the back of the net with any sort of regularity made the Englishman an easy target for fans and pundits alike. After all, scoring 44 league goals over two seasons has a funny way of creating larger-than-life expectations.
Of course, some the frustration was warranted; Wright-Phillips would be amongst the first to raise his hand in admission of his early-season shortcomings. But after bagging a brace in New York’s 3-2 victory of Orlando City SC on Sunday, it appears reports of his demise were greatly exaggerated.
“I feel like I'm back as a player,” he said after the match. “When I'm not scoring, I'm not scoring. I go on the worst runs and—I don't want to jinx myself—when I do score, I manage to just get lucky and they all start going in. Hopefully that's what happens now.”
Neither of his two tallies on the night would be considered of a high degree of difficulty, but the goals have served to relieve much of the anxiety nonetheless. And while others may have begun to question whether or not the enigmatic striker would return to top form, his head coach had no doubts.
“I believe in that guy,” Jesse Marsch said in his postgame press conference. “I told him I believed in him, and I'll continue to believe in him. He will score goals and that's that.”
The goals were admittedly a nice touch, but Wright-Phillips was firmly focused on how his efforts helped to guide his team to a massive win. Snapping a four-game losing streak, New York’s main man was patently more pleased with his team’s return to the win column than his own return to the score sheet.
“It was good,” Wright-Phillips added. “I don't want to sound too cliché, but it's all about the three points. We've been struggling to get three points and today felt good. It felt really good.”
With a win in the bag, the jubilant mood to the locker room returned, and there was plenty of praise being sung for the long-awaited return of an in-form attacking core. And on a night with plenty of controversy on the field, there still remained one key play that required sorting.
“I felt kind of bad,” Wright-Phillips said of scoring his first goal of the night. “You can see me pointing at Mike [Grella] after the goal; I wasn’t sure if it was going in or if it was going wide. I just tried to make sure I got a toe on it. I didn’t have to do anything for that; that one’s all Mike.”
The apology was all well and good, but Grella wasn’t about to pass up the opportunity to take a playful jab at his teammate.
“I’m going to go over and bargain something with him,” he joked. “He owes me dinner or something like that, we’ll see.
“But no, I’m just so pleased for him. He’s such a quality person, quality striker. I’m glad he put that one away and gets his second.”
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