After reeling off an eight-game unbeaten streak, the Red Bulls have lost three straight heading into Sunday’s tilt vs. visiting Houston. Head coach Mike Petke and Designated Players Thierry Henry and Tim Cahill – the latter just returning from injury, international duty, and a family emergency – discuss the game.
NEW YORK RED BULLS MIDFIELDER TIM CAHILL
On his groin strain after training:
It’s all right, its good. You know, I managed it well in Australia with the physios. I had it before, like I went into camp with the Australian team and played three games on it and then felt it so I don’t think I would have been that valuable for Philly, for the Philly game anyway, but now I feel good. I feel fantastic and it’s been good to be back with the boys, its been a while, and having three good days training.
On his mindset since returning:
I’m buzzing. You know, booked a ticket to Brazil with the Australian team and now back with my domestic league. I feel great, it’s been a long month away and sometimes its hard to leave your team and the results haven’t gone our way, but I suppose overall I’m in a good place and looking forward to having a big finish with the team to the end of the season.
On the Houston Dynamo:
I know a lot about Houston. They’re probably one of my favorite teams in the league as in for what they do and for what they’ve achieved, you know, the last three years plus. They’ve got a good work ethic and they’ve got a lot of great players, especially a hard working midfield, strong defense and goal scorers on the team. But overall a great manager, they are probably one of the most difficult teams in this league … I spoke very highly of Houston since I very first got here because that’s who I made my debut against and it was tough in the heat and away from home, but yeah, a team that is going to be very difficult to beat over the weekend.
NEW YORK RED BULLS HEAD COACH MIKE PETKE
On practice this week:
Yeah, it’s been phenomenal to continue at the training site with the facilities. It’s been good; I thought there was a lot of good stuff at practice this week. I thought today we really threw out a lot of the tactical stuff we were going to do because we had two really tough days of tactical work and instead of throwing in a third day we decided lets just get the balls out and get them competitive and start playing and thought there was some brilliant stuff that happened today and it was great to see. They were happy, they were creating a lot of stuff, so going back tomorrow, the day before the game, we’ll do a little more tactical, light, and then get ready for the game.
On Tim Cahill:
Tim’s looking good, you know, yesterday and the day before you could tell, like always, Tim wants to be out there and Tim’s going to play no matter what, but you could tell he was obviously struggling a little from the travel, but today he was great, back to normal.
NEW YORK RED BULLS FORWARD THIERRY HENRY
On coming off the Philadelphia game into the Houston Game:
I can’t say that we didn’t play well against Philly. I think we would have done better if we 11 v 11 and you know I’m usually honest and I’m saying we played badly against Philly playing with 10 men. I felt like we created more chances in a better way than them, they’re just countering so it was easier for them to have opportunities. I felt that we outplayed them with 10 men but you know the result was bad at the end. I don’t think we played badly. I think saying that, yeah were trying to find a way to go back into a rhythm of winning games. You know playing against Houston is not an easy task; they are a very difficult team to beat. We know exactly what we are going to have to face.
It’s one of those games; I don’t know if you remember, we got actually hammered at their place. We could have lost five or six nil that day. And we played them straight away here, that was the type of game we have to remember because we were all over the place that day, in a good way, when we beat them here. That is the type of game we have to play to make sure we can beat that team because you have to give them that respect. If it wasn’t for LA they could have had two titles already. If it wasn’t for playing at LA’s place I think that they would have had a shot to be champions. Obviously they lost those two games and they stayed without a title. They’re a good team.
On what needs to change to get more forwards scoring:
I mean (Jamison) Olave has been scoring. It’s always the same thing, when the team is conceding goals people are pointing the fingers at the defenders, and I think it’s not only them and when we don’t score people go after the guys are not scoring, especially the strikers. So that’s just the way it is, I think it’s the togetherness. I’ll go back to the game against Philly. I had to do another type of situation. I was dropping a lot against Philly because obviously we lost a man. It’s whoever’s going to finish the play. We have to play better and whoever is at the end of the play has to try to score. Jonny (Steele) had some opportunity against Philly and he didn’t score.
You would want your strikers to be the guys to finish the opportunities but it is a team effort and if we do attack together and defend together I would like to think things are going to come back to normal but I really don’t care who scores at the end of the day. But I understand you would want your striker to score goals. If you are a striker you obviously want to score, but it has to happen in the right way. You just want your team to play well and whoever is at the end of some moves, it doesn’t really matter. We are getting some goals back because Tim (Cahill) is coming back, that’s really important and you know how important it is in the onset pieces to defend for us and most onset pieces of course to score for us.
On seeing Tim Cahill possibly playing up top:
That’s up to Mike (Petke), to see what he wants to do. But we all know how Tim plays, 100% always on the field. He’s very important. People don’t notice it but he clears a lot of balls for us and he puts them in the back of the net on the other side so I don’t know how were going to play on Sunday but like I said to you, when he’s not around you have to play without him and make sure that you don’t think too much about him, but when he’s around its always better. What I like about him is that he’s always on the end of our crosses, so hopefully he can do the same. But you’re going to have to ask Mike to answer your question, see if it does happen, how it’s going to work.