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Arnaud’s early goal enough to lead D.C. United past winless Red Bulls

Eddie Johnson, Davy Arnaud, Cristian Fernandez

Last season, the New York Red Bulls rolled to a Supporters Shield title as holders of the best record in Major League Soccer. That same season saw D.C. United finished with a meager three wins, the lowest total in league history.

One month into the 2014 season the roles have reversed, with the Red Bulls proving unable to win a match and D.C. United suddenly enjoying their first winning streak since 2012.

Davy Arnaud’s fourth-minute header stood up as the winning goal in D.C. United’s 1-0 victory against the Red Bulls at RFK Stadium on Saturday.

Back-up D.C. United goalkeeper Andrew Dykstra made three saves, and made some key plays to help his team avoid some own goals.

The Red Bulls came close to find an equalizer on a handful of occasions, but wasted chance after chance to make it six matches without a win. Eric Alexander squandered a good look in the 57th minute while Peguy Luyindula came close as well, only to hit the woodwork yet again this season.

D.C. United never found an insurance goal, but didn’t need one as the Red Bulls continued to waste opportunities to tie things up.

The win improves D.C. United’s record to 2-2-1, while the loss dropped the Red Bulls to 0-2-4.

Here are the match highlights:

Comments

  1. Time to face it. Henry has been flat out bad so far this season. He has absolutely killed us. It is very tough to have an older star striker who doesn’t have a great work rate anymore and isn’t currently finishing or playing well, but the offense still revolves around and depends on him. He’s had these slumps before, but they seem to last longer and longer each time. if he doesn’t snap out of it soon, this team is doomed.

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  2. I’m not sure what Alexander is doing in practice to warrant so much playing time. Petke needs reevaluate his lineup choices. Without Cahill, BWP surely should have started up top with Titi, and Peguy tandems with McCarty in midfield. This means Alexander to the bench for now. But Petke keeps on making the same mistakes – Alexander was the one at fault on the Arnaud goal.

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    • Wasn’t it also Alexander who lost his focus and drifted away from Arnaud on the goal? He followed him well until the flick-on, and then moved inside to mark . . . nobody.

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  3. Both teams missed a lot of chances. OTOH, the reffing was really bad. Neal should have been gone twice with red cards.

    And I live here in the DC area, hoping they’ll redeem their promise.

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    • Hmm… you didn’t watch any of the game, did you?! Lewis Neal was suspended from the previous game, so he didn’t even play.
      Although you are correct that the reffing was bad. DC had nothing called on what looked like a clear PK in the first half.

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  4. Ugliest win ever. DCU should be ashamed of themselves. Went into a bunker after a 4th minute goal. NYRB should be even more embarrassed that they missed so many chances.

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    • Ashamed? DCU just isn’t very good, but they’re better than NYRB. They didn’t bunker until the second half. In the first half DCU actually played a pretty good game, probably even were the better team. In the second half they bunkered, but not well. They missed their two good chances and we all watched as NY missed about a dozen.

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      • DC didn’t bunker, the Red Bulls threw numbers forward to get the equalizer and DC ran out of gas. I don’t know what kind of off season workouts Ben has them doing but clearly it’s not enough. United always seems to be out of shape coming into their seasons. Last year it doomed their whole season with DeLeon being overweight and suffering from a hamstring injury and Pontius being in and out of the line-up. Ben needs to adopt SKCs off season program if he wants to play high pressure for 90 minutes because right now they’re only good for about 60.

        DC were pressing in the first half effectively and then in the second, they left lots of space that Dax took advantage of, thank goodness the RBs were terrible at finishing.

      • They aren’t better than RBNY. RBNY dominated from the fifth minute on, after yet again conceding an early goal, but their finishing was awful.

    • I’m guessing after that long winless streak DCU couldn’t care less how their second win in a row looked. This isn’t the Netherlands. Get the result, worry about attractiveness of play later.

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