	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

NEW YORK RED BULLS MEDIA CONFERENCE

April 9, 2016

Jesse Marsch

Harrison, New Jersey

NY Red Bulls - 0, Sporting KC - 2

Q. Jesse, I know you said during the week that you're not worried about the offensive struggles you guys have had. But ho you do you explain today with so many chances and in four of out of these five games so far you guys have been shut out. How do you explain what's going on?
JESSE MARSCH: To be honest with you, I'm not sure how to explain it. Right, I mean, I know that when I'm watching my team play that it's a good team and that we're in many ways we're executing game plans the right way, and in a lot of these games I think we come out in many ways as the better team on the day but walk away with not enough goals and giving up too many. So obviously that is a recipe for losses.

So, the one thing that I will say is that my belief in our team being a good team hasn't wavered at all. It's just a funny thing to see how things have materialized in these early parts of the season. I mean, you could almost draw a lot of little clichÃ©s and metaphors for what happened tonight as what's been happening in our season.

So we can't feel sorry for ourselves. The breaks will come eventually as long as we stick together and keep playing hard and keep playing well.

Q. Last year Bradley was taking PKs and he went off PKs. Is he back with PKs? Will he be PKs moving forward? Can you just offer up an assessment on his play tonight, ten shots and no goals yet this season?
JESSE MARSCH: Yeah, well, it's Sacha and Brad are our penalty takers, so it's up to them to decide whose taking penalties. I love that Sacha has said, you know what, Brad, take it. Get on the board, get yourself a goal and we're getting back in this game. Now it doesn't work out that way, and we went through this a little bit last year with Vancouver when Brad had missed a couple. But my belief in him hasn't -- doesn't change based on missing a penalty or missing some chances.

Overall, I thought he was very dangerous, a handful for their center backs, and it's incredible just that with all the good play he's had and the good positions he's put himself in that he hasn't been able to put them away yet. But they're going to come. I've said that already in the past and I'm going to continue to say it. He's going to score goals. That's the player he is. We've seen it in training every day. We've seen it both of the last two seasons, so it's only a matter of time.

Q. When you look at the goals that have been conceded this year, you and your players have chalked up a lot of it to individual mistakes here and there. What do you think it was tonight that allowed them to get on the board twice?
JESSE MARSCH: Yeah, the first play is a little bit of a breakdown and we allow a couple of plays to get away from us, and then they've created a three on one basically. So that's partly tactical and partly not dealing with a couple of plays coming at them. Then the second one, Chris just gets a little too tight on Dwyer, and he's strong and clever and slips away, and all of a sudden he's right there at the goal.

So hard to explain that. Hard to explain how we can create so many things and be so dangerous and they don't create much but wind up walking away with two.

Q. I wanted to get your assessment of Connor Lade's play. I saw he was up in the offensive zone often. Just wanted to see what you thought about how he played tonight?
JESSE MARSCH: Yeah, I thought he played well. Thought he took care of Graham Zusi pretty well on the whole night. Got forward and got some shots off, put some crosses in, was dangerous on the day. Pretty good. Honestly there aren't many guys that I look at and say had poor performances. It's just that collectively we gave a couple away and just weren't able to now execute and put one away. But that's going to come, honestly. That's going to come. Trying to instill belief and remove anxiety from our group so that we can just go out and play with free minds and commit to who we want to be. So that's kind of where we're at.

Q. Jesse, first Duval, obviously first time playing center back, how did you feel his performance was tonight?
JESSE MARSCH: For the most part very good. Then he just let the goal slip away from him, and that's often the difference between what it's like to play an outside back and center back. Center back you almost have to be 100% on the day with plays, so he let one slip and it cost us a goal. But overall for a guy who is filling in for us, who is trying to do the job at the best level that he can and committing to it and not afraid and competing, he's going to be hard on himself.

I saw his head down. I was trying to say to him don't worry about it. He filled in great for the team tonight. It's just unlucky that now he lets one get away.

Q. Connor Lade, I don't know if the ball hit him or he got hit by Zusi or whatever happened towards the end of the first half and the whistle never blew because he was down for a bit. Was that in your mind? Like should have been blown at least to see if Connor's okay because he was down for a bit towards the end of the first half?
JESSE MARSCH: I thought at the time that maybe he might have been fouled, so I was just trying to assess if it should have been a penalty. I thought Brad got clipped in the first half when Lloyd got a shot off. I think that could have been a penalty.

So I thought Kansas City played the game in an honorable way and played hard, I think, yeah.

Q. On your thoughts in the final third, do you think in terms of was it more your team's inability to convert chances or the way KC and their defense and in particular Tim Melia performed?
JESSE MARSCH: Certainly the goalkeeper had a great night. Made some huge saves. I mean, you have to credit Kansas City in general to come here and get a shutout against what I consider is a good team. We're a good team, and we're a good attacking team. For them to get a shutout in our place, that's a great accomplishment for them. Certainly on the day their goalkeeper was their star. So, yeah, yeah.

Q. How did you come to the decision to go with Chris Duvall at center back? You had a rookie in Carroll on your bench and Amobi Okugo that's been in camp. What led you to go with him at center back? Also, what do you see are your options going after this at center back? Do you have guys coming back? Do you think you'll sign Okugo? Where's that sit?
JESSE MARSCH: You know, not sure is the answer. We have Amobi is playing in our USL game tomorrow night, so we'll get a look at him. We're hopeful that Kemar Lawrence is day-to-day, so maybe he's available for Wednesday in San Jose. So that is an option.

Zubar's day-to-day, so he's close. But we don't also want to just throw guys out there to get reinjured. And then you asked about Zach Carroll, he'll play a little bit tomorrow night, and I think he went through a little dip in format the beginning of the year, but I think he's now gotten himself going again, so we'll evaluate if that's a decision we want to make.

I'll be honest, it's not like I have all the answers right now. I mean, you guys are watching what I'm watching. There's a lot of really good things there, and I think for the most part that we've had good performances this year, and we've walked away with losses. So I've got to think hard about some of the choices, but also continue to instill belief in this team. The biggest reason being that I believe in them. I believe in what I'm looking at. I believe in our team and I know we're going to be a good team.

So it's just a matter of now getting some breaks and getting over the hump to where we want to be.

Q. We all know how passionate you are. How are you personally taking this start to the beginning of the season?
JESSE MARSCH: That's a good question. I tell our team that one of the things that I like about this business is not the easy times, it's the tough times, right? Because I think that the strongest people are the strongest in the toughest moments.

So whether it was as a player or now as a coach, I enjoy those moments, okay. I make sure that always I'm hard on myself, I look at myself first, but that I do everything I can to help our team be strong, have a good mentality, work hard every day, to get inches closer to success at every moment.

Right now I said it earlier, but I look at myself first, try to figure out what I need to do to help these guys be the team I know they can be.

Q. Considering the frustration that's building with the lack of goals. Zizzo got a yellow card for running in to dispute a non-penalty call that he thought, how much does that concern you that this is going to manifest itself in something you really don't want?
JESSE MARSCH: Yeah, but it's important that in our own way that there is a mentality and a togetherness and in some of these moments if you don't feel like you're getting what you should be getting from a referee or from a moment or whatever, that still obviously without getting cards, but you've got to be able to find ways of standing up for yourself.

I'm not even going to go back to New England, but in these moments without having it be frustration, but having it be in a real strong way. Make statements that say that you think that something needs to be done to correct something that you think isn't going the right way.

Q. With Felipe out on suspension because of the red card in New England, Sean Davis got a chance to start in that position. How do you think he did?
JESSE MARSCH: I thought Sean did really well. It's funny, he hasn't played that much. I don't know, maybe he has ten games under his belt, but I don't even think of him as a young guy or as like a rookie-type player. I think of him as an established guy on our team that we know we can count on, and when he plays, we know what we're going to get, and that was again tonight.

So certainly for me he had a great night and Dax wasn't feeling well, so that was one of the reasons I took him off the field at the end. And I knew that even with Dax not being well or Dax not being on the field at the end, that Sean would be fine in there and he was. I thought really good performance for Sean.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297