by Ridge Mahoney @ridgemax, Jun 23, 2015

Jesse Marsch

Peter Vermes

Clint Dempsey

The Red Bulls look to change things up as they've hit their first skid under new coach. Real Salt Lake's "hungry" play has drawn praise from Sporting KC coach, and Seattle grapples with a host injuries as well as thesuspension.

1. Marsch vows changes for Red Bulls.

Head coach Jesse Marsch, facing the first lengthy winless streak of his Red Bulls' tenure, is ready to shake things up.

In league play, the Red Bulls haven’t won since beating New York City FC on May 10 and in those five games have been outscored, 8-4. They host Real Salt Lake Wednesday night before heading over to Yankee Stadium for Derby 2.0 on Sunday. They also have another derby scheduled for the following Wednesday when they host the Cosmos in a U.S. Open Cup round-of-16 match heavily laced with bragging rights.

So, yeah, things are kind of tense.

“We’re figuring out how to put 11 guys on the field on Wednesday that are going to go out there and win, period,” Marsch told New York reporters. “Win ugly, win pretty; win in whatever way possible. That’s where we’re at right now. We have to figure out a way to stop the bleeding.”

Everything when wrong for the Red Bulls against Vancouver. Midfielder Sacha Kljestan was sent off in the 10th minute and Bradley Wright-Phillips failed twice from the penalty spot. Captain Dax McCarty didn’t bemoan his team’s misfortunes; he instead addressed mentality.

“Our mindset has to change from ‘Play well and try to win and hope we win’ to ‘Screw it,’” McCarty told MLSSoccer.com. “If we have to play like bastards, if we have to play cynical, if we have to kick people, if we have to be physical, if we have to get up in guys' faces, then we need to change that.”

2. Vermes: RSL was ‘hungrier.’

There’s a sharp edge to games between Real Salt Lake and Sporting Kansas City, which met in the 2013 MLS Cup final, and with the move of SKC back to the Western Conference, a true rivalry is heightened.

RSL captured a 2-1 victory Sunday in stoppage time when Olmes Garcia’s low shot deflected off the foot of SKC defender Kevin Ellis and looped over keeper Tim Melia under the crossbar. The heartbreaking manner by which SKC lost in a tough environment wasn’t foremost in the mind of SKC head coach Peter Vermes.

“We didn't match their intensity,” said Vermes in a postgame conference call with reporters. “They were hungrier than we were.”

SKC battled back to tie the game when Benny Feilhaber registered his league-leading eighth assist of the season with a through ball that Sebastian Jaime put away. Yet Vermes believed his team to be second-best most of the time and paid the price.

“I think we gave them way too many corner kicks, which shows they were pretty aggressive in and around our box,” he said. “And we just made a lot of stupid choices, when we gave them too many corners. So as much as we got ourselves into the game, I thought we weren't as good. We weren't as good.”

3. Shorthanded Sounders dumped without Dempsey.

Handed a widely criticized three-match ban by MLS for tearing up a referee’s notebook during a U.S. Open Cup match Tuesday, Clint Dempsey sat as Seattle lost to San Jose, 2-0, at home on Saturday, 2-0. But he wasn't the on;y player unavailable.

A groin strain suffered by Obafemi Martins in the Open Cup game against Portland during which Dempsey was sent off sidelined him as well. To make matters worse, Chad Barrett, the Sounders' top reserve in their frontline corps, was also sidelined with a hamstring injury, and midfielders Gonzalo Pineda and Osvaldo Alonso also were recovering from injuries.

Seattle lost for the second time in the last three games and dropped into a tie with Vancouver for first place in the Western Conference and behind D.C. United in the Supporters' Shield race.

4. Quakes have Sounders' number.

San Jose's 2-0 victory over the Sounders was its second in Seattle this season. The Quakes have taken 25 of a possible 33 points against Seattle in their last 11 meetings (8-2-1).

Former Sounder Sanna Nyassi smashed an angled drive inside the far post to push San Jose into the lead, and Matias Perez Garcia danced past a few opponents before sticking a clinching goal into the top corner. Both were nominated for MLS Goal of the Week.

5. Packwood tries New York.

U.S. U-23 international Will Packwood, released by Birmingham City in May, trained with the Red Bulls on Monday, BigAppleSoccer.com reported.

Packwood, 22, joined Birmingham’s youth academy in 2007 and signed a pro contract four years later but wasn’t able to establish himself in the first team after he fractured his tibia and fibula in January 2013. After being released by Birmingham, he trained for a few days with New England, which decided not to sign him.

He played with the U.S. U-23s at the Toulon Tournament in which the U.S. finished third.