By Niall McCusker

Western conference teams play each other so often that at this stage of the season there are few surprises they can spring. Is it coincidence that Portland’s only two home defeats have been to East coast teams this season? The previous one was back in April to Orlando, who were something of an unknown quantity at that time.

But coming into this game it was no secret that the Red Bulls liked to press early and often, so pulling Adi as an outlet seemed a strange decision and it was one that backfired as New York dominated large parts of the first half. Did the Timbers plan to play through the high pressure and simply failed to execute? They didn’t seem to make much attempt to do so, often booting it long right from the start of the game.

It was perhaps a bit late in the season to run an experiment to see if Urruti and Melano could find some chemistry. While the previous two games had only produced only one point the Timbers attack had been looking quite dangerous. For the first thirty minutes of this match the midfield and forwards seemed a little off from their normal patterns both with and without the ball. When defending Portland sometimes drop into a 442 look, in this game it often stayed more like a 433, with the Argentine triumvirate leading the line. But these 3 did not apply enough serious pressure on the ball, perhaps with the extra man it was less clear whose job it was to close down? The second line of Chara, Nagbe and Johnson were hesitant to move up and join the front players in pushing onto New York, so the Red Bulls had a nice little gap to play into.

Melano did get back on occasion to plug gaps in a reactionary way, tracking Portland old boy Sal Zizzo, but when he is noticed a lot in defense the tactical battle has probably been lost. A lot of games this season have looked like the Timbers need more men to commit forward, but without the ability to build possession and use them effectively with short passes these three looked lost.

The home team got lucky when defending a early few set pieces, with one scrambled ball hitting the outside of the post, but they finally started to get some possession around the half hour mark and created a couple of decent set-piece chances of their own. This season has featured a lot of scrappy opening halves, where the Timbers have survived, got into the locker room and come out looking a lot better. But this game was lost by giving away two bad goals right before the break.

This would have been an easy game for New York to ‘phone in’ having traveled from a midweek defeat in New England – but Jesse Marsch and his charges deserve credit for holding out for a deserved win.

The solace for Portland is that despite 1 point from the last 3 games, no one seems to want to overtake them. San Jose’s run of form from August has ended, but Salt Lake who looked out of contention a few weeks ago are back in the hunt.

Here are the individual ratings:

Adam Larsen Kwarasey 5.5: The keeper stood up well for Veron’s effort on the half hour, but the Argentine had 2 runners inside him and it really should have been an easy goal. At first glance on the long-range opener he looked a little like Troy Perkins in Portland’s inaugural season, getting beaten far too easily from distance. But the replays showed the true quality of the strike, it would have been a hell of a save and the midfielders deserve the blame for criminally backing off Felipe. On the second goal he looked to come and hesitated but recovered decent position, again not much chance with the header. He did have a good late save from Grella.

New York on several occasions had two men closing down his distribution so midfielders were available for the shorter pass, but that option is much easier to see from the stand than on the ground – the problem was the long balls he was forced to kick were coming right back.

Alvas Powell (off in 76′) 5: The Jamaican didn’t appear to be at his sharpest following national team duty. His passes were poor and he was a little casual in possession at times, failing to link with Nagbe up the right wing. Did well to clear the ball off the line to save a goal, but it was in vain, as moments later he was out-jumped by Perrinelle who scored with a looping header. He looked to tire in the second half and was replaced as Portland switched to a 3-man defense.

Not beaten much from open play by porn-king Shaun Wright-Philips. Yes that is what I just wrote – check out the list of illustrious company SWP used to keep on the field and then the part about his hobbies off it. That probably goes some way to explaining how a player who was once one of England’s brightest talents is ending his career playing second fiddle to his less talented baby brother. Don’t go there Alvas!

Nat Borchers 5: He missed his chance to take outright ownership of the less than illustrious title of Portland’s second highest goal-scorer when he skied a half-volley following a set-piece after thirty minutes. Then at the end he had another chance denied on the line by Robles – other center-backs might have slid in on that one, making sure the ball, the keeper and themselves all ended up in the back of net. But Borchers is more civilized than he looks.

On the defensive side he had a terrible header right to a Red Bull in the box, which led to the shot Powell cleared, but had a decent second half mopping up New York counters.

Liam Ridgewell 5: The defensive DP needed to have the comfort on the ball to show his colleagues how to play out of New York’s pressure game – but his back-pass left Villafana in trouble and ended up with Veron bearing down on goal. Portland looked vulnerable on corners all of the first half and his header up into the air (compounded by Borchers) led to New York’s second goal when a good clearance would have brought them into the locker room still in the game.

Ian Wright’s boys had fairly quiet games, but fellow Londoner Ridgewell didn’t do enough either.

Jorge Villafana 5: The left-back had an interesting battle with Veron, he held his own and started to get forward during Portland’s brief good spell in the first half. He combined once with Melano to good effect, but needed to do that more often. In the second half Veron started to cause him some problems but when he was replaced by Sam the left back was able to get into some attacking positions again late on.

Will Johnson 4.5 (off in 66′): He had a great tackle after five minutes when covering for Powell, but unfortunately that did not set the tone for his or Portland’s first half. He did little to sustain any possession or distribution for the home-side and Kljestan found himself in space far too often. A strike like Felipe’s won’t happen very often in a season, but that’s no reason not to go close him down instead of pointing at him. Johnson was correct in that his side was overloaded and Chara should have done the closing, but there comes a time when you just go do it yourself.

At the start of the second half he clipped the top of the bar with a nice effort, but not enough from the veteran to rally his side.

Diego Chara 5.5: It was not his best game, but he did put the work in first half chasing down several dangerous runs and getting in some good tackles at the edge of his box. But this was fire-fighting Chara from the Spencer era, not the controlling Chara from the better parts of recent seasons. His forward contribution was limited and the sharpness was missing from his passing.

Darlington Nagbe 4.5: There are many who view Nagbe’s deep role as a waste of his talents, especially when Portland are not scoring. But like it or not, normally he plays it a lot better than this game. After an anonymous first half he did a few nice things at the start of the second before fading out again, he was caught in possession in the center of his own half with ten minutes to go, but New York spurned the chance to add a third.

Diego Valeri 6: He was as guilty as the other front two of not applying real pressure to New York’s defense, but when he was on the ball he at least tried to inject some urgency into the attack. He might have went far post on his first half shot, but made Robles work and has been known to score some sneaky near-post goals. In the second half he worked a nice move with Johnson to find some shooting-space at the edge of the box, but those wonder strikes are not there yet – though he did almost score with a deflected free-kick near the end.

His corners were excellent but both center forwards failed to capitalize on them.

Lucas Melano 5: He threaded a nice ball through to Urruti in the 8th minute, but it was just too long. A minute later he had a shot blocked on the edge of the box, when he could have tried to feed Urruti again. That was about all from that partnership.

It would have been good to see Melano used as an outlet on the left when the balls down the center in the vague direction of Urruti were not working. Overall he looked a lot less dangerous than in the previous two games when Valeri was finding his runs.

Maxi Urruti (off in 55′) 4.5: He finally got another chance to start and didn’t really make the best of it, but the balls to him were very poor so opportunities to show what he could offer were limited. Maybe he was meant to run into channels more and make room for Valeri and Melano into the middle, but the lack of control and possession means we will never know if that was the plan.

He just failed to get onto a Melano through-ball at the start and set Valeri up for a shot after 28 minutes, but his best chance to score was from a first half Valeri corner that he put over the bar. He and Adi both scored excellent headers from Villafana set-pieces earlier in the season but those remain outliers rather than a regular threat for Portland.

Substitutes:

Fanendo Adi (on in 56′) 5.5: The big man needed to come on at half-time, there was no point in waiting ten minutes. When he did come in he gave the attack a focal point and won a few long balls and fouls as the game started to turn in Portland’s favor. He had three decent chances with headers, one of which was directed into the ground and required a decent save – but a major negative in Adi’s game is that he a good header of a ball – not an excellent one.

Rodney Wallace (on in 66′) 4.5: His first touch was a heavy one over the line when he had found himself in space on the left, he buzzed around and brought a little energy but was not overly effective except for one excellent cross onto Adi’s head.

Dairon Asprilla (on in 76′) 5.5: The winger made some hard runs to the line and earned a few corners, he was lively and direct with a sense of urgency not seen in many of his more senior colleagues.