Good Morning,
The Columbus Crew are in Harrison, New Jersey, on the waterfront across the Passaic River from Newark this evening to take on the Red Bulls. Kick Off is at 5 PM EST.
GAME NOTES
-Regular starters Chad Marshall, Glauber, Jairo Arrieta and Agustin Viana out for Crew
-NY is on unbeaten run of 6 games (5 wins)
-NY hasn't lost to Crew in past 5 meetings
-13 pts in last 5 for NY, 6 pts for Crew
-I like Jonny Steele
-NY just beat the Crew in Columbus a couple weeks ago 1:0
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PREDICTIONS
Going to start off with Bet365 this morning. They like NY with better than even odds (4/6) to win. 11/4 Draw and 4/1 Crew victory.
Win Draw Win's stars align this week. Medium Stake on NY 1:0 win and the 'your vote' section is heavy on NY as well (55%). Crew getting 14% of votes to win.
The EXPERTS at MLSSOCCER.com are all NY this week. Nary a win nor draw for the Crew. All six of them going with NY. Looking over yesterday's results, they called all but the RSL / CHI game correctly (as a group). I expect, as the season carries on, for them to have more weeks like this due to the unbalanced schedule.
Same teams playing each other this many times in short time frame makes things predictable.
Got some votes over at Goal.com this morning. 57.9% of the vote going to NYRB, 26.3 to the Crew.
Drew Epperley at WV Hooligan likes NY 2:0. "A healthy Red Bulls defense is a dangerous thing," he says.
Dispatch beat writer Adam Jardy doesn't lean towards Crew. Thinks today would be a signature win, if it did happen.
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MY THOUGHTS
Very rare, but across the board it is: Red Bull New York to win this sucker. I wish there were some insider secret that had me thinking otherwise, but there is not.
Crew will be playing their first game of the year without both normally starting CBs and have to continue forging forward with Tyson Wahl at left back. This will likely pull Danny O'Rourke (who has been injured) back to CB to pair with reserve team captain Eric Gehrig.
New York, on the other hand is on fire. Only thing that might trip them up is them. They've played a lot of games this year already and still have this one plus a US Open Cup match and a league game against Vancouver before their 20+ day rest. I'd say they might start taking a vacation early... maybe. If the Crew are lucky.
NY is better than the Crew. Not just fake better, as in better players. But real better, as in better team.
I don't see how the Crew can pull this one off. To do so, a player would have to have an extraordinary day. Is Higuain due? Maybe Eddie Gaven? Come'on normal distribution of data. Work your magic.
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