October 29th, 2014 (Harrison, NJ) – The regular season has come to a close, and Bradley Wright-Phillips wants more. The English striker scored a grand total of 27 goals, to tie the mark set by Roy Lassiter in 1996, and shared by Chris Wondolowski in 2012. But Wright-Phillips is still left wanting. “I’m a little frustrated. As I said publicly, you get two goals, you want to get three. It’s a hard record to break. I appreciate getting to 27 goals this season, I worked hard this season, and it’s not over yet, but I wanted to get to 28. I’m still a little bit frustrated, but I wasn’t good enough. Maybe next season. ”
Now, let the MVP debate begin. Many of my colleagues believe that Wright-Phillips should not be included in the MVP discussion because of what has been called the “Thierry Henry Effect”. This phrase was coined to reference the instant success enjoyed by Luke Rodgers and Kenny Cooper while playing next to Henry during their time in New York’s red and white. However, I’m not sure if such things apply to Wright-Phillips.
BWP has been successful and productive consistently throughout the 2014 campaign, only being held off the scoresheet a handful of times. Only 10 of his goals were directly assisted by Henry, who took a back seat this season so the Manchester City product could shine. Manager Mike Petke has spoken at length over the last few days, focusing more on what Wright-Phillips does off the ball, and his work rate. “The most impressive thing to me is what Bradley does that doesn’t get noticed, I guess, because of the goals that he’s scored. It’s his work, his effort that he brings. He’s a total team player, and doing the ugly stuff at times. He’s a lonely forward up top, chasing two center backs a majority of the time. He does it with a smile on his face, and he wants to help the team. That right there, to me, the little runs he makes that free other people up, is what is most impressive, for me, about Bradley,” Petke said via conference call Monday.
Indeed.
Often this season, Wright-Phillips’ play off the ball has gone unnoticed, with his finishing ability taking center stage. Sure, Wright-Phillips scored just a hair under half of the 55 goals the Red Bulls tallied this season. Would the Red Bulls have found goals had BWP not had the stunning season he’s had? Who can tell, but one thing is for certain. New York has ridden Wright-Phillips all the way into the playoffs. No other player has scored with the efficiency that Wright-Phillips has shown this season, and most of these goals take skill on the ball. If you look at Kenny Cooper and Luke Rodgers’ years with Henry, a lot of the time Henry was producing sitters for them.
Need further proof?
In the final chapter on the the Red Bulls regular season, Wright-Phillips scored two goals from similar positioning on the field, but they were two vastly different style goals. The first was off a beautiful through ball from midfielder Eric Alexander, and the second was created by absolutely dispossessing Aurelien Collin, and waiting just long enough to get the SKC keeper to commit in the exactly wrong direction. What resulted was a goal that simply looked two easy. Want to know who wasn’t on the field for any of it? Thierry Henry didn’t travel with the club because of Achilles inflammation. That said, Wright-Phillips spoke highly of his teammate.
“All the best strikers have someone putting in great passes, and giving great assists, and they score off of those. Thierry had that in his own time, no one would have said that he wouldn’t have scored without Dennis Bergkamp. People are always going to say negative things. Obviously, I would have liked Thierry to have been playing yesterday, I don’t care what people say. If he’s a great player, if he’s going to feed me some nice passes I’m going to be on the end of them, I’ve still got to make the runs, and I could’ve done with him being there yesterday too, maybe I would have had a few more chances. I don’t really think about if he’s there or not, I’m going to try and score regardless,”
This is a pure striker – his finishing ability has gotten better from the opening whistle of the season and has progressed to a point of brilliance. This is a player that laid his league-leading 3rd hat trick of the season against a Seattle Sounders club that held off the potent attack of the LA Galaxy to win the Supporters Shield this past weekend. There is no solid way that Wright-Phillips would have earned his place in MLS history simply relying on Henry produced sitters. As a player, Petke played against both Wondolowski and Lassiter, and said this about possibly defending against Wright-Phillips, with a wry little smile Red Bulls fans have gotten used to over the last two seasons, “I don’t know initially I’d say I’d probably whack him a couple of times early, to get him a little scared, but Bradley is a guy that just keeps going. He’s got pace, he’s got a work rate that is tough to handle as a center back. His little runs behind center backs, and the ability that he has to free himself up for Thierry to get him the ball most of the time is not an easy thing, so it’d be very tough. I’d have to keep a tight mark on him, and kick him a couple of times and just get in his head a little bit. I think that’s what I’d have to do.”
Almost in spite of his achievements, Wright-Phillips remains focused on the club’s bigger goals, turning attention away from himself and to the task that faces them on Thursday night, at home, against this very same Sporting Kansas City side, that has seen their own season go horribly wrong. “It’s a new season for me, and that’s how I’m going to treat it. When you see me on Thursday, I’m going to be as hungry as ever. I don’t want people to say ‘he’s not a big game player’ … I know how the media can be, for me it’s a new season and I want to score some goals, and work hard for this team. I want to win the cup.”
And that, from the man himself, is the last word.
Photo Credit: Rob Tringali/New York Red Bulls
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