Wednesday, May 3, 2017

Sporting KC Run Home Unbeaten Streak to 14; Defeat NYRB 2-0

Sporting Kansas City continued their strong run of form at home with a dominant 2-0 win over the New York Red Bulls in front of 18,965 fans at Children's Mercy Park.

The win, the club's sixth clean sheet in nine matches this season, pushed Sporting's record to 5-1-3 (18 pts., 1st in the West), while New York dropped to 5-4-1 (16 pts., 2nd in the East). It also extends Sporting's home unbeaten streak to 14 games. Their last home loss was 1-0 to DC United on May 27, 2016.

It was a second half brace from in form forward Dom Dwyer, along with another solid defensive performance by the back line and goalkeeper Tim Melia that powered Sporting to the result.

Dwyer's two goals were both scored on his right foot, making three goals in two games on the surgically-repaired appendage (bone spurs were removed in the offseason). It is the first time Dwyer's scored more than two goals on his right foot in the same season in his career.

The effort to get Dwyer to shoot with his right foot more often has two benefits. One, clubs would not be able to focus on his left foot as much. The second is, according to the team's head trainer Kenny Ishii, it would make Dwyer more durable in the long run by not putting as much strain on his right foot because he wouldn't be using it as his plant foot as often.

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Digging into the stats a bit, it's a little surprising that Sporting were not able to get a goal in the first half. While Sporting did have the lion's share of the possession in the first 45 minutes (62.5 percent to 37.5 percent), what they didn't do is take advantage of New York's poor passing accuracy (only 56.8 percent).

While the Red Bulls' passing accuracy did improve in the 2nd half to 75.1 percent, that only brought the full game figure up to 67.2 percent. You don't win a lot of matches with numbers like that.

You also don't win all that often when you only get off six shots (two on target). Sporting, on the other hand, had 18 total shots, with eight on target.

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Up next for Sporting KC: The club travels to Minneapolis to take on Minnesota United FC on Sunday. The game will be aired on FS1 at 12:30 p.m. CDT. Minnesota will be on a full week's rest, having lost to San Jose 1-0 on April 29th at home.

It will be interesting to see if some of Sporting's starters get rested on Sunday (as one might expect in the third game in nine days) or if Peter Vermes will continue with his "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" attitude. Considering the club's goals against average is 0.33, it wouldn't surprise me if it's the latter.