HANOVER, N.J. – In the eyes of New York Red Bulls head coach Jesse Marsch, this season might just be the best performance he has seen from his star striker, Bradley Wright-Phillips. It's a staggering statement from Marsch given Wright-Phillips’ form in 2014 when he tied the league’s single season mark with 27 goals.
After a rough start to the season where Wright-Phillips didn’t score or have an assist in his first seven games (this despite taking 25 shots in that stretch), the Red Bulls ace has clearly settled into his usual scoring ways. Wright-Phillips now sits on 17 goals, tied for first in the league heading into this weekend's game against D.C. United (1 pm ET; ESPN in US | MLS LIVE in Canada), even with New York City FC's David Villa.
It is the kind of form that has changed the narrative about him from being washed-up in March to an MVP candidate in September. Teammate Sacha Kljestan helped kick start the conversation about Wright-Phillips and his MVP candidacy with a tweet following an August 28 home win over the New England Revolution, a match where the man called ‘BWP’ got the game’s lone goal.
“If you hear Sacha saying it…I think he’s my MVP. For a midfielder to get the stats that he’s got with the names in this league, he has to be looked at,” Wright-Phillips said ahead of the Red Bulls’ trip to Vancouver last Saturday.
“For me, I don’t really look at those things because it can cloud what is really important. Me thinking about the MVP won’t help us in Vancouver. Whatever they do at the end of the season, whoever they think is MVP will get it. Good luck to them.”
All the same, the Englishman pulled the same trick in Vancouver as he did against New England to power the Red Bulls to their second road win of 2016.
The past month has seen Wright-Phillips turn in some sizzling performances for a Red Bulls team that hasn’t lost since July 3. In his last seven league matches dating back to July 24, Wright-Phillips has eight goals and an assist.
Considering that form, the MVP talk around the English striker is heating up and justified.
“I’m not going to lie, it’s obviously good to hear those things but only a month ago I was a rubbish player you know?” Wright-Phillips said.
“So you hear good things, you hear bad things, it doesn’t really phase me.”
The impressive thing about Wright-Phillips over the past two years isn’t just his goal scoring but the way he fits into the team as a whole. His work-rate in Marsch’s high-press is ideal for a forward, especially considering he often lines up as a lone striker. He does a lot of hard running away from goal that helps make the press system work.
All of which makes his form this year perhaps his best in what is now his fourth year in MLS.
That showing in 2014 where he tied the league’s single-season scoring mark was a truly great pairing with Thierry Henry, who was the playmaker of a Red Bulls team that came within a game of MLS Cup. That season led to a Designated Player contract for Wright-Phillips but even while he amassed 27 goals, his success was always attributed to Henry’s ability to play provider and not the forward’s own scoring prowess.
Wright-Phillips and his showings the last two seasons since Henry’s retirement – 33 goals in 61 appearances – point to a player who has been among the best in the league no matter the cast around him.
According to numbers provided by OptaPro, he not only has the most goals per 90 minutes since 2014, but the most expected goals per 90.
“I wasn’t here for the 27 goal season but I thought the performances last year were better than the year before. I think this year – again I think you have to get past for the first seven games – but when you get past the first seven games – I think Bradley has been fantastic. Not that he was terrible in that stretch but he didn’t quite get going yet and our team got going yet. You can easily make the argument that as Brad goes so goes the team. It’s not that simple but when he’s been on, our team has been much better,” Marsch said.
“He’s been much more efficient. For me when you talk about Brad on that team versus these teams, it’s just the workload, the demands on how we play. The impact within so many more plays than scoring has grown.
“Back then it was almost like ‘Let’s give the ball to Thierry and see what happens.’ That doesn’t take anything away from Brad because his movement and ideas of how to get open and be available were really good. But now his impact on the game is huge, huge. That’s where I would tilt the hat to this year, and this year even better than last year.”
