Given to find texture early in the season, Atlanta United will host New York City FC in Eastern Conference Play on Saturday night.
Atlanta (1-2-2, 5 points) enters the match on a four-game Winless Streak after its season opening 3-2 victory over CF Montreal. Since then, Atlanta has two losses and two draws, including last Saturday’s 2-2 tie at FC Cincinnati.
Atlanta was lucky enough to escape without a third defeat, as Cincinnatis Alvas Powell hit the game -binding own goal in the 88th minute, which helped United take up a much needed point.
Despite the club’s up-and-down games, Atlanta coach Ronny Deila said he believes that his group should have a much better record.
“I am very pleased with a point,” said Deila after the Cincinnati draw. “I think it was deserved. I thought we should have won the game. We were the better team for 60 minutes. I sit here with the same feeling I have had the last five games. We show how much quality we have when we play well, but we lose shape and concentration and discipline when things go towards us.”
A bright place during Atlanta’s first five matches has been the newcomer Emmanuel Latte Lath, who has four of the team’s five goals. Late Lath joined Atlanta in February for an MLS record of $ 22 million transfer fee.
New York (2-1-2, 8 points) Last week, two straight wins followed with a speechless draw against the Columbus crew. An unfortunate offensive view resulted in just five total shots for New York and none on target.
“It was a tough earnings along the way, but we expected more to go in,” said first year’s New York coach Pascal Jansen. “The first 15, 20 minutes, I thought we would go in the right direction. Unfortunately, our forwards did not have the quality of the game to create anything more than we did today.”
New York goalkeeper Matt Freese turned out to be the team’s most important player and picked up five rescues to preserve a tie.
“It said a lot about the quality that Matt brings to the team,” Jansen said. “There will be games within a season where you need to have a good goalkeeper there. He did an outstanding job.”
New York was without Alonso Martinez, who leads the team with three goals, as he competes with Costa Rica in the Concacaf Gold Cup qualifier.
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