Three things we learned from the Columbus Crew's 2-1 loss at New York Red Bulls

Wilfried Nancy viewed the Crew's matchup against the New York Red Bulls as a tailor-made early-season test of what the Crew coach wants his team to do.

Against the Red Bulls' trademark high press, Nancy's desire for the Crew to be patient with the ball and maintain possession, even in the face of intense pressure, met a difficult challenge. The Crew survived the press for much of the first half, and got a goal from midfielder Alex Matan in the 33rd minute to lead at halftime, but in the second half, the Red Bulls feasted on mistakes the Crew made under pressure on their way to a 2-1 win.

The Crew have yet to string together a full 90 minutes in which they play how they want to play and dictate their style on their opponent. They played a solid first 45 minutes at Philadelphia, then beat D.C. United despite not maximizing possession the way Nancy wants, then took control of the final 30 minutes at Toronto last week. On Saturday, the Crew led until the 58th minute, and then the Red Bulls began to take full advantage of the opportunities the Crew gave them.

"Before we conceded the goal, we did a good game," Nancy said. "After that, we had difficulties to cope with their pressure and to cope with their intensity. This is something that we have to better."

It's perhaps to be expected, four games into a new coach's tenure, and the Crew have shown plenty of reasons to be optimistic about what they'll eventually look like under Nancy. But for the immediate future, fully settling into what Nancy wants and being able to execute his system at a high level looks like it will continue to take some time.

The Crew remain committed to building out from the back

Nancy is deeply committed to the way he wants the Crew to play; he has described his style of play as a way of life for him.

Against the Red Bulls, that meant hanging on to the ball under pressure and looking to build out from the back, rather than playing long balls over the press to the front three. Matan's goal was the result of a long ball from defender Steven Moreira, but the Crew didn't look routinely for those opportunities throughout the game.

The Crew were without striker Cucho Hernandez, who was held out of the lineup after developing knee pain late in the week. He would normally be the main player responsible for making runs behind the defense to receive passes over the top, so it's possible that the lack of Hernandez made the Crew more committed to playing through the Red Bulls' press.

"We’re going to play the way we want to play," Nancy said Wednesday. "I will not change on that because I believe that this is the best way to play. But that doesn’t mean that we’re going to have to make short passes. It depends. If they press well, maybe we can play between the lines, maybe we can play behind the lines, maybe we can play the opposite on the weak side."

The Crew were looking to switch the ball to the other side, as Nancy suggested they could earlier in the week, when they had overloads on one side of the field, but the plays rarely came to fruition; the Red Bulls regularly won the ball back before the Crew could send a pass across the field.

In the face of the Red Bulls' pressure, the Crew struggled to complete the build-up patterns they were seeking. Only two players, Moreira (91%) and midfielder Aidan Morris (98.4%) finished with above 90% pass completion, and the Crew completed 81.3% of their passes as a team — their second-lowest mark of the season.

"In terms of decision-making, we could have played at certain moments more in behind or around them," Nancy said. "The fact that we were not able to get out of the pressure and we gave them the opportunity to score, this is something that we knew and this is something that we have to be better."

Columbus Crew struggle to generate, finish scoring chances against New York Red Bulls

Officially, the Crew recorded just five shots in Saturday's game, three of them on target, against 15 total shots and four on target for the Red Bulls. Despite having 62.2% of the possession, the Crew had most of that possession in their defensive half of the field as they attempted to battle through the Red Bulls' press.

Without Hernandez, Nancy started midfielder Lucas Zelarayan in the center of the front three, with Matan and Yaw Yeboah joining him, and didn't have a true striker in the starting lineup. Forward Jacen Russell-Rowe came on for Yeboah in the 62nd minute, giving the Crew a striker on the field for the first time in the game, but Russell-Rowe wasn't able to stretch the Red Bulls' defense on a consistent basis.

Matan's goal was a lucky one, as his shot slipped under the outstretched arm of goalkeeper Carlos Coronel, skidded across the grass and eventually slowly rolled into the back of the net. The Crew had two shots on target in the second half — one by Yeboah in the opening minutes of the second half and one by Zelarayan in stoppage time — but otherwise didn't threaten to score with any kind of regularity.

"We know that (Hernandez) is a big piece for us," Nancy said. "Now, we have to play without Cucho and this is what we did. We did good things in the first half. In the second half, we also had opportunities to score, but we didn’t finish well."

New York Red Bulls expose Crew's vulnerabilities in transition

Nancy used the word "punished" twice to describe how the Red Bulls took advantage of the Crew's mistakes. On both goals New York scored, the sequence started with quick plays from the Red Bulls; the first was striker Cory Burke winning the ball from center back Philip Quinton, sending Quinton tumbling to the ground in the process, and on the second, New York intercepted a pass by Mo Farsi and quickly attacked back up the field. Red Bulls left back John Tolkin raced to get on the end of a pass from Cristian Casseres, and Tolkin floated a cross across the box to an unmarked Dante Vanzeir on the far post.

"We did well when we started the second half, to move the ball side to side and to attack and to keep the opportunity to attack the box," Nancy said. "But after that, when you don’t do that against New York Red Bulls, we know that we can be punished. This is what happened. They score two goals in transition."

The Crew want to play through the middle of the field and commit players forward in the attack, but when they lose the ball in those areas, as they did against New York, they're vulnerable to quick counterattacks. Quinton losing his footing before the first goal didn't help matters, as the Crew were suddenly defending the transition chance with one fewer defender in the play, but on the second goal, wingback Jimmy Medranda was within range of Vanzeir and didn't step in to mark him.

"We need to increase the intensity in terms of decision-making and we didn’t do it well," Nancy said. "After that, they had these opportunities. They didn’t change anything. They just put another striker and they kept going with the pressure. Again, us, we didn’t do well, on these two chances that they had."

bjohnson@dispatch.com

@BaileyAJohnson_

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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: MLS 2023 analysis: Columbus Crew loss to New York Red Bulls