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Thursday, April 26, 2012

Injury List Continues to Grow for New York Red Bulls - Yahoo! Sports

Fans of the New York Red Bulls may want to consider changing their diets and beginning some training sessions. The team could certainly use a few additional players at this early stage of the 2012 Major League Soccer campaign.

The Red Bulls announced via the team's official website on Wednesday that center back Stephen Keel will miss at least the next three regular season matches due to a stress fracture in his back. According to the story, RBNY head coach Hans Backe told reporters that Keel will be out for a "minimum of three weeks." The bad news for the Red Bulls doesn't end there. Jan Gunnar Solli picked up a calf injury in this past Sunday's 4-1 loss at DC United. Solli may be a game-time decision this upcoming Saturday when the Red Bulls host the New England Revolution.

Trying to keep track of all of the players missing from the current New York squad gets harder and harder to do with every day. Defender Wilman Conde (groin) and midfielder Teemu Tainio (knee) aren't expected to return to the club until the middle of May. Roy Miller, still dealing with a knee injury, may not return for another week. Juan Agudelo, who is also recovering from a knee injury, won't be back until early or mid-May. Rafa Marquez won't be available until the May 9 match against Houston Dynamo. Marquez is in the middle of serving a three-game suspension.

New York have been somewhere between awful and "I can't believe I'm still watching this game" when playing matches without several lineup mainstays on the field over the past two months. Markus Holgersson, the only starting defender who isn't dealing with any fitness issues, has been mistake-prone in nearly all of New York's contests thus far this season. Connor Lade looked very much like a rookie in the 4-1 loss at DC. The team's midfield has produced little to nothing without both Marquez and Tainio on the pitch, and Joel Lindpere has struggled to even crack into the team's starting lineup.

It's still extremely early into the season, but the Red Bulls cannot afford to go an entire month without picking up a win (see May 2011 for an example of such a run of play). They host a New England side that could use a game against a lackluster back line this Saturday before traveling to LA Galaxy on May 5. New York then host the Houston Dynamo on May 9, and they are away to the Philadelphia Union on May 13. Dropping points in more than one of those contests could find New York in the bottom half of the MLS Eastern Conference when they travel to expansion side Montreal Impact on May 19.

Spring has not been kind to the Red Bulls, and summer is still months away.

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