New England Revolution head coach Jay Heaps

It was a hard-fought match by us. I thought our first half was really good. The second half, when you’re up a goal and you’re at home, I thought we worked hard in the first half and I thought they had a pretty good run of play, some chances. But overall, in the end, I thought we had more chances to score. I thought the game should’ve been over before half. But credit New York for fighting. It was nice to get the second goal for the win.

Frank Dell’Apa … Can I ask Frank Dell’Apa? Frank Dell’Apa first. Haven’t seen you forever, Frank. Enough of the NBA stuff. Now on to the real stuff … what happened with Ray Allen?

I’m not satisfied at all. I don’t want to use last year as any type of measuring stick. We’re a different group. We have different mentality, just like we’re a different mentality than the teams that were really good around here in ’05, ’06, ’07. I think we have a different style of play and we have different personalities, so to compare I think would be short-sighted on our end. From where I am, unfortunatey we’ve let a couple of games get away from us. I don’t love that, but I love that our team works hard at home, plays well at home and makes it hard for teams to play against us here. But in the end, we still have room for improvement, aren’t satisfied at all and don’t want to use last year as any type of measuring stick.

(My dream debut for Jerry Bengtson would be to) put him in the 60th minute and have him score! I wish … It’s not an easy transition. He literally signed his contract and joined our team in less than 12 hours. I think we have to manage expectations and make sure that he acclimates well. He’s done that. He’s coming in, getting to know the team. But to throw him out there for more than that would’ve been unfair to him. But that’s the kind of game we want him to fight for headers. He was all by himself on an island with one striker and Saer (Sene) out wide just to open up the defense. But I think you’re going to see more goals like he scored where it’s a poachers goal. He’s offside on the first part of the build up, but then he comes back onside and he fights off the goalkeeper and scores. Those are his kind of goals and we need someone who puts those away.

It’s not so much of what I observe from a technical standpoint. It was more of what he did, come in, talking to his teammates. Fernando (Cardenas) and he have struck up a nice relationship. So you want to see how they react with each other. You have to manage the team in the locker room and you can’t expect a player coming in to start. I never liked it when I was a player and I think you earn your way in, and minutes like tonight will get him more shots.

I thought Bobby (Shuttleworth) did an excellent job tonight. He communicated, he did well on crosses. Quite frankly, Bobby’s been playing really well in training and in the reserve games. I take a hard focus on rserve games nad Bobby’s had a really good run in those. And so it was a combination of things with Matt. First of all, we wanted to get him a rest. This is the longest he’s gone without a break. But also Bobby’s been playing well enough to get out there and we also wanted to shore up some air balls. We all know the few gaems we’ve given up some poor goals and we wanted to have a little more … Bobby has a commanding presence in the air and that’s what he showed.

(Goals allowed the last few games) were mistakes. It’s good. I think A.J. (Soares) and Stephen (McCarthy), particularly A.J., manned up tonight and did an excellent job on every time he came across. I thought Kevin Alston had a really good game making plays and coming across. And Chris Tierney, he had a tough assignment on Dane Richards, and I thought Chris Tierney, for 90 minutes, absolutely shut down their play.

Definitely not in Toronto, but with Seattle, I was happy with our first half. That’s not true. I was happy with how we started that game and felt as if we scored another in that game against Seattle, it would have been our game. But we made two mistakes right before half. Tonight we didn’t make those mistakes. We stayed focused and you could see our backline was communicating a bit more and there was a little more energy. I think you could see that tonight when the ball would go up the field and we would take those five, 10 yards to make sure we ate up some space and the lines between the midfield, forwards and defense was tight and that was important tonight.

New England Revolution goalkeeper Bobby Shuttleworth

(I found out) Friday. I’m working every week to try and play so any opportunity I can get I’m going to try and take it.

I think this was a really big win for us. I think as a group, we really needed this for our morale going into the rest of the season trying to push up the table.

I can’t say enough about the guys and what they did tonight. We kept a tight line; they really didn’t have that many chances. The one that (Kenny) Cooper hits the post doesn’t matter. Other than that, I can’t think of a chance they had really. We kept everything in front of us and stayed sharp.

I was kind of screened a little bit (on Kenny Cooper’s shot that went off the post), so I didn’t get a great look at it but once it came off his foot I was kind of just wishing, “Please don’t go in, please don’t go in.”

Last season was pretty tough for me personally. I didn’t get a win all (last) year, so first game of the season to get a shutout and a win, it feels good and I’m sure it feels great for the guys.

I think the Reserve League is very important for a guy like me. Especially me not getting a game for the first half of the year, I’ve probably played four or five reserve games, an Open Cup game, and it’s been the thing where I’m not playing in first-team games but I’m able to stay sharp in the Reserve League games so that when I’m called upon I can contribute and be ready to play.

New England Revolution defender Chris Tierney

(The defensive performance) was great. If you look at A.J. (Soares) and Stephen McCarthy, I thought they were awesome. (Kenny) Cooper’s a handful and they did a really good job dealing with it, so we’re really pleased with those two guys. Kevin (Alston) was strong and Bobby (Shuttleworth) did very well, everything he was asked of. So I thought overall, they had a lot of the ball but we kept them in front and limited them to a few half chances. Cooper hit the bar - that was a good chance - but otherwise I thought we were good, we were solid.

You’ve just got to respect (Dane Richards’) speed and try to keep him in front. We were talking about it before. I figured if I jammed him early, don’t let him get a head of steam going then he couldn’t hurt me. So I tried to be up tight on him, be close to him and make them try to play elsewhere, which I thought I did a decent job. He’s so fast, he’s going to get his chances in behind, but I thought overall A.J. (Soares) covered well for me when he did sneak in. I think all of us did pretty well back there.

I actually thought I’d kind of screwed that one up, to be honest. I was looking to Saer (Sene) on the overlap, but (Brandon) Barklage did a good job jumping out so I hit the panic button a little bit. But I just squared one to Lee (Nguyen) - it wasn’t a great ball or anything - but Lee’s just top class, takes a touch and smashes it lower corner. We’ll take it.

I love playing with Lee (Nguyen). He’s as technical as you get in this league. He’s been awesome for us all year and I think we have a good understanding of when one goes, one covers. What he doesn’t get enough credit for is how hard he works. You see his work rate. He’s not only creating for us offensively and controlling the game, but he’s always tracking back and getting in tackles. He’s top class. I can’t say enough about him.

New England Revolution midfielder Lee Nguyen

Thankfully, (Chris Tierney) played me a ball with enough pace on it to give me time to take a touch towards goal and take a shot. It was just a nice setup from the beginning to the end.

I think we just kind of sat back and invited them to come play and come at us (during the second half.) I think we’ve got to learn from that and keep going. Try to go for a second goal, third goal.

Jay (Heaps) put (Jerry Bengtson) on for that exact reason, to help us get forward and hopefully try to get a second. You can tell that they were trying to press us and it kind of left them vulnerable for the counterattack. So with his pace he was able to get behind the defense and get that second goal for us which was crucial.

Just to get that second goal, it took a lot of pressure off our center backs.

(Winning) was huge, especially at home. We need to get three points and now going into the next game it’s going to give us confidence and hopefully we can make it a couple wins in a row and push up the leaderboard.

New York Red Bulls head coach Hans Backe

Tonight was a tough time for us. We could have been two down and responded well in the second half. With a little bit of luck we could have scored, picked up two, three decent chances from some plays. It was quite close. We could have gotten a tie, but we are without six regulars. I cannot expect much more from these guys. They did what they could do with the energy they showed in the second half. Of course, we are too short-handed.

(Thierry Henry) has a problem with his calf. Every time he does turf games he picks up a calf issue. So we cannot play him on these kinds of turf.

Yeah, it’s annoying (to play without guys because of injuries.) We haven’t played two games in a row with a full-strength team, and if you look now with the guys – with [Jan Gunnar] Solli out, [Markus] Holgersson out, [Heath] Pearce out, [Rafa] Marquez out, [Teemu] Tainio out, [Thierry] Henry out – that is six starters. So in a way, you can say that the depth this year is very good. These guys played quite well a month ago, and I think we won five in a row with almost the same team. But, at the end of the day, you cannot pick up wins as we did earlier.

On getting a lot out of his “depth guys:”

Hopefully when it comes into October, November we’ll play off some things like that. They have got good minutes, competitive minutes in this league, and that will help us if we pick up injuries. I think now it’s just about looking for three, four more weeks and probably all of the guys will be back then.

As I said, the way they responded in the second half – with a little bit of luck, we could have tied the game at a 1-1 game.

New York Red Bulls defender Stephen Keel

It’s a tough loss on the road. I think with a win, we would have been first place outright. We’ve got to go back, figure out what we can do better, and we have a big game on Sunday with Seattle coming in. We have to turn our efforts there. As far as injuries: every team has injuries, so that’s no excuse. We’ve got to bounce back and get three points at home.

I think if you look at our roster, I think pretty much every guy has played significant minutes and contributed to winning. We have experience, and some of the experience levels are just out of this world. That obviously helps, and that will help us moving forward.

We knew it was going to be a battle and they’re a quality team. We knew it was going to be a fight from the beginning, so we wanted to stay compact. We wanted to keep a clean sheet and give ourselves a chance.

New York Red Bulls forward Kenny Cooper

Obviously we’re disappointed and I think we all are. You never want to lose to a local rival and you never want to lose any game, so I think we’re all disappointed. We go back home now and have three home games on the run, and we’ll get in front of our fans and hopefully bounce back then.

We had some good attacks and some good quality going forward in the second half and had some good opportunities. I had a couple myself that I should have done better with. We could have made it 1-1, and they ended up going down and getting another. Again, not the result I think any of us wanted, but we’ll learn from it and hopefully we’ll put things right next week.

On his shot that hit the post:

It was a good counter attack and I think Joel (Lindpere) put me in and Connor (Lade) showed great energy moving forward. (Lade) made a great overlapping run and space opened up, so I was able to get a shot off. Close but no cigar.