Recap: Atlanta United falls to 10-man New York Red Bulls, 1-0

Atlanta United were up 11 men to 10 for 55 minutes of its match against the New York Red Bulls, but RBNY showed as the better team as Tom Barlow’s 65th-minute goal stood as the game winner in a 1-0 victory. Atlanta are still winless at Red Bull Arena and have seen its five-game winning streak and shutout streak come to an end.

It looked as if things would break for Atlanta in the first half. In the 35th minute, Tim Parker was sent off on a red card for denying Josef Martinez a clear scoring chance. It appeared to be a little soft at first glance, but the replay showed that Parker had in fact impeded Martinez’s path to the goal.

Atlanta United couldn’t take advantage behind a sleepy attack and very few serious attempts at goal. Its best chance came as Josef Martinez had a one-on-one with Luis Robles, but inexplicably failed to get a shot on at the end and was dispossessed. Meanwhile, the Red Bulls scored in the 65th minute through Tom Barlow, who headed in a nice pass from Daniel Royer to beat Brad Guzan far-post and put New York up despite being a man light.

Whether it was fatigue or not, dropping a result like this to a shorthanded team - shorthanded for a good chunk of the match, in fact - won’t sit well. And it won’t get any easier as Atlanta heads West once more to take on Real Salt Lake on Friday.

As for the big picture between these two sides? They meet again at the Benz on July 7. It will be interesting to see if there’s any carryover from an incident between Kemar Lawrence and Tito Villalba in stoppage time. Lawrence took Villalba down on a collision and taunted him while Villalba was lying on the floor. Obviously, Villalba took exception and had a little face time with the Jamacian after the final whistle.

The league would like to paint Atlanta United and Orlando City as a rivalry (and, in fairness, both front offices would as well), but incidents like that plant some seeds. (You know FOX and the national media will be playing it up.) I have to agree with Chris Fuhrmeister’s tweet, which echoes a few of my thoughts while watching this match play out:

Back to the result itself: the hope was that Atlanta would get at least something out of it if even a point. But a largely listless performance, highlighted by sloppy passing throughout and a regressive showing from Pity Martinez, will sit with the club over the next few days. It’s going to be a long week leading up to RSL on Friday.