The New York Red Bulls are enjoying a five-match home win streak as they prepare to face the only club to beat them over the last two months.
The last-place Chicago Fire's road winless streak in league play is up to 21 games, though one of the more recent places they have won is Red Bull Arena.
The Red Bulls clearly have revenge on their minds and can move atop the Eastern Conference standings Friday night by beating the lowly Fire.
New York (12-7-6) boasts the league's second-best goal differential at plus-15. The Red Bulls are two points behind first-place D.C. United with three games in hand.
The club is enjoying a 6-1-1 overall run, with the lone blemish a 3-2 loss at Chicago (7-14-6) on Aug. 26. New York bounced back with a 3-0 home win over D.C. four days later.
"We obviously weren't happy with the result there, and to come back in that D.C. game and really make a statement that we weren't happy with that performance and we're better than that (was important)," defender Connor Lade told the club's official website.
The Red Bulls also took exception to what they felt was some overly physical play by the Fire. Coach Jesse Marsch isn't hesitating to use that to motivate his club.
"There's a couple of things that happened in the game that we thought were crossing the line a little bit, so nothing other than make sure that we're motivated, that this is a team that we know is desperate and that they're going to feel good about playing against us," he said.
Bradley Wright-Phillips had two goals and an assist against United after being held off the scoresheet by the Fire.
Chicago is 11-3-4 in the last 18 meetings and 5-1-1 in the last seven, including a 5-4 victory in its last visit to New Jersey on May 10, 2014, behind Harry Shipp's hat trick. Its next road win was July 12 over New England last year before this winless stretch.
The Fire fell to 0-14-7 in their last 21 on the road with Saturday's 4-3 defeat to Montreal. The league's lone winless road team (0-8-5) took a 3-2 lead on Kennedy Igboananike's 59th-minute goal before conceding twice within the next six minutes.
"We've got to pick ourselves up and try and get a good performance and a win in New York now," coach Frank Yallop told the Fire's official site. "We'll keep going. It's obviously a disappointing result."
Igboananike has five goals in his last five games, including two in the New York match. Shipp assisted on Igboananike's last goal, but has gone 16 games without scoring.
The Red Bulls should be well-equipped to slow down the Fire this time since defenders Kemar Lawrence and Karl Ouimette are back after missing two matches due to international duty. Defender Damien Perrinelle was suspended for the last matchup for New York, which has outscored foes 13-1 in its home win streak.
"We should feel like we owe them a little bit and we'll make sure that we play with a chip on our shoulder come Friday," Marsch said.
