Lloyd Sam's injury is not all that serious, but his place in the starting lineup is still not a given this weekend.
Sam left the New York Red Bulls' disappoiting scoreless draw vs. CD FAS in the CONCACAF Champions League on Wednesday in the 16th minute after suffering tightness in his right hamstring, and his availability for Sunday's game at the LA Galaxy was immediately put into question. Sam's status for the intra-conference clash was still unknown as of early Friday, but head coach Mike Petke did not sound overly concerned about the injury that his regular right midfielder is currently dealing with.
"Lloyd's going to be okay. He felt a little something beforehand but wanted to go and then after 10 minutes, he really felt it," said Petke via a conference call on Friday. "That's one of the big things about competitions, about balancing who plays and who doesn't. You want to put out a strong team, but you know you have other things to worry about as well. These are the situations right here that come back to haunt you.
"We actually have another player, [Ambroise] Oyongo, who is struggling after that game, so I don't know what his status is going to be. But as of now, Lloyd's gotten some rest over the last day-and-a-half, gotten some treatment and he'll practice today and we'll see how he feels."
While Sam and Oyongo are question marks heading into the weekend, the star trio of Thierry Henry, Tim Cahill and Bradley Wright-Phillips are ready to go. Henry, Cahill and Wright-Phillips were nursing injuries and missed the match in El Salvador on Wednesday that eliminated New York from the Champions League, but Petke said Friday that they are all rested and healthy enough to play from the opening whistle if need be.
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That does not mean they can all go the distance, which could leave Petke to have to devise a plan similar to the one he used in this past weekend's impressive 4-1 triumph over the Seattle Sounders. Petke started Henry and Wright-Phillips in that game, but replaced the Englishman with Cahill early in the second half after the veteran forward had scored his third hat trick of the season.
"I think everybody minus perhaps one player in the whole team that's here right now is able to start," said Petke. "As far as going 90, that's a minute-to-minute decision and minute to minute take stock and look at how things are gong. Last game against Seattle, Bradley, we were going to potentially take him off at halftime. Thank God, we didn't because of what he did early in the second half, but we knew he couldn't go the full game.
"The same with Tim. That's why we swapped the two of them instead of having the both of them on the field at the same time. We started with one and put the other one one and it worked for us. I couldn't tell you how long they could go all go, but they all are avaiable to start."
