Pick the Houston Dynamo Lineup against New York City FC

The Houston Dynamo have a winning streak going with back-to-back wins for the first time since the end of last season. That will be tested when they play New York City FC at BBVA Compass Stadium. For the Dynamo, they’re coming off one of their most complete performances of the season with Mauro Manotas leading the way with 3 goals in the Dynamo 3-1 win over the Portland Timbers. The Dynamo haven’t played NYCFC this season, but drew them 1-1 last year at Yankee Stadium with Will Bruin and David Villa trading goals.

Interim Manager Wade Barrett has made predicting lineups both easy and difficult as he typically uses the same personnel, but feels free to shift them around the field as he sees necessary. He benched playmaker Cristian Maidana last week and shifted his usual formation from a 4-1-4-1 to a 4-2-3-1 as he pushed Alex Lima out wide and moved Oscar Boniek Garcia into the CAM role. Andrew Wenger also made his return to the starting lineup as he’s missed out due to injury the last few weeks.

Defensively, the Dynamo have been pretty good at minimizing mistakes, but they’ve still shown up at times. While I doubt Barrett will change his backline up given the team has won 2 games and allowed only 1 goal in the past 2 matches, he could elect to insert David Horst back into central defense which could push Jalil Anibaba back to right back. It’s harder to tell how the midfield might shape up and it will heavily depend on whether or not WB rocks the 4-1-4-1 or the 4-2-3-1.

The Dynamo are pretty healthy overall with only goalkeeper Tyler Deric, central defender Agus, and midfielder/winger Rob Lovejoy listed on the injury report. Defender Kevin Garcia is also reportedly going to be with Rio Grande Valley FC the following day so it’s unlikely for him to feature.

My Projected Starting Lineup

There really isn’t much reason to change the lineup too much if the team is on a winning streak unless players can’t play for some reason so I expect a very similar lineup. Instead of keeping Andrew Wenger at RM, I think we’ll see Chaco Maidana regain his starting role after his role as maestro when he came on providing a quality assist to Mauro Manotas to complete his hat-trick. That would push Boniek Garcia to RM with Chaco playing CAM and the rest of the players at the same positions. The one drop off is Boniek’s defensive capabilities compared to Wenger, which could come in handy against a talented NYCFC offense, but I think we take it to them in this one.

There are plenty of options to choose from so who do you want to see start against New York City FC? Let us know below and share your starting squad in the comments below!