Ryan Spaulding Energizes Off Of Bench

“He [Spaulding] brought energy. I just think at times, hunger is necessary, and he's hungry."

Photo By Spenser Powell

The saying goes that a hungry dog runs faster and its safe to say that it’s true as Ryan Spaulding was running up and down the pitch on Saturday afternoon.

Spaulding replaced Andrew Farrell in the 61st minute. The young left back went on to complete 90 percent of his passes while tallying 33 touches and a chance created.

Head coach Caleb Porter was pleased with the energy that Spaulding was able to bring off the bench.

“He [Spaulding] brought energy,” the head coach stated. “I just think at times, hunger is necessary, and he's hungry. He's left-footed, he can get forward and cross, and so we've got to continue to look at that, for sure. I have a lot of things on my list that I won't share, but there's things we've got to continue to look at, for sure. And I know what we have, I know what needs to change, I know a little bit, maybe, what we need to tinker with. Some of that is training, some of that is confidence, some of that is just Ryan. Throw him in there and put DeJuan [Jones] on the right, now you've got a right and a left guy that can get forward.”

The 25-year-old has made six appearences so far this season with his lone start coming against LD Alajuelense down in Costa Rica. In his five MLS appearances he has only racked up a measley 70 minutes played.

Spaulding seems to understand his role. He knows when he is brought into the game he needs to bomb forwards and try and spur New England into a goal.

“Yeah I mean, I think that's kind of my role when I when I go into the game at that point,” the outside back said. “Caleb pulls me over, he's just like, make sure I'm getting forward, bringing energy, and that's all I really try to do. I think just having me and DeJuan [Jones] both out there at the same time, it just gives us a pretty attacking option even though we're both outside backs and try to get the ball in the box as much as possible and create some opportunities and I thought we did that.”

If Porter wanted Spaulding to provide a spark off the bench, it was a job well done. With Brandon Bye still ways away from returning and some fixture congestion on the horizon, Spaulding could be in line for some more minutes.