New York (3-2-3) at Houston (2-3-4), 8:30 p.m.

Houston, TX (Sports Network) - Saturday's Major League Soccer fixture between the New York Red Bulls and Houston Dynamo is an important fixture for both sides for many reasons.

The Red Bulls are coming off one of their worst losses in franchise history, 5-1 at home to Chicago. They need a strong effort to get the taste of the embarrassing defeat out of their mouths as well as to keep pace in the competitive Eastern Conference.

The Dynamo will be entering the second game of a four-games-in-11-days stretch after playing to a 2-2 draw at Dallas on Wednesday. The team needs to string some wins together to get back in the Western race. It is currently three points back with an extra game played in the mediocre Western table.

Houston will be shorthanded on Saturday, however, with central defender Eddie Robinson being ejected from the Dallas game. On top of his absence due to the automatic one game suspension, midfielder Dwayne De Rosario and goalkeeper Pat Onstad will be absent because of their participation for the Canadian national team vs. Brazil on Sunday in a friendly.

All three players will be sorely missed vs. the Red Bulls, but De Rosario's absence will probably be felt the most. He had the game tying goal in stoppage time vs. Dallas on Wednesday to help his team earn a point, as well as an assist on the team's other goal. He teamed up with striker Brian Ching to drive the offense, which has been anemic to say the least so far this season.

"We definitely have a great understanding of each other," DeRosario said of partnering with Ching. "We played together forward in San Jose and that rubbed off a little bit tonight. When I'm up front, I have an idea of what he's going to do. So, I just try to put myself in a position to make it easy for him so he has an outlet."

"We changed the formation to get more guys forward and to get Dwayne [DeRosario] closer to goal," Houston coach Dominic Kinnear said. "I don't think our communication was good and we had some new players out there who hadn't played in a while. Sometimes guys are a little bit timid with their voice and their play."

New York is relatively healthy and should field a full lineup, which means the chips are in place for a bounce-back game. Top do that, they team will have to play much better than it did at home last weekend.

"We were a very easy team to play against," New York coach Juan Carlos Osorio said. "I didn't recall any physical contact between us and Cuauhtemoc [Blanco], Chad [Barrett], Justin [Mapp], and Chris Rolfe. We were not ready and it seemed to me from the start we were not interested."

"I just think for whatever reason, we got behind the 8-ball in the first half, 1-0," New York defender Hunter Freeman said. "In the second half, we're still in the game, 1-0. In the first 20 minutes, we didn't really do anything. I don't know if weren't ready, playing in the heat, I don't know. I'm not trying to make excuses but I've never seen us play like that, regardless for the whole 90 minutes."