A brace from Thierry Henry has helped New York Red Bulls secure a 2-1 home victory over Montreal Impact in the MLS.

The hosts started the game strongly and should have taken the lead in the 18th minute when Henry found space in the box but he could only fire his shot wide.

The former Arsenal man's miss almost came back to haunt him when Montreal came close to breaking the deadlock but Sanna Nyassi's effort smacked the crossbar and went over.

Nyassi was in again seconds later as he was put through behind the New York defence but he couldn't lift his shot over Luis Robles, who made a good stop.

The Red Bulls took the lead just before half time as Henry opened the scoring from close range, tapping Fabian Espindola's pass into the net after Eric Alexander had hit the bar.

New York could have doubled their lead after the break but Alexander was denied again, this time by Troy Perkins who saved his low headed effort and Juninho's rebound was cleared off the line by Matteo Ferrari.

The hosts had to wait until the 88th minute to get their second but it was worth the wait as Henry fired a spectacular overhead kick past Perkins from Markus Holgersson's flick-on from a corner.

The Impact got a goal back almost immediately as a loose pass from Robles went straight to Justin Mapp and he put through Marco di Vaio, who made no mistake finding the net, but it was too little too late as New York held out for the win.