Chicago Fire 2, Toronto FC 0
Q. Your team dug a hole early with some defensive miscues and didn't seem to muster much offense after that. What do you say to the players after that performance?
BOB BRADLEY: Terrible start. Put ourselves in a bad situation where, you know, we were trying to establish control in the game. And three minutes in, you know, Shane starts to dribble, the little roll he plays back to Chris, he's got better options. Chris has to handle the play better and at the end of it all, Q gets caught leaning and doesn't really give himself a chance.
You know, we're trying at that point to see if we can get back into it, get a strong response. Then another mistake off of a goalkeeper. We have a chance to slide over and try to win it in their half. Gutierrez makes a clever flick. Chris gets caught on the wrong side of Durán, and so now we really put ourselves in a spot. You know, we have a lot of the ball after that but in terms of really making more out of attacks, more of a threat, no, we didn't do enough.
Q. Anything that you liked about the performance tonight, any sort of positives that you can kind of hang your hat on going forward?
BOB BRADLEY: We've been talking about our midfield, adding Mark with Michael and Oso is going to be an important part of our team. You can see some moments of understanding between the other but when you get behind early and the other team is clogging the middle, and we don't enough from any of our attackers, that's not something we want to be very positive about.
I think that there's still a couple of guys that on a tough night away, try and keep everybody around them going in the second half. And even though we don't score, we keep going and so that -- I've talked a number of times this year that I still think there's some, there's good leadership and some resolve that comes from those guys.
And so we've got to keep that part going, and then, of course, look forward to adding a couple more guys and see if we can make a real run. Tonight we never gave ourselves a chance.
Q. Another game, mull goals, what needs to change to fix some of the defensive frailties with this team?
BOB BRADLEY: Yeah, I think that the goals we've given up lately have been mostly individual errors. Working hard with all of those guys to correct some things. You know, again, I already mentioned that a lot of times, chances start when you have the ball. So from a moment where we should have real stability, Shane's little pass to Chris, and even in that moment Chris under pressure can make a better decision and not let Durán get a foot in.
And then on the second one, on a goal kick if we are going to slide over like that, Chris's positioning as the ball gets flicked, he's on the wrong side of Durán. So those are individual mistakes that can't -- you can't have a good defensive game if you have a couple of those mistakes a game and that's still probably the thing that hurts us the most.
Q. From a coach's perspective, can you describe the mood in the dressing room following that result?
BOB BRADLEY: There's a mix. There's some guys that keep on top of the other guys and say this is how you become a good team, and make sure that the -- some of the guys who look like they are down and out, that you keep them alive, and then yeah, there's some guys that are dejected. You know, for sure, some guys that it's harder than they thought, you know, and it's not coming easy. And so you just have to as a group collectively keep them going. See if they can get better. See if they can keep their -- see if they can learn and become guys that now in a tough season can be counted on. So on a night like tonight, you know, we've had a lot of games this year where you would look around and say, yeah, maybe on a night we didn't have quite enough quality but tonight we had just not enough guys that, you know, in an away game where -- against a team that's just lost after being ahead by two goals, we didn't have enough guys tonight that really were ready for all parts of the game from the beginning.
Q. Is there any word on Mavinga's health?
BOB BRADLEY: He felt something in his hamstring. That's all that's been said so far, so we'll see.
Q. Just sort of on that note, too, with Mavinga going down, seemingly injured there, and Carlos Saucedo finally departing the club, where is your level of concern with the team's depth at center back now?
BOB BRADLEY: Yeah, it's an area where we are pretty thin, no doubt about that. But the work to build a strong team is -- there was a lot that needed to be done just to get rid of some guys, and now that we're at this point, there are areas where we've got to find ways to see if we can secure ourselves, and also just trying to get more from the guys you have.
There's no doubt we are thin in the center back. Going back to one of the questions -- a few questions ago, we've got to -- we've got to be a little stronger in the centre and the defense. Lately there's been still some plays where, you know, we feel like we played pretty well but just not handled a moment. Especially if you've done an away game, you can see that takes a lot out of the group.
Q. Pretty big game you guys have coming up in a couple days heading to Montréal. Maybe just what are you saying to the guys after today, looking to turn things around?
BOB BRADLEY: That we've got a big game coming up; that we need guys to learn from this game, strong guys, guys that as a group can push each other and help each other. Got to figure out now where some guys are health-wise, and see if we can respond.
Q. Forgive me if you've alluded to this already but your thoughts and impression on Mark Anthony's performance tonight?
BOB BRADLEY: Yeah, it's just good to get him here, get him on the field. You know, when he came off, he said that he felt comfortable in everything that was going on but felt like in certain situations, when he needed to close down a little faster, maybe get to a ball a little quicker, he just felt like he didn't have all of that. And so the good news is that he was able to play 60 minutes. He could have gone a little more but when he arrived and he felt a little something in the glute or the hamstring, we wanted to be smart about it tonight.
Look, football-wise, understanding the game, finding good spaces, knowing how to play with the other midfielders, knowing how to look forward, he's very good at seeing windows to play forward. And then I know that his comments, I would agree with that -- that he can be a bigger part of things defensively but that will come.
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