St. Louis 5, Cincinnati 1
Q. How did you guys spend those two hours?
BRADLEY CARNELL: Yeah, the guys keep themselves busy in the locker room obviously with some analysts going on the East Coast, so we were able to pick up some games.
Yeah, just have some about fun. I just heard some good stories in the locker room, and yeah, it was our purpose to come out of the locker room as energized as that as what we were for two hours. It was incredible to see the boys hanging about with a bunch of friends, and yeah, just good teammates.
Yeah, obviously to get the goal early on, it's kind of a massive weight lifted off the shoulders. You can feel the relief of the group and you could feel the energy of the group and they were really excited for that.
Yeah, I think Jared obviously didn't play the last game, so I think that's his third goal now. So yeah, I think Jared's a worker. He has some final third quality, and I'm happy he could reward himself then, which then advertently rewards the team later on and sets the tone for the game.
Q. Rasmus Alm, back from injury tonight after being out a couple games. What did you see from him?
BRADLEY CARNELL: Yeah, I think we could have pushed him in the last game already. But with the medical staff and Jarryd Phillips, head of performance, just making sure that if he's ready to go, he needs to come with an impact, right, not to like just see how it is for a couple of minutes and try and try and try.
But we wanted to know, if he can go, he has to go with 100 percent mentality, and free in his mind mentality to say that it's okay, right.
So we knew nothing was broken, nothing structural, so it was important for us to know when he is ready to go hundred percent, and I'm glad he could show it just with the qualities he possesses. He's a threat against the ball and he's a threat with the ball, and I'm glad he could -- I don't know, is that an on-ball? I'm not sure if that's classed as an on-ball, but still I'm happy for him.
Q. Following up on Rasmus Alm, can you describe what he was doing specifically to make such an important impact on tonight's game?
BRADLEY CARNELL: Yeah, I just think the energy he puts on the opponent. When we are on the front foot closing down time and space, he's got an ability to close down time and space. He has a good reading of the space and a good reading of the passing consequence sequences and he gets into good spots early on. So that's one of his qualities, and yeah, I think you can see it many, many times.
And then he's got the ability to come back in the game and he's got the ability to connect. For us it was really important tonight to work as a unit and work as a collective, and keep our frame intact.
It got away from us a little bit in the second half but we were just all so happy to get some guys some runs who didn't get minutes, who had not got many minutes. But yeah, disappointed that we couldn't keep the shutout for Roman.
Q. Played a lot of tight, low-scoring games all season and you had a big lead early in the game. How do you approach the tactics when all of a sudden you've scored three, four goals?
BRADLEY CARNELL: The complexion starts to change, and you know, a 2-0 score line, a 3-0 score line, can still be, if you shoot those early on, can still be a tricky result to manage to the end of the game, right.
So I don't think we are too ignorant or arrogant or inexperienced enough to think that we'll just throw any changes and just give guys a run out who haven't really played. But as the game progressed, we really wanted to get guys in, like Selmir Pidro, Akil Watts, Celio Pompeu, I wish I could have got him on a little bit earlier.
But yeah, we know we've got games coming up, and we know we have got midweek games coming up. So we wanted to make sure that we keep everyone fresh and ticking along.
Yeah, just excited for the group, and like I said, just a little bit of a -- yeah, sticks in my -- 5-0, I don't think it was a 5-0 game; I think they had one or two chances too many, in my opinion as the game went on, but we were a little bit loose.
But then if it is a 5-0 score line, we want to keep it that way. We want to keep the clean sheets, and that's the only thing that's upsetting me right now.
Q. Löwen, other than that goal, can you talk about how good of a defensive performance he put in?
BRADLEY CARNELL: Really good because we spoke about our sixes and the connection of our sixes with Indy and Edu, a lot of they are quality comes from their wing backs in their 3-4-3 system. If they are dribbling on the inside, Barreal on the one side, Arias on the other side, this is a big quality of theirs to create overloads, and if we shift and connect with one step too late, unfortunately they can create some headlock.
So yeah, that was a real proud moment for Edu to go as he did and get stronger as the game went on, besides his goal, I think he was connected every single time. We speak about the weak side pivot and whatever, but yeah he just did enough to make sure that he's defensively solid.
When we won the ball in transition, he was clean on the ball. When there's a bit of an edginess in the game then he's really strong and can ride tackles and challenges as well. So it was a complete performance.
Q. Gio was asked midweek about how he has a striker's mentality. What do you think of his performance tonight?
BRADLEY CARNELL: Yeah, really good. Gio works hard in training. Gio enjoys his training. He enjoys winning games. Yeah, he enjoys scoring goals and getting around the final third. We played him at times as a floating striker, was just underneath a little bit and then we put him up top high with Klauss, so he shows a lot of flexibility as well.
Yeah, he's growing. He's growing all the time. He needs some people around him to have confidence in him, and I think he's found a good environment for him to perform, right. He's a bit of an artist and he enjoys that type of game. And yeah, he's got the qualities to change a game, he's got the qualities to accelerate a game, and he's got qualities to break a game. Yeah, he's got weapons of tools of running behind. He's very technical underneath. He can create a lot of havoc.
Q. Was there ever a point that you thought you might not play tonight? And also, you started by thanking the fans. What was the atmosphere like? You guys took the field, did it help you fire back up? I think there were 15,000 fans that stuck around.
BRADLEY CARNELL: Yeah, we were, I don't want to say we were surprised, we were not surprised, but it's amazing when you walk out there and you think, wow, there's so many that stayed and endured this with us, and that's why that was first off my lips because yeah, I even said it to John Hackworth on kickoff, that's the first thing I want to do after the game is thank the fans. Yeah, this was amazing.
Q. Was there ever a doubt you were going to play or were you pretty convinced you would get it in?
BRADLEY CARNELL: We were pretty coined and edge we got finished after midnight. So I think we finished a little bit earlier than a couple years ago.
Q. You were talking about you don't think this was a 5-1 came. Can you talk about what went right and what went wrong?
BRADLEY CARNELL: We took our chances. We speak and preach about getting shots on frame. The more pressure we can apply on the opponent and we force some crucial turnovers and it changes the momentum of the game. If we can jump those past us and end them with final plays and just exude a lot of pressure and create a lot of havoc on the opponent, then we start to thrive. You can see, we are on the front foot, we are going all the time and it just creates errant passes.
So yeah, I was really happy with that from tonight's performance, and yeah, where we start wanting to enjoy the show too much, right. So everyone is attacking and we lose a little bit of shape and a little bit of scroll in the mid feel and the gaps start to appear front to back, so that's the worst thing when your three departments are stretches all over the field and there's no compactness.
So for us we just try and reset it a few times and yeah, listen, it was a good chance to have.
Q. You said this week was about your team. What did you learn? What did you see from your team tonight for a game like this against a team who is at the top of the table?
BRADLEY CARNELL: Yeah, we never really want to speak about anything's broken, right. We are the creatures or the creators of our own destiny, right. We got off the blocks really quickly with the five wins, and so we as a group set our standards really high and when we lose two in a row, and then it doesn't feel great, right.
So then how is the bounceback, without anything being broken, because yeah, everyone expects us to lose in Seattle, and yes, we lost in Seattle. So totally fine. But to accept that mentality, mentally-wise, it's not easy to travel back, arrive at 6:00 AM and do it all for nothing.
So how do we bounce back? Yeah, just try and keep it competitive. Try and keep things jovial, fun, loose, but still serious. There's just a bit of mixture in training, how much do you push the needle, how much do you drive intensities and then how much do you loosen up and enjoy it.
And so there's just always this ebb and flow, and yeah, a little bit of balance between the chaos and the intensity we bring, and yeah, guys still like to compete.
Q. You had five different goal scorers tonight, I guess you could call it five different goal scorers tonight and everyone played a role in scoring in some way throughout the game. What do you think that says about your team and what they can do?
BRADLEY CARNELL: Yeah, I say that all the time. I see our principles are strong and we have trust and belief in every player. I wish Celio would have gotten on the score sheet. He would have been great, too. He trains every single day in a really high level. Just to try and find the ways and the mechanisms to try and get him in the game from all the different profiles that we are looking for tactically as well as positionally, so from that point of view, I'm just really excited.
Yeah, we have faith and confidence in our players and in our rosters, but again, it's our biggest enemy, as well, because then everyone wants to play 90 minutes, and unfortunately, you know, there's only one game a weekend and that's only 90 minutes. So we have to try and manage that as well and so far, the players have been incredible.
Q. I'm curious, you guys are obviously atop the Supporter Shield standings right now, and I think probably at least external expectations around you guys are raising significantly. How do you maybe guard against complacency potentially while also still pushing on and saying, you know what, we are ahead of schedule maybe, how do we push on and go for more?
BRADLEY CARNELL: Great question. I think it's just like we said, this whole group this evening, we said this week, this is about us, right, and total expectations are growing after eight match days. We know where those expectations were after match day one, so we are not playing that game. We are playing the game that we want to control and dictate and we'll leave the outside chatter, we'll just leave it as that, outside chatter, what we want to achieve internally stays with us and drives us every single day.
I don't think there's any cause for complacency when you have just lost your last two game and you didn't score a goal, right. So that pushed us. We were unhappy about that and yeah, the guys, I wanted them to play with courage, drive and passion and that's what they did.
Q. How good did it feel to get Selmir in the game?
BRADLEY CARNELL: Really good. Awesome. You can see he's really good in a 1v1 challenge. Yes, he gets caught a little high off the goal we concede, but again, he worked his way into the game and made some crucial challenges and played some good vertical balls. Started some good sequences in the attack.
Yeah, we know we have two weapons on the left back position on the outside back position, so from that point of view, we know the games are coming up thick and fast and the calendar now gets condensed over the next two months, so yeah, we are excited to get him some minutes.
Q. Is that an armband, black armband you were wearing?
BRADLEY CARNELL: It was. Our team administrator, Bomi Park, had to travel to South Korea, and I'll leave it at that. She lost a family member.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports