St. Louis 2, DC 2
BRADLEY CARNELL: First of all, just want to apologize to the fans, you know, it frustrates me a little bit when fans pay hard earned cash to get tickets and watch a soccer game and there's no rhythm to the game and there's no real action. We pride ourselves on action and unfortunately, yeah, it was a little bit of disruption of rhythm tonight.
So you know, for me, I hurt for the fans because they deserve more. And then yeah, to my team, you know, I'm proud that we go a goal up. Not so proud that we concede straightaway in two games where we give away these moments from the kickoff. So it's something to reflect on, something we're going to have to get better at and something we have to look at a little bit more intensely. By focus was not on the soccer match, no real soccer rhythm tonight. We showed guts and desire to get back in the game but those are the least of my thoughts tonight, and yeah, my thoughts are with the fans.
Q. Giving up that goal, you looked frustrated on the bench after that happened. Was it just the team not being in the moment?
BRADLEY CARNELL: Yeah, it's difficult, the long goals and these rhythm of the plays and stuff like that. Every game poses a different problem. You know, which means we have to look at ourselves because now against two different opponents and two different situations. It's really frustrating. You know, but yeah, they came, they battled away, broke down the play. They did what they needed to do.
Q. Seemed like you were okay with the ties on the road because those were road points but coming home and getting a tie --
BRADLEY CARNELL: Sure, again, I don't know. We play an aggressive game, and you know, there's usually a lot of stoppages, corners when we play because we are forcing things out of bounds. We are forcing interceptions. But yeah, just to see the ball-in-play time diminish becomes real frustrating when there's no rhythm to the game.
Q. Are you talking about the rhythm stopping, subbing the match, caution cards and calls? And also going to that, do the D.C. United share that same sentiment on the soccer being played tonight?
BRADLEY CARNELL: I don't know. You'll have to evaluate who was trying to speed up the play, who was not trying to speed up the play. I think that's a question for you and for your observation.
Q. How important do you think that goal was for Klauss to finally get a goal this season and hopefully boost his confidence?
BRADLEY CARNELL: Massive. I think he's been working his tail off to try to get in moments. You can see he gets an assist from Nökkvi, and on another day Nökkvi will put it in the back of the net and win the game. I thought again, it's been a couple weeks now in a row where we make an impact off the bench. We keep guys hungry, and we give guys starts. There's a certain rhythm to our game and we feel pretty good up until the point that we score our goal.
And then I think we dominated much of the proceedings tonight, and so it's massive for Klauss to get into good spots. He's got his fitness back, you can see. He doesn't stop working for the 90 minutes and he's a real menace up top. He's working his way back and the harder you work, you know your game is in better situations and he did so tonight.
Q. Given the situations with D.C. missing a couple players, you only got the draw, do you think it was a miss opportunity to take three points?
BRADLEY CARNELL: Yeah, it was, and you could also mention a couple names off our roster as well.
Q. Talking about the first goal, you were disappointed by the second goal, but Josh, getting in that position, he's becoming a real important player for you this year. What did that moment mean for him and for you watching?
BRADLEY CARNELL: It's massive. To get a corner kick, there has somebody some form of momentum, some final third entry, some final play. We have been challenging the guys to have many more of these moments and I think you can see some real good stuff in the first half where we just don't get off that final -- then we get the corner deflection, or what-have-you, and then we get to some good quality service.
You know, whether it's Löwen, AZ, Pompeu, I think we are pretty unpredictable at set pieces, but for us, it's predictable and that's the most important thing because it's about getting in the right spot early on and making the right ones and it's about rewarding ourselves. With the strength of them in their defensive block, you look at the way they defend, it's not so easy to beat that. So you know, credit to Alex setting up the set piece play and now we reward ourselves again.
Q. Predictable, Célio comes in off the bench and does one of those things that he does on that run that sets up the penalty kick. I guess you're always looking for that?
BRADLEY CARNELL: Yeah, we're looking for some change of rhythm, change of pace, creativity. He is that from the beginning of the game and we know last week, whether we start or bring on Sam, or start and bring on Klauss or start and bring on Célio, you know, so these are always equations we are playing with. We thought two strikers was the way to go tonight and I think early on you could see that the intent of the game is back and forth, the second ball, the chaotic game that there was, so we thought that as the game progresses we'd need more sort of patience on the ball and I think Célio brought that in certain moments. Yeah, he was really creative, brave and earns the penalty.
Q. Dyhr makes his first start but also comes out early. What did you see?
BRADLEY CARNELL: Yeah, Dyhr was never going to last the whole game. We knew that. So yeah, we got him to halftime, ten minutes past the half, but we knew that Anthony were chomping at the bit. So Nikolas gets good minutes under his belt. Those are very important for him and now it's a nice competition at left back.
Q. With injuries to key players like Tim and loan, how do you think your team reacted to adversity tonight?
BRADLEY CARNELL: Great. I think we have gone into some pretty hostile environments in the last two games, and we fight our way back and create these chaotic moments and for that I'm proud, because the guys, the way we train and the intensity we play at, we put teams in these kind of games, and D.C. is a little bit of, yeah, big brother, little brother. I think we are related in certain ways. We might play in different conferences but we have a similar stylistic game model and to lose two key players like that, you take your hat off -- or Tom's hat to players like Josh and other guys who step up, Thomas has been amazing coming in at six and he's usually playing a ten on the left or right or through the middle and he does a great job on the six. We know he can hold the ball really well. We thrive in these moments. It's about a growth mindset.
Q. Belong made an impact in his return. Looked pretty good. How did you feel about his return to the pitch?
BRADLEY CARNELL: Yeah, good, he has a certain orientation, so we would have liked to have got him a few more minutes tonight. Just the rhythm the and the progression of the game, we just thought that was the right moment to bring him in and I thought he looked pretty good. We'll just keep on punishing him and keep on demanding more in training and getting him up to more speed but yeah, I'm glad we're getting healthy bodies over here.
The impact of the Champions Cup leaves its marks, and you can see around the league what it does. We are getting over the hump now and getting guys slowly coming back and the more place that we have healthy, fit, strong in the roster, the more competition, the internal competition drives the external competition, and that's what we need from all the players. FastScripts by ASAP Sports ...
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports