Colorado 3, St. Luis 0
BRADLEY CARNELL: Good evening, everybody. Obviously not the way the game unfolded that we hoped for, right. The group of guys really rallied and ready to go and unfortunately the result doesn't pan out our way. Start of the game doesn't pan out our way. We concede goals that are kind of an anomaly, and all of the sudden, we are staring down the barrel.
We have to wipe this one off, and go again Saturday against a good Atlanta team. So we focused on those things moving forward.
Congrats to Brendan McSorley making his debut. Really happy for him under the circumstances. No one is going to celebrate that. No one is going to see that. Congrats to him, and we move on.
Q. Do you think maybe if Löwen makes that PK, we are talking totally different here?
BRADLEY CARNELL: Yeah, again it's so easy to speak about the two dimensions of the game. There's a situation you're in as a team, as a club, as an individual. There's just so many things that stack up on one, and you've seen it.
If you're playing golf and you have that 20-foot putt and it gets the edge and it goes in the back of the cup, sometimes these things go your way, right.
So at the moment, we can have certain things falling for us and that don't go our way. Again, we are not looking for excuses. We are not looking for help. We have to help ourselves out of this situation, and I'm confident and positive in my group that we will dig ourselves out of that hole.
It's exactly not what we are looking for. We know we can do better. We just got beat today by a team that had similar like-minded principles. They were just sharper, fresher, more active, especially against the ball. And congrats to Chris on that. I've enjoyed watching his progress.
And now, you know, we just have to look from a little bit deeper down the table and make sure that we have to be connected at all times. We have to bridge a gap right now, and it starts with us and our principles and our basics. Basics the against the ball and basics with the ball. It's a challenge that I've embraced. It's a challenge my players will embrace and have embraced and move to get steps going forwards.
Q. What was the decision like putting together the back line for tonight?
BRADLEY CARNELL: Yeah, look, you have a look at the back line. You have a look at where we are. You have a look at Tim Parker suspended, Joakim Nilsson, Kyle Hiebert. That's a lot of our center backs. So it's a question you ask, that.
In order to get the safety blanket and to start the game with Anthony Markanich at left center back, Jake Nerwinski at right center back. So within our principles, the attacking freedom of Thomas Totland in the first half had two excellent moments, slip through ball, get into their box. We get the penalty.
So a lot of good things going forward. In that back five. Akil down the left-hand side did an excellent job going forwards in that first half, and then we had to shift things because we start to lose a little bit of the weight of the game and which way it is progressing. So we go to a back four to mitigate the last five minutes of the half.
And there were moments for us to find moments in transition in the second half for sure. But when it's not going your way, we just spoke earlier how difficult it is for you. So you know, we had to get a sort of organization, a safety blanket for the guys in this game.
We know Tim comes back in the next game and we will be good again. So you know, but yeah, there was some positives and overall on the day, not good enough.
Q. With all the transfers in the last week and transactions that we've had recently, and Sam not being on the starting roster, does that insinuate anything coming up and do you have comments on that?
BRADLEY CARNELL: No. What I can tell you is that we chose 19 guys now. Sam is involved in current transfer/trade talks at the moment. The club and Sam are just evaluating all processes and we'll know more.
But right now, we are focused on those 19 guys on that roster today.
Q. You did have to rely on a younger squad today. You mentioned earlier how Colorado out-intensed you guys. Is this a learning experience for them, feeling that intensity, and now they know what it takes?
BRADLEY CARNELL: And when you have a wave of momentum going for you, there's a lot of things going your way. And you could just see with Colorado, a lot of things fall their way: The second ball bounce; the connectedness in how their strikers operate coming back in the game. So we share the same principles. And you could see with guys not carrying cement backpacks at the moment, decisions become a lot easier, right.
So we have to find ways to mitigate that. We have to mind that moment of success. And could it be a penalty? Could it be top of the box dropping Hosei Kijima? Could it be Klauss in the box? Could it be Thomas Totland in the box on the chance?
So there's moments for us, and you just need that one moment to burst the bubble. That's the hardest step right now for our club. We're working towards it every single day, but it starts with a determination, a belief and a hunger to get out of that hole.
Q. I don't know if you ever log on to social media that much, but a lot of fans have been frustrated and disappointed lately with the team's results. Do you think those frustrations are justified, and do you have, like, any message to the fans to stay optimistic in the moment?
BRADLEY CARNELL: Yeah, 100 percent. Yeah, for sure, fans are frustrated. Players are frustrated. Coaches are frustrated. We are all frustrated in the situation that we are in. I think it's human nature to be frustrated for sure.
But you know the last thing we want to do in our four walls is do any finger-pointing. So it starts with me, what I got right, what I got wrong, in this game, in the last game, in the last season. So there's many good and there's many things that we are growing with and we are moving on, right.
So as a group, as an organization, we have to stick together because life is not just one-sided, right. Real Madrid went a hundred years without chinning a Champions League, whatever it was. So there are things there that, yeah, we just have to progress and take time. We are still young, in our infancy, and still know we are moving in the right direction as an organization.
So do I feel the frustration? 100 percent. Is it warranted? 100 percent. And this is my message, right. But at the same time, this is the support we need. This is the togetherness we believe in and thrive on.
So we are not asking any questions of that right now. We need our fans to be connected with us through a tough time. Simple as that. And I urge them and embrace them to do so.
Q. During a stretch without three matches without a goal, you're getting shots. You're hitting goal posts and hitting crossbars. Do you feel like the soccer gods don't like you, or did you do something to deserve this?
BRADLEY CARNELL: Yeah, for me, Gary Player says it the best: "The harder you work, the luckier you are going to get." This is my mantra and this is what I live by, and in time, things will turn, right, and they will turn for the better. That's the belief system we have to create. That's the players that we have to -- you know, in a moment like this, it's easy to point fingers, right. It's easy to point out the mistakes.
But the thing is, how can we get connected without pointing fingers with the growing and learning culture that we thrive on, that we believe in, right.
So we have a growth mindset, and for sure, the mindset that we've had, it cannot always be one-sided. It cannot always go your way.
So right now, it's not going our way, and no one is helping us getting out of that but ourselves.
Q. Are the guys still ticking with the program? They have bought into this, haven't they?
BRADLEY CARNELL: Yeah, I mean, you can see now -- Dallas for me is the prime example. And I said tonight, the goals we concede are an anomaly. Really strange situations; the long throw bouncing in the box.
Again, Roman is apologizing to the group. Roman has done enough for us the last two years. There's no apologies needed, right. For sure, he knows exactly what he needs to do and there's no criticism there on his behalf.
So you know, we embrace everybody's mistakes. We learn from them and we go forwards. Like this is, seriously, we are not even looking into that, right.
Dallas for me, we lose two players in the first half, we are rallying in a really good game and on the verge of winning again, and again, doesn't go our way. But again we can't just speak about looking backwards. We have to be looking forwards and just see the positives because that's going to get you out at the end of the day.
Q. One of the numbers that jumped out was we talked about how you guys have gotten touches in the box and that's one stat that's continued throughout the entire year, one of the rare games you lose that battle, a lot of different numbers in the attack. What happened with the offense and the slowdown of touches in the box compared to the last few weeks?
BRADLEY CARNELL: Yeah, I haven't checked the data as of right now post-game, but just thinking how we create the penalty, just thinking how we create chances down the right-hand side with Thomas Totland and we have runners in the box. So we are connected.
Again, saw some really good things. You might be a little bit delayed in that phase in the progression getting into the box. But I didn't see that as the core problem to be the. We just conceded goals at the wrong times, and struggled to get out of that.
Q. With the formation change, we're asking some of the players just to make a lot of changes throughout the game including tonight. Watts played three or four different positions and different roles, Durkin. Can you get into how tough it is, maybe, a short week with a lot of roster congestion, playing a lot of different roles in one games like that?
BRADLEY CARNELL: We have always thrived on adversity and flexibility and guys who can play multiple positions, right. This is who we are and that's what we believe in.
I'll put my hand up first, putting Akil at left back, he did it with aplomb last week. So it's a planned play right there; that he makes a foul, no criticism on him. It's just the nature of the game. I don't think it's due to changing and chopping and changing of formation.
I can show you in a lot of games where Chris Durkin supplies Klauss on a header as a right winger. He's coming from the six, right. So I don't really buy too much into that theory. I think we have enough discipline and positional profiles and principles of play that we can pause frame. Any moment of the game, I can show you a four, I can show you a three, I can show you a four. Whatever -- whatever you want to see, I can show you within 30 seconds of whatever we played tonight.
You know, it's interesting for journalists to make sure and analyze in a five or three or what-have-you, but in terms of our principles, nothing changed.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports