Minnesota United fought hard and played well, but were unable to get anything out of a game in Toronto over the weekend, with two players sent off in the late minutes and seven goals score in the night.
MINNESOTA UNITED HEAD COACH ADRIAN HEATH
On disappointing to not walk away with points:
"Well, it’s disappointing. I’m trying to look for some positives and the positives to me would be the fact that we played against one of the best teams in the league and for long (stretches) we controlled possession. I thought we looked very good going forward, we’ve got a good shape about us, but we conceded poor goals again. It’s another game where we scored three goals and have come away with nothing. Last week we only got a point so it’s something we have to address."
On moving on quickly:
"Yeah, obviously. We’ve had six games on the road so it’s been a tough start for us. If we had taken something out of this game tonight, it would’ve been a really good start. It’s disappointing now I know, but I know there’ll be some stuff that we can work on and there will be some positives moving forward."
On Pozuelo:
"Certainly the first goal we spoke about preventative marks when we’re attacking. He found really good pockets and space. I was screaming from the sideline, the first goal, I knew that it was going to drop to him. Then the more time and more space he got on the ball, the more he caused us problems. He’s a quality player and when you spend a lot of money, that’s the quality you get."
On Jordan Hamilton:
"Obviously they changed their shape and they started to take a few more chances. It was another cheap give away from us in the middle of the park after we had won the possession back and then we’re in that transition mode - people are starting to push forward and then we turn it over cheaply and next minute it’s in the back of the net. Obviously the two red cards, I have to see the first one, I don’t know how bad it was but Francisco can’t do something silly like that. He didn’t really give the referee much choice. I’ll have to see Jan’s again."
MINNESOTA UNITED DEFENDER BRENT KALLMAN
His disappointment in seeing a lead slip away:
It’s really disappointing. We fought and worked so hard to get back into the game. Not only do they get the equalizer but they take the lead. To give it away like that is not fun. We got to be better and we got to do a better job of being professional to close out the game. That’s not acceptable.
On Pozuelo:
We were doing great with him. He actually had a really bad start to the game and then we weren’t set up correctly and the ball pops out to him and starts a counter and makes a great 1v1 goal, fantastic goal. He was into the game from there. We fell asleep on him, he pulled off that great goal and he was great for the rest of the game. It is just a concentration thing. We know we need to be set up better than that and it is my job as a centre back to make sure guys are in the right spots so we don’t get countered like that. I’ll take the blame for that one. We really kick started them by giving them the space to go and start that counter.
On Hamilton:
"They went to two up front and still had Pozuelo in the middle. It’s kind of a dangerous situation. They got the ball in the midfield and were able to find pockets and places to play through. It’s unacceptable. We know we have to get narrow and make them play through the outside. We can’t let them go right through the middle of us."
On moving past this and looking ahead at two home games:
"Super important, we can’t dwell on the past, especially now that we got two guys that won’t be available for Wednesday’s game. Guys are going to get called upon who haven’t played that many minutes this year to step up and be ready."
