Having watched his Chicago Fire side concede three second-half goals after leading 1-0 at the break, head coach Frank Yallop offered “no excuses” for his team’s capitulation in the final 30 minutes in their 3-1 defeat to D.C. United at RFK Stadium Wednesday.
The visitors held a slender halftime lead thanks to David Accam’s 28th-minute opener, and that was no more than they deserved following an assured, assertive performance as they chased their first road victory of the season.
However, the introduction of Fabian Espindola at halftime changed the complexion of the game, and the Fire (4-6-2, 14 points) struggled to contain a rampant Jairo Arrieta (two goals) and Conor Doyle as the hosts claimed all three points.
“There’s no excuses,” Yallop told reporters after the game. “We’re professionals and for 45 minutes we were fine and played probably our best stuff away from home. For us to concede three goals in any match is not good, so we’ve got to look at it again, dig deep and get ready for Saturday’s game [vs. Orlando], which is a big game for us.”
Yallop highlighted the entrance of Espindola as the key turning point in the match, as he gave D.C. a creative spark they had been missing in the opening 45.
“If you look at the way we played first half, it was very good,” Yallop insisted. “Basically at halftime it was, 'more of the same.' We knew they were going to change the game, put different players on – Espindola comes on and makes a difference.
“But we just seemed to stop playing. You’ve got to credit D.C. quite a bit with their forceful play, but we’ve got to do better at defending and handling situations.”
The Fire could have jumped to fourth in the Eastern Conference if they had taken all three points on the night, but with the Philadelphia Union beating Columbus Crew SC 3-0, they find themselves in seventh spot and below the red line once again.
“For whatever reason, we stopped playing at a certain part of the game and started to try to soak up pressure, and we can’t do that,” Yallop lamented. “We were naïve a little bit tonight in the big picture and D.C. United kept going, they’re stronger than us, the set-play goal was awful to concede. It’s never good when you concede three goals at home or away, but especially away when you’re 1-0 up.”
Yallop made four changes to the side that beat the Montreal Impact so convincingly on Saturday, with Shaun Maloney’s absence due to his international call-up the only one forced upon him. However, he didn’t think his changes had any impact on the result.
“I made some changes to the lineup but I don’t think it made any difference to the result, and we should’ve done better than that to get a result,” he added.
Goalscorer Accam, who took his tally for the season to three in eight games, was impressed by United, and admitted they are the best team he has faced thus far in MLS.
“For me, I think we have played against a good team today. So far this season this is the best team we have played and it showed in the second half,” Accam said. “Even though we were much better in the first half, we couldn’t keep the tempo up and they were much better than us in the second half.
“I think they wanted it more than us in the second half and that’s the only difference. You can see the pressure they gave us, they were hungry to win the game and that was the difference.”
