BRIDGEVIEW, Ill. – After conceding four goals in their last game, and with a plethora of absent defenders available again, the Chicago Fire could make wholesale changes to their backline for a testing trip to Red Bull Arena on Friday night (7 pm ET; UniMas).
Frank Yallop’s defense was undone by the strength and power of Didier Drogba in a 4-3 defeat at the Montreal Impact last Saturday, with Greg Cochrane, Jeff Larentowicz, Eric Gehrig and Lovel Palmer occupying the defensive roles.
However, with regular left back Joevin Jones returning from international duty with Trinidad & Tobago, occasional right back Matt Polster back from USA Under-23 duty, and new additions Ty Harden and Daneil Cyrus fit and available, Yallop will have some difficult, but welcomed, decisions to make.
“Absolutely, we signed them to play them,” Yallop told reporters this week when asked if he sees Harden and Cyrus seeing much game time in the final seven games.
“Ty has been unlucky with his hamstring injury but he looks 100 percent now, and Cyrus is another kid that had a good Gold Cup. He’s been training but not 100 percent with his [international] squad, he just played a game and did OK in the game,” Yallop added. “They’re going to come into it and be featured, whether it’s Friday or moving forward, but we’ll figure out what’s good for them.”
Lapses of concentration, especially in defense, have undermined the Fire’s performances and progress this season, and it is certainly an area that will need to be addressed if the Men in Red are to improve on their 7-14-6 (27 points) record in time to make a playoff push.
“We haven’t defended well as a group, so any time you concede four goals you don’t deserve to win the match,” Yallop admitted. “We’re not putting the games together where we’re defensively solid and score three goals, it’s either or. We score goals and we concede them in the same game or we can’t score and the team punishes us for one chance. We’ve just got to get that balance. It’s been tough. We have most of our guys back now, so that’s going to help us, but just in general we haven’t had a good feeling of how to see a game through or win a game 1-0.”
Yallop’s assessment rings true when you look at the Fire's results: 10 losses by a solitary goal and just three 1-0 wins themselves in 27 games. Chicago have not lost a game by more than two goals all season.
One thing both Harden and Cyrus will bring to the team is size and strength, with both players equipped with the physique to impose themselves on opposing forwards and dominate in the air, in theory at least.
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Cyrus, 24, joined the Fire on loan from W Connection, Jones’ former club, in Trinidad & Tobago. He appeared twice for Sporting Kansas City while on loan in 2011.
While his signing was announced on Aug 6, the defender, who will wear the No. 55 jersey, only arrived in Chicago this week after his arrival was delayed because of work-permit issues and international duty. He played the full 90 minutes for Trinidad & Tobago in their 2-2 draw with Mexico on Sept. 4 before joining up with his new teammates on Monday.
“It has been frustrating for me because I was waiting on my work permit for so long,” Cyrus admitted. “[Jones] was telling me the guys wanted to know when I’m going to come, was my loan deal for next year, and I was frustrated because I wanted to start to play as soon as possible."
