Orlando City didn’t need to look far to diagnose the reasons for Sunday's sobering 5-3 loss at New York City FC, a result that made it three successive league defeats and a winless July for the league newcomers.
Coming hard on the heels of a poor midweek US Open Cup defeat at Chicago, it was a simple case of poor defending for the Lions, as assistant coach Mark Watson was quick to identify.
“It’s an old adage that if you let your concentration level down for a second against players of that quality, they will hurt you,” said Watson, who was in charge of the technical area with head coach Adrian Heath suspended. “And it was pretty obvious that if you concede five goals, you haven’t defended well.
“Sure, they have some top-quality players, and when you have to play against quality like that, you have to be switched on for 90 minutes. We have to be a lot better than that if we hope to win a game, especially on the road.”
Orlando’s preparations were hampered by injuries to both their right backs, as regular starter Rafael Ramos surprisingly failed to recover from a thigh strain from the midweek game in Chicago and backup Tyler Turner was a late scratch with a foot injury.
That left them to start with an unfamiliar 3-4-3 lineup consisting of all three regular center backs behind a midfield that also featured recent acquisitions Corey Ashe – usually a left back – and Servando Carrasco, as well as regulars Darwin Ceren and Eric Avila.
“It was a mixture of a strategic thing and a personnel thing,” Watson added. “We thought that would be the best way to go forward in the circumstances.
“But, for me, it wasn’t the formation [that was the problem]. In those few moments when you need a bit of communication or quality to clear the danger, we just didn’t have it.”
Watson was also adamant the Lions could take heart from their attacking play, despite shipping five goals for the first time since a US Open Cup game at Chicago in 2013 when they were still a USL team.
“As much as we have things to work on, there are a lot of positives,” he added. “We showed great spirit to come back into the game twice and we were an inch from tying the game in the 93rd minute.
“Cyle Larin also showed the league what he can do. As a player, any time you score three goals, you can feel it is a pretty good night, and I think some of our attacking play was really good. We created a bunch of chances and, on another day, we could have had four or five ourselves.”
Orlando will now have to wait for more medical reports before they know if Ramos will be ready for next Saturday’s game at home to Columbus.
“Tyler is just a short-term thing,” Watson confirmed. “But with Rafa we won’t know until we get more diagnosis. He felt something tighten up against Chicago and he got some treatment and tried to get ready for today, but things were worse than we thought.
“It might be a couple of weeks for him, while Lewis Neal is still day-to-day with his Achilles injury. So we will have to dust ourselves off and see where we are when we get back home.”
The Lions may be about to get some welcome reinforcements, though, as majority owner Flavio Augusto da Silva made a pre-game statement on Periscope that the team will be signing “two new players this week,” with an announcement due in the next few days.
