SEATTLE – Coming into Saturday night’s home matchup with the Colorado Rapids, the Seattle Sounders hoped a bit of lineup tinkering and a formation change would lead to an end to their recent stretch of offensive futility.
Instead the Sounders were shut once again, falling 1-0 to Colorado for their fifth loss in their last six games dating back to June 20. Seattle have scored just two goals over that timeframe.
The Sounders tried a few new tactics in an attempt to jumpstart their attack against Colorado, starting the newly acquired Erik Friberg and moving normal midfielders Cristian Roldan and Thomas forward to offer support to Lamar Neagle.
In the end the result was unchanged, as Seattle fell to 10-9-2 on the season courtesy of Colorado forward Kevin Doyle’s 84th-minute game-winner.
“Sometimes, when you’re in [a slump] like this, it just takes something to bounce your way,” Sounders head coach Sigi Schmid said after the game. “Then all of the sudden the dam breaks. It’s not like we’re getting outplayed. We’re not getting annihilated in these games. We’re in every game but because we haven’t been able to score, the pressure mounts on the defense.”
The loss was the second 1-0 loss in a row for Seattle, which also fell by the same scoreline to the Chicago Fire on the road last weekend.
“I thought we played better than last week in Chicago,” Schmid said. “But the result was the same. When they make a mistake or we get a break on the offensive end, we can’t put it away. We make a mistake and they bury it and then it’s game over. We’ve got to find a way out of this funk and obviously today we didn’t.”
Saturday night’s game did have the variable of a temporary grass surface on the field instead of CenturyLink’s customary turf, causing players on both teams to slip and struggle to maintain their footing throughout the night. However, Schmid and the Sounders quickly downplayed any notion that the surface played any sort of meaningful part in Saturday’s result.
“I can sit here and complain about [the surface] as much as I want but both teams had to play on it,” Sounders goalkeeper Troy Perkins said. “It’s equal for both teams.”
“It wasn’t a disadvantage for anybody,” said Roldan. “I think if we practiced on it the day before, it would have been a lot easier to get a hold of. But it was fine. I wasn’t complaining too much.”
The Sounders are now once again faced with a familiar problem of trying to find a source of offensive production in the absence of their star striker duo of Clint Dempsey and Obafemi Martins. Dempsey is still playing with the US national team at the CONCACAF Gold Cup, while Martins is rehabbing a strained adductor.
“Somebody’s got to find it along the way,” Schmid said. “We’re going to keep working. We’re not going to stop working. We’re going to keep thinking about, experimenting. … We’ll continue to try and put out a formation that will help us attack.
“Now, it’s a matter of finishing the chances.”
