Houston Dynamo Head Coach Dominic Kinnear
On the first half:
“Well, we gave away two goals, let’s be honest. Anytime you present a team with a couple gifts, it makes you chase the game. Two bad giveaways, two goals, and Chicago was more than happy to take those chances.”
On the match:
“We started off the game not well, fought well to get back into it a little bit. We had a ton of possession and defended well. As soon as they got a goal or two, they were going to sit back deep and just try and soak it up and try and break. “
On trying to tie the game up late in the remaining minutes:
“We got another corner kick [after Ching’s goal] and I thought we looked dangerous on some of the set pieces late in the second half. Obviously throwing guys forward, you’ll be susceptible to the break. Brian [Ching] came in and made a difference for us. He held the ball up.”
Houston Dynamo Goalkeeper Tally Hall
On the defensive breakdown from the two goals:
“Obviously, we can pass a little smarter. I see the game the best; especially from early on in those situations and I know the ball needs to get out of pressure. I look at myself, and how I can present myself in a way that I am either the option to get out of pressure or I am giving the players information to help them get out of pressure. I think those two passes were difficult to make. Even if we make them, I don’t think they are the ideal way to get out of tricky situation, especially in our own half. As a goalkeeper, it always goes by you last. It’s the responsibility of the goalkeeper to prevent a goal and in those situations I think that it starts with that pass getting out of pressure, and I think we can do a better job playing smarter soccer.”
On the team’s performance in the second half:
“Obviously much better. There’s still some things that we can do better. We have done better this season. It seems like we’ve gotten away from those things, I don’t know if they start at practice, if they start at warm-ups, or they start when the whistle is blown, but there are difficult things we need to do. But that’s what the team in known for. It’s day-in-and-day-out where you have to be better. We have gotten away from doing the difficult things, and the results have shown. And by difficult things, I mean we’ve gotten away from doing the hardest work we can do.”
On the team’s next match versus Real Salt Lake:
“The way the last couple of games have gone, it’s almost like it’s become playoff time in the sense that our descent from the top of the Eastern Conference [has been fast.] We’re still in a playoff spot but we have to start winning games, we have to treat games like the end of the season, like we did last year. That’s where we found success.”
Houston Dynamo Captain and Midfielder Brad Davis
On the match:
“Disappointed, obviously. This is an important game; obviously we have seven games left. We feel like we’ve given up points from the past few games that we could have taken advantage of. I feel like we were ready to go before this game happened, and then one mistake right at the beginning. So it was difficult but we have to try to play ourselves back in. I think we waited until the second half to really pick things up. In the second half, we came out and pressured. We had some opportunities to score some goals. Second half is too late to get going. But we’re still in it and we have a big game Thursday against Salt Lake.”
On gearing up for the playoffs:
“Every point does count. That’s the mentality we need to have. If it ended today, we’d be in, but seven games is a lot of games and we have to continue to get points. We have a little patch here where we’ve been giving away some points. We aren’t happy about it at all. It’s part of the game. Professionally we have to turn it around come Thursday. It’s a big game and we better come out with some fight and some spirit and win that game.”
On getting points from the stretch run:
“Points are crucial heading down the stretch. You always want to end your year on a positive note, with a good, solid streak. We didn’t have the best start last year but we, all of a sudden won our first road game at the end of the year and made a great run into the playoffs. That’s the kind of run you need to have. You need to be a hot team; you need to be the team that’s playing well, getting the points, getting the wins and gather confidence. That’s what we need to concentrate on now.”
