Philadelphia Union postgame quotes

John Hackworth

On Keon Daniel’s called back goal

“I was told that it was an offsides call because Amobi impeded the goalkeeper from an offsides position. I’ve watched it four/five times at halftime, I just watched it again and from what I saw the goalkeeper makes a bad mistake. He comes for the ball, he closes the distance down and Amobi runs into him slightly—there is no effect on the play—it was about a 40 yard ball in the air. It is remarkable.”

On how frustrating it is

“I’ll tell you, it is a cruel game sometimes and it just feels like in a lot of ways we just can’t catch a break… Sometimes you need the ball to bounce right a bit and certainly not have outside factors take goals away and affect the game.”

On only one different player in the starting lineup

“We made a lot of chances to our system, we start Fabinho at left mid, we had Sebastien up front, then we start Ray Gaddis back at left back. I thought we played with the best team on the field… we probably played one of our best first halves moving the ball and dictating the tempo of the game and creating multiple opportunities.”

On Fabinho’s performance

“Fabinho has been good, he is a dangerous player at left mid and he showed that tonight. I thought he put in three of the best balls of the first half just unfortunate we didn’t finish on any of those but he has been good. It is hard to fault him and some of the other guys when you play as well as we did.”

On the use of the long ball

“We definitely served a lot of balls, it is certainly one of our attacking options. We also went inside and created several chances inside unfortunately we didn’t finish. Our service was good, our runs in the box were good and Conor had three really good looks so it is unfortunate we couldn’t find one.

On the tough stretch as of late

“It has been a really bad stretch for us and this night is gonna be a really difficult to accept. There is no question that effort of the group was fantastic and their competitiveness showed right from the get go. They put a lot into this game and it is unfortunate that we are sitting here talking about this result but that’s sports and as I said it’s cruel sometimes.”

On going into the break

“We planned for the break to use it to our advantage. It has been a tough stretch so we will use it to our advantage and try to prepare the best we can and turn some games around.”

Jack McInerney

On whether he is concerned about being perceived as one dimensional

“Yeah, maybe a little bit. But if the service is there we just have to go finish. Right now the crosses have not been in the right spots and we don’t have enough people in the box, but it’s a team effort all around everybody has got to do their part and we’re just not doing it.”

On whether the break will be good for the team

“Definitely good, especially because I think this is the first time I think we have had two losses in a row. Going into the last couple games of the season we are not in a good position right now, so I think it is definitely good for us.”

On the team not scoring

“Obviously it is something the team is thinking about right now, we are not going to win games if we are not scoring. We just have to keep heads up and keep pushing those chances and eventually they will fall for us.”

Danny Cruz

General thoughts

“No one is happy right now. We are in a bad spot, we are in a tough spot—we know that. We know we have made mistakes, we know we have put ourselves in a really tough position. Obviously we came into the locker room and looked at the scores and we are in some trouble. We didn’t take care of business tonight and now we are in for a rough weekend off and have to go into a really tough environment the following week.

On the Keon Daniel called back goal

“I still don’t even know what was called, I am not sure—it was tough for us. I think that is the second time where we had things going it felt like we had a goal and it gets taken away from you. It is tough to swallow, tough to take and with that being said we still should have came out better in the second half. I think we know that and now we’ve got another loss and it’s tough to take—it’s really tough to take.”

Amobi Okugo

On the Keon Daniel goal called back

“I think he said I was offsides and the next time he said I was obstructing the goalie so he just has to make a decision. If it’s offsides, it’s offsides. If it’s obstruction, it’s obstruction. But I felt Keon played a great ball and the goalkeeper misread it and I was the closest guy to him. I think it was a goal. But the ref called it back so I guess it wasn’t.”

On what isn’t working with the team

“We did a good job creating a little bit of chances, we had a few hopeful crosses and Conor (Casey) get a head onto a couple of them. I think (Danny) Cruz had a chance, Jack (McInerney) had a chance, but we failed to capitalize and then they scored off of one set piece—that’s their DNA—and they got the win.”

On what they are going to focus on in the next two weeks

“Look ourselves in the mirror and just get back to work, five games anything can happen. I think we need at least three wins to even have a remote chance, so far this season other teams have been helping us out so hopefully they can keep doing that and we get some wins.”

Houston Dynamo postgame quotes

Houston Coach Wade Barrett

Thoughts on the match

“Points are at a premium now and every game counts. I thought we brought a great attitude tonight and worked hard. Now we’ll regroup and do it again next week.”

On the game plan tonight

“For us, the plan was to compete. We wanted to out-compete the other team. Regardless of formations, regardless of who’s out there, you want your eleven to better than their eleven.”

About halftime adjustments

“It’s halftime, you have to emphasize the things that you do well and you try to fix the things that aren’t going so well, and hope for the best.”

On the last play

“We were holding our breath on a bunch of plays. Sometimes it just comes down to making individual plays and standing up big when the team needs it and the guys did it tonight.”

Tally Hall

On the last play

“Personally I wish I would have done better but it was kind of one of those nights where the game wasn’t perfect but you had ten other guys watching your back fighting and battling so that’s kind of what a team effort is. It’s everyone working hard for each other. There was a focused energy about us so not really nerve wracking.”

On their playoff position

“Yeah I mean this game takes us one step closer to our goal. We still have six more games in the regular season. We have a job to do next week, we have to keep the same attitude, same mentality, same work rate and carry it over.”

About last year’s meeting against Philadelphia

“It was a game that was kind of one of the low points of the season, similar time of the season, it was towards the end. Sometimes you need to knocked in the face to wake up and we definitely took a couple punches the last couple weeks and last year we took a punch here and it’s kind of how you respond and tonight I think we responded very well to a situation when we needed to.”

Brad Davis

On how huge this win was

“It was huge, we knew it was a big game coming in here, able to jump back up into third place now. Things haven’t been going the way we wanted but that’s in the past, we had a good talk this week talking about how we need to stay together and stay as a unit and tonight was a perfect example of that. Grinding out a win to get back in the win column, getting three points and it feels great. “

On the difference tonight

“I just think the confidence on the team, knowing ourselves. I think our attitude let us down a bit, we had some chances to go up early on teams and it wasn’t happening for us and I think we let ourselves drop our heads a little bit and that’s a bit uncharacteristic of this team so we had a good talk this week. We said that we have to get passed that we can’t feel sorry for ourselves we got to keep our head up. The only way to get out of a slump like this is to grind it out and stay together and that’s what we did tonight.”

On playing Philadelphia

“It just so happens that we are playing Philly at the time of the year where we really need a win again, that’s just coincidence to be honest. It didn’t matter who we were playing tonight, we were coming out here to get three points, to win this game. It’s huge for our confidence, the guys are happy, we haven’t had this feeling in awhile in the locker room, we’re going to soak it up and hopefully take this into next weekend against Chivas.”

On the playoff position

“It’s huge, experience is definitely key, yeah you want to be first, you don’t want to have to play in a play in game and you want to have home field advantage and all that stuff. Playoffs is a whole new animal, it’s really a rebirth once you get in. We proved that it doesn’t matter whether you get first or fifth you can still make it to the final. Good hard work and staying together as a team you got to play well as well but you have to have good team characteristic and this team has got a bunch of great guys like I said the confidence hasn’t been there lately and hopefully tonight and I think it does, it helps us out a lot. This could project us to make a good run into the playoffs, I hope it does.”

On the assist

“It’s just things that we work on, I tried to put the ball in a good spot, right on in between the six and the penalty spot and I know those guys are going to make good hard runs and they trust that I am going to play a good ball so fortunately it all worked out, Rico attacked the ball well and we got a goal.”

Ricardo Clark

On the goal

“It was a good ball in and I happened to be in the right spot, I just tried to hit it near post and get as much power on it and I did, thankfully it went in. We knew it was going to be a tight game, the smaller chances are going to count. I don’t want to say that I knew it was going to be 1-0, we still had to grind it out, be on point and we pulled it out.”

On the importance of getting three points in a tight playoff race

“It’s still tight, one through six in the standings is still tight, we still have to be on point for the rest and we can’t rely on this win to pull us through, we control our own destiny to move forward and to stay on point. “

On this year’s playoff position as opposed to last year

“We don’t want to take anything for granted, we don’t want to rely on just making it in, we want to control our own destiny, be sharp through the remainder of the season and hopefully good things will come.”

On scoring both goals in the last two meetings against Philadelphia

“It just happened to be that way, it’s a blessing . I had ten guys working around me the whole game, sometimes it wasn’t pretty but I have to be in the right place at the right time and make it happen.”