Photo: Courtesy of Philadelphia Union

Philadelphia Union postgame quotes

John Hackworth

On the team’s performance

It’s frustrating because we give them a couple opportunities early in the first half and they capitalized on one of them. Then we do a lot of good things, but don’t execute in the most important moments of the game and then you walk away frustrated that you lose the game like that one-nothing.

What needs to change for there to be better execution?

I think first of all, it’s kind of an emotional moment to talk about exactly what we need to do differently. I thought we, again, created plenty of chances for ourselves and, ultimately, it comes down to a guy making a play. They had a couple of plays and they made one of them. We had a lot of plays and we didn’t make any of them.

That said, you got to give Montreal a lot of credit. They defended really, they fought for everything, they never quit on themselves. We put them under a lot of pressure both with the ball and just putting a lot balls into the penalty area. They did a good job and it didn’t fall for us.

On the impact of the early yellow card to Maurice Edu

Ultimately I don’t think so, because I don’t think Mo played less aggressive then he normally does. He’s not a player that makes silly tackles. I still don’t know what — the referee said it was for hands to the face. Very strange play for me, especially early, and I thought there was a lot that went on in that game that wasn’t called but, I can’t say anything about that.

On Aaron Wheeler’s part in the Montreal goal and what you want to see from him

I don’t think it was Aaron, to be fair. It’s a really bad pass and, ultimately, you think that as a team, you’re coming out of the back — we like to build out of the back. We try to play and that’s a pass that we make a lot of times and, in this case, Bernier does an excellent job of picking it off. And, because we’re in this moment of transitioning — we’re not under any pressure — we had plenty of options that were different than that and it’s just a really bad turnover that results in us being unprepared for that kind of turnover.

But, to be fair to Wheeler and to Amobi, that’s not the kind of play that you think is going to happen. It’s hard to prepare for that because, nine times out of ten, that ball is played in to somebody’s feet or played in behind them, and they’re not even in a position where they have to worry about that.

On the team’s response after conceding early on the road

I thought our response was really good. We put the pressure on. In particular I thought in the first half we did a really good job of trying to attack and keep going. We moved the ball well most of the day, but in particular when I thought Montreal wasn’t as deep in the first half as they were in the second half — they were still coming at us, they were trying to pressure, and we were able to play through them and create a lot of opportunities and get into good spots. So, the response was really good. At halftime you just try to urge these guys to continue and to make a play. This is a game ultimately that a soccer play was going to have to be made and, unfortunately for us, they made it on the day.

At what point should the fanbase conclude that the team has had enough time to jell?

My opinion is that it is always a work in progress. In this case, you have a team that’s still playing the game very well and we’re just going to have to be patient. I still believe that if we play that way every single game we’re going to come out on the better end of it. You can’t discount the fact that we’re playing opponents that are good, that it’s a very tight league, there’s a lot of parity. So, we have to find a way to put the ball in the back of the net, ultimately, but I’m not any more disappointed about the lack of the way we play. We’ve tried to instill a system that is based on a lot of ball movement, a lot of forward, positive possession, and that’s working. We need to take our chances better and, once that happens and in a game where you have a lot of chances for the second game in a row, you think those are going to fall your way eventually.

Maurice Edu

On receiving an early yellow card

It kind of sucked to get one early, but it didn’t really slow me down. I just had to be smarter about the tackles I went into and things like that. It didn’t change how I played. I was still aggressive and tried to cover as much ground as I could.

On both team’s approach

Every game is different. It’s hard to predict what the game is going to give you, but as the game unfolds you just have to take what’s given and adjust accordingly. To be fair, I thought we did alright with that. I felt like we moved the ball well, but again we weren’t clinical enough in the final third.

Andrew Wenger

On how his side will have to rebound next match

I think we just got to keep going. We did some good things and we moved the ball around well tonight. We just have to keep playing.

On nearly scoring on his return to Montreal and his side’s chances…

We wanted to win the game. At the end of the day it came down to me scoring. It’s disappointing it didn’t happen, it’s frustrating. I think once we got warm, we needed just one or two more [chances]. But that’s just the way it goes sometimes.

Montreal Impact postgame quotes

Frank Klopas

Thoughts on the win

It felt really good. The group has been working really hard and it really felt like we had a home field advantage in the game. We fed off their energy. We had a letdown in the middle there, but we fought back. Troy Perkins made some great saves and we earned our first win and first shutout. I’m really happy for the guys because once again, they put the work in at training and had the right attitude coming into this game.

On winning ugly

You’re not always going to win games with pretty soccer, but you have to find ways to win and we did that today. We have guys who like to play with the ball and I felt sometimes we may have forced it too much. But we stayed focused and played right through to the end. It was important for us to find a win after all the hard work we’ve done. We now have a little break and we could push some of the guys to get their fitness where we want it to be, and be prepared for our next game for the Canadian Cup.

On Perkins’ performance

He’s an experienced keeper and a veteran guy that his positioning is very good and he reads the play very well. Troy was great but as a whole, we left it all on the field today. In order to get a result you need to have some things go your way, but I think we made our own luck by the way we played.

Patrice Bernier

Thoughts on the game

We are very pleased to get this win. The conditions weren’t idea, and coming from our difficult start, it was good to push through and find that win. Now we finally saw what happens when we put the same level of effort in the game as when we train. It doesn’t always have to be nice, with pretty passes, but with some hard work we were able to win the ball defensively and create chances. Defensively we showed a lot of fight.

What does the first win change

Winning that first game is a bit of a relief. We have a break now and when we get back to work we have to build on that little momentum after working hard and repeat that hard work. We have to realize that the intensity and the effort we put in training has to be done for 90 minutes.

Jeb Brovsky

Thoughts on the game

As a back four, we all showed up and defended well today. Hats off to Troy Perkins who had a great game today, and any time you can get that type of performance by your keeper as a defender, it gives you confidence.

What the win means

It’s something to build on. This is something that shows we’ve been working hard in training. One nil victories are hard to come by, but you have to win those games and we did. I think we all approached this game willing to put in the work.