Ricardo Clark
On his return to BBVA Compass Stadium
Once the whistle blew it was business as usual. I was trying to win for my team, trying to win for my teammates, but – just coming down the tunnel and seeing all the fans showing love, shouting my name, giving me support – just remembering me is something I’ll never forget. This was my home for 10 years and it was special to just see the love from the fans. I really appreciate that.
On wanting to score tonight
Yeah, everyone is motivated to play against their old team. I have so much love for a lot of those players and I still keep in touch with them. We are all competitors and we know how it is. Unfortunately, we didn’t connect too much and that is the way the game goes. I thought we played okay today, we had some lapses, but we just have to keep pushing. That’s the way it is.
On having to play their third game in eight days
We just have to come in and step up. This is professional sports so we have to play the best we can when we have these instances. Third game in a week brings rotations, players come in and out – some regular starters were not in there. Coming off two loses we wanted to bounce back but we couldn’t make it happen.
On if they shut down after the early Dynamo goal
Those things happen in a game, you can’t fault someone too much because everyone is going to make mistakes. We try to bounce back. We had spurts here and there. To combat 1-0 wasn’t too bad. To give away another goal off a mistake was tough in the second half. That’s the way it goes. There are a lot of things we have to correct. In the last three games we haven’t scored either. There is a lot of work to be done.
Zack Steffen
On whether playing on short rest had an effect on tonight’s result
Yeah, I mean three games in a week is tough on the legs, is tough on the minds. We got to also travel down to Houston. It’s not easy, but it just wasn’t good enough.
On potential solutions to help get out of the slump
Looking at ourselves in the mirror, being honest and knowing we’re all coming up short and we need to step it up and do the extra work to put balls in the back of the net and keep balls out of our net.
On whether there are positives that can be taken from this recent stretch
Adversity can go a long way. It’s how you kind of react to it and we’re hoping to have a positive reaction – get back to our old ways and get moving again.
On whether playing on short rest had an effect on tonight’s result
Yeah, I mean three games in a week is tough on the legs, is tough on the minds. We got to also travel down to Houston. It’s not easy, but it just wasn’t good enough.
Caleb Porter
On separating the emotion from the performance after consecutive losses
I think this game today was different than the last three. The last three, it felt like we played well, I thought we had chances but were a bit unlucky. Today, we fell short. We were second-best and it’s very disappointing. It’s another game where we gave up the first goal; it’s another game where we gave up a soft goal, this game a minute-thirty in on a situation that we talked about. Obviously you know that Houston’s a team that plays in transition. Everybody knows that. My grandma knows that. Everybody knows that. How we get caught on the ball and give up a transition, it’s shocking, and you can’t win games if you give up a goal a minute-thirty in on the road. You can’t win games if you keep giving up the first goal, you can’t win games if you don’t score goals, and you can’t win games if you give up cheap goals. That’s what’s happening right now. It’s not a good moment. I take responsibility. I’m the coach. I pick the team, I prepare the team. I will keep coming up with solutions, but at the moment it’s been a challenge to find a solution.
On where Crew SC goes from here with a full week ahead of its next match
Obviously I think we have to rest. I think we all have to look at ourselves and then we have to have some sessions and we have to figure out, again, how we can find a solution to this situation. One way or another, we have to find ways to win games, and we’re falling short. It’s not one guy, it’s everyone including the coaches, and we’re falling short. We’re not scoring goals, we’re giving up goals, and we’re not winning games. It’s a tough moment. Next week, we will have discussions and we will find solutions and hopefully we’ll do better against D.C. (United).
On the positive takeaways from the Crew's tough stretch
It’s tough in this moment – when you lose three in a row – to think about and commend the guys for their game, but a lot of guys gave a lot this week. It’s tough that they weren’t rewarded. I thought today was different from the other two [matches] and we have to look at that, we have to figure out why. But for me it’s unacceptable to give up a goal a minute-thirty in. We're playing a back pass and [Alberth] Elis - the fastest guy in the League - is jumping on it, and we're giving a goal away. And how are we not ready? For me I don't understand it and it's unacceptable.
On the mindset of the team ahead of the contest
I think the mindset right now is disappointment. Four games in a row. That’s a tough moment. I think we’re all a little bit wondering how it turned, because we were in a good moment where we won four out of five and we were winning games and the mentality as good. We were maybe not scoring goals, but we were finding goals, and then the last three [matches] we played really well and we fall short and we think it's close and then we have a game like today. Something's gotta give and I'm going to keep working tirelessly to prepare the group, I'm going to keep looking for solutions. We definitely need to have a hard look at personnel and [evaluate] who is going to play in the next game, because we need guys who get the job done and, like I said, you can't win unless you score goals. So who is going to score goals for us and who is going to stop goals for us? We need to score goals and stop goals, and that's not happening.
On whether the loss against the Houston Dynamo is magnified due to having lost consecutive matches in a short span of time
I think it's always tough in these windows when you lose the first game and then you lose the second game and the next thing you know you're chewed up now in the third game and you're on the road. You know you have to rotate and, obviously we did rotate today, so of course maybe that's a factor in the performance but we felt we had no other choice because we had three in eight. We couldn't play the same eleven all three games. We left three guys obviously at home - Jonah [Jonathan Mensah], Artie [Artur] and Pipa [Federico Higuain] - because we felt they gave so much that they didn't have anything to take. So those are tings that make it tough. Football goes on, the League is going to keep moving. our bus is going to keep moving and no one is going to wait for us to figure it out. So we have to figure it out one way or another.
