The Columbus Crew offense has to be thinking: “What more do you want from us?”
In the past two games, the offense has churned out five goals. Yet the results have been two losses that have dropped the Crew (3-3-2) to third place in the Eastern Conference standings.
Any Crew fan can point to the defense, or lack thereof, for the team’s recent losing skid. It’s given up an unheard-of seven goals and watched its goals-against statistic balloon to 12, the most in the conference.
In its first six games, Columbus managed to hold opponents in check, allowing only five goals while holding the top spot in the East for a week.
“People are a little frustrated right now with our results because we’ve been playing well and getting enough goals to win games,” said midfielder Kyle Martino, who returned Saturday after sitting out the San Jose game with groin and knee injuries. “It’s just we’ve been letting up some bad goals.”
In particular, the Crew is letting up late-game goals, an all-too-familiar trend with the defense lately. In the Crew’s 4-3 loss at San Jose, a defensive breakdown led to what proved to be the game-winner in the 87th minute.
New England Revolution forward Taylor Twellman scorched the Crew on his lone shot in the second half with one minute left in regulation. The goal gave New England a 3-2 win Saturday and extended Twellman’s goal streak to four games.
“It’s a matter of keeping our mental focus for the whole 90 minutes,” said defender Eric Denton. “When it gets that late in a game, it’s a time when you really need to concentrate, more so than your physical ability.”
The Crew’s credo is that it’s “America’s hardest working team,” which may be so. But, it doesn’t matter when what goalkeeper Jon Busch said are defensive “lapses at bad times in these (past two) games” keep appearing. Smart and aggressive play has been lacking in the back for the past two weeks, which led to a first half goal given up by the Crew in Saturday’s match with the Revolution (4-2-2).
New England’s goal came when an apparent handball by midfielder Brian Kamler was signaled by the linesman, but referee Kevin Stott allowed play to continue. After Kamler regained the ball, Columbus defenders got caught flat-footed and watched him net a hard strike into the upper right corner.
“We’re making sure we communicate a lot so hopefully we can cut down on some of these mental lapses,” Denton said. “Getting numbers behind the ball, especially late in games, and not leave open gaps for teams to play through is important.”
The defense will need to pull it together soon as Columbus faces conference leading New York/New Jersey MetroStars (5-1-1) tomorrow and Western Conference leading San Jose (4-0-2) the following Saturday. Both games are at Crew Stadium, where it has been less than impressive this season with a 1-2-1 record.
Columbus has split both games with the MetroStars this season, with both being one-goal, less-than-thrilling matches. The MetroStars are playing some of the best soccer in the MLS right now and are on a five-game winning tear that began against the Crew on April 26.
Once they get the lead, New York/New Jersey likes to send extra defenders back and play a defensive game.
“If we get the first goal, we can pretty much open it up, take advantage of them and kind of control the game,” Martino said.
If there is any doubt as to how important it is for Columbus to work out its kinks on defense and make a climb back towards first place, players can look no further than to their next two opponents for proof. New York/New Jersey and San Jose have the least amount of goals (four and five, respectively) scored against them.
