The Fire are in the middle of a home-heavy stretch of their schedule, playing four of five matches at Soldier Field. Before it began, they stressed the importance of maximizing this portion of their season to set themselves up for a potential run at the playoffs.
But to take advantage, the Fire need to score goals. They haven’t done that.
Two weeks ago, the Fire were routed 4-0 by Real Salt Lake in one of their worst performances in years. Last Saturday, they only earned a point against Atlanta United thanks to Chris Brady’s heroics in goal that were good enough for a 0-0 tie. Including their 0-0 draw April 13 at the Red Bulls, the Fire have been blanked in their last three games and haven’t scored since the 78th minute of their 2-1 victory against the Dynamo on April 6.
It hasn’t helped that the Fire have spent time without creators Xherdan Shaqiri and Brian Gutierrez. Coach Frank Klopas has tried different formations to compensate, using a standard 4-2-3-1 and trying a 4-4-2 against Atlanta as Shaqiri sat out injured.
In the end, however, Klopas stressed the “principles” don’t change with the formation, even though details such as the shape of runs and movements might be altered.
“You’re always working with the principles, with the ball and without the ball, and then your game idea that you have,” Klopas said. “We’ve been clear with the group from the beginning.”
What’s clear through 10 games is that something doesn’t work with the Fire attack.
Big-money striker Hugo Cuypers hasn’t gotten the service he needs to produce and has just two goals and five shots on target through 846 minutes. As a team, the Fire have 11 goals and have been kept scoreless four times.
Midfielder Kellyn Acosta — another expensive offseason acquisition — sees the problems and shoulders some of the blame. The Fire (2-4-4, 10 points) haven’t done a good job of moving the ball from the back of their formation to the front, they’ve been loose in possession and their transition game hasn’t always been clean.
“Sometimes it’s the final pass, and also sometimes it’s just progression into the final third,” Acosta said. “There’s times where we’ve got to pick our moments where we need to hold on to the ball and there’s times where we need to go and go with speed. It’s about the little details in those moments, finding the right foot, turning in certain spaces, half-spaces, body, positioning, and runs in behind.
“As we’ve been working on a lot in training, it’s about executing and now it’s about putting those practice routines in the game. If we just keep dialing away, we can have the positive results that we want.”
Saturday against the Revolution (1-7-1, 4 points) should be a good chance for the Fire to rack up goals. New England has been the worst team in MLS, allowing 18 goals in nine matches.
Then again, New England and the Fire played to a 1-1 draw on March 23.
“We need to get results at home. That’s the important thing,” Klopas said. “We know it’s not going to be an easy game. You look at the team that, on the table, they are in the bottom, but we know that it’s a team with quality. There’s so much parity [in the league]. There’s no easy games.”
