Defensive mistakes still haunting Lions
Orlando City on Saturday earned its second draw of the season thanks to a stoppage-time goal from right back Scott Sutter. The draw stopped a three-match losing skid, but Orlando City still has a lot of work to do to make up ground in the Eastern Conference playoff race. Here are three takeaways from the match: our standpoint, they’re really cheap. We put ourselves in a hole, 2-nil down.”
Orlando City has scored six goals in its last two matches.
The Lions have come away with just one point.
O’Connor said the team’s movement has been good, and Yoshi Yotún — who will miss the Lions’ next match due to a redcard suspension — has been an engine in the club’s attack.
Under O’Connor, scoring goals hasn’t been the issue. Orlando City has scored the first goal in three of the six league matches he’s coached. In those games, the Lions have scored 11 goals. The team had three goals in the six matches prior to O’Connor taking over.
“We’re investing a lot and not getting much out of it,” Sutter said. “We just need to keep working. It’s difficult to say or difficult for fans to hear but I think we are turning the corner. We’ve now got the ability to score the first goal and put ourselves in good positions and I think if you look at the last few games [we’re] definitely a different team.”
Not much changed for Orlando City in the grand scheme of things, other than the Lions have one less match to make up points in the Eastern Conference table.
Philadelphia lost, Toronto and Montreal earned draws and the Chicago Fire also lost. So Orlando City (7-14-2, 23 points) is in eighth place, six points away from a playoff spot. The Union (27 points) are four points ahead of Orlando City with a game in hand, but Orlando City has a game in hand over fifthplace Montreal (29 points).
The Lions needed a win Saturday night. Avoiding a fourth consecutive loss was good for the club, but splitting points with the team you’re chasing isn’t how you make up ground in the playoff race.
Orlando City’s next three games are against D.C. United, Atlanta United and the Philadelphia Union. Those are three matches against Eastern Conference opponents, and the Union are in the playoff hunt.