Numbers have TFC facing a crunch

Feeling the effects of a flu-like bug, Toronto FC coach Greg Vanney looked somewhat pale Friday.

And while well aware of his club’s poor run of form to date this season, Vanney wasn’t up to number-crunching what 10th-place TFC needs to climb back up the league ladder.

“I haven’t done specific math. I’m not very good at it,” he said with a weak smile when asked about the numbers. “Too many variables.

“For us we’ve got to take care of our business. We have enough games coming up with the teams between us (and the sixth and last playoff spot in the Eastern Conference) ... Really I feel it just comes down to us, one game at a time, to accumulate as many points as we can between now and then.”

But with Toronto (5-11-4) nine points out of the playoffs with14 games remaining, he acknowledged the margin of error for the defending MLS champions is “minimal” with every game critical.

“I don’t think we want to be in a position where we’re trying to rely too heavily on the result of everyone else. We need to take care of our business and if we do so, then I think we’re OK. I think if we can come up with nine wins out of the 14, we’ll probably be in a pretty good position.”

It starts Saturday against the eighth-place Chicago Fire, whom Toronto beat 2-1 last weekend at Toyota Park. While that victory snapped a six-game league winless streak, TFC has still only collected five of the 21 points available over the last seven matches (1-4-2).

The Fire (6-11-5) aren’t doing much better. They have lost four straight and have won just once in their last eight league games.

Perhaps buoyed by their Canadian Championship semifinal win over Ottawa, TFC players appeared loose at training. Vanney described the mood as “focused but maybe a little bit less stressful” than before.

The TFC coach said there was a “good possibility” that Victor Vazquez could play Saturday. The team has been managing his training time so as not to irritate a knee issue.