Road woes continue to hurt Crew
In a 3-0 loss at Philadelphia Union on Sunday, the Crew's road struggles for the past two seasons were on full display. The Crew (9-12-7, 34 points) allowed a first-half goal on a 30-yard free kick from a center back, and the attack failed to create much of anything through open play.
It's that type of play away from Columbus that has severely handicapped the team's chances of climbing back into a playoff spot just one season after winning MLS Cup — trailing seventh place by six points with six games left.
“We've just got to be tougher on the road,” center back Josh Williams said. “I'm sick of how we come out and perform on the road. It's, again, embarrassing. That's the word that comes to mind. It's shocking. You just can't have performances like that.”
The Crew became the first team to win MLS Cup without winning a road game in 2020. After winning three neutral-site games at the MLS is Back Tournament, the Crew were 0-5-5 in road games. With some higher seeds losing, the Crew were fortunate to host all of their playoff games as the third-seed in the East, which they earned by earning 27 of 30 possible points at home.
Having dropped 15 points at home already, with four games left this season at Lower.com Field, the road problems have been exposed even more.
The Crew are 2-9-4 on the road this season, with wins against a quality New York City FC team and a then-struggling Atlanta United squad that has turned its season around. But mostly, Sunday's letdown performance has been the expectation.
“I don't understand our mentality when we go on the road,” Williams said. “It's like we just expect teams to roll over, or maybe we think they should respect us a lot more than they do — I don't know what we're doing. But it was like that last year."
Out of 26 teams, with pretty much the same group the past two seasons, the Crew have the third-fewest wins and tied for the third-fewest points with a 2-14-9 road record. FC Cincinnati has two more road wins and the same number of points as the Crew.
Since Porter was hired before the 2019 season, the Crew are 6-24-12 on the road, which ranks 22nd in the league factoring out Inter Miami and Nashville, who weren't yet in the league in 2019. But the Crew weren't a good road team before Porter got to Columbus. In Gregg Berhalter's last three years, the Crew were 9-2913 on the road.
Williams was clear that the blame for Sunday's performance — and by extension the Crew's overall performance on the road — is strictly on the players.
“It's not the staff, it's not Caleb, it's not anybody else but the guys that were on the pitch, guys that were in the locker room,” he said. “Do we want to make the playoffs or not? It's so frustrating." jmyers@dispatch.com
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