BRIDGEVIEW, Ill. -- What once looked like a solid playoff position now appears shaky for the Chicago Fire.
Denis Hamlett's team has lost three of its last four games, including an embarrassing 4-1 loss to FC Dallas Sunday before a disappointed home crowd at Toyota Park. The Hoops had a 3-0 lead at halftime as the Fire's vaunted defense appeared slow afoot throughout the game.
The Fire must now face the Los Angeles Galaxy in the league's showcase Thursday night matchup.
Last Sunday, a lineup change prompted by Bakary Soumare's yellow card accumulation suspension, plus a hamstring injury to lockdown midfielder Logan Pause, seemed to cause confusion and the Fire could not get their feet under them after letting in a goal in the first two minutes.
"We conceded that goal that early, and we started to press and didn't have the patience and discipline to stick to our game plan, which was to use each other and keep the ball on the ground," Hamlett said. "We were all on different pages. We weren't connecting. That was the disturbing point."
Lider Marmol took Soumare's spot and looked unaccustomed to the speed he was assigned to handle. Soumare is back for the Fire's game against the Galaxy, which should provide better support in front of goalkeeper Jon Busch.
(Soumare) is having a stellar season," Hamlett said. "A lot of the credit goes to the good partnership with him and Wilman Conde over a long stretch of games. Now (with Soumare out) you lose that. There is one piece missing. But we conceded two goals on set pieces, and that has nothing to do with (Soumare) not being there."
Hamlett said the Fire spent a lot of time in their short training period between Sunday and Thursday working on defending set pieces because with the Galaxy they are facing David Beckham, "who can really deliver the ball."
The loss to Dallas, following a 2-0 loss at Colorado the week before, has put out the fire (so to speak) that burned in the team from its solid post-All-Star break performances.
"That's two games we were outplayed," midfielder John Thorrington said. "The one positive is that we have a quick turnaround with the game on Thursday. Perhaps this will serve as a wakeup call for us."
Perhaps there was a comfort level reached a bit early. Between July 27 and Sept. 6, the Fire were 4-2-1 and back in the Eastern Conference title race.
With five games remaining, the Fire are 11-9-5 for 38 points, three better than New York and five better than D.C. United in the East.
But the Fire are four points behind second-place New England and nine points behind skyrocketing Columbus above them.
The remaining schedule has the Fire playing two games at home and two on the road. They visit Kansas City and Toronto and play host to Columbus and New York in the final four games.
The Fire have a few players on the injury report, most notably Pause, who suffered a hamstring strain midweek last week and is still not fully recovered. Pause has served as a sort of backup to Cuauhtemoc Blanco, whose nomad style of play requires a settled central defending midfielder behind him, which is what Pause has been.
The Fire also will be without defender C.J. Brown, forward Patrick Nyarko, defender Dasan Robinson and midfielder Marco Pappa. Defender Daniel Woolard, who was listed as a reserve on Sunday, is more and fully recovered from the knee sprain he suffered a couple of weeks ago.
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