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TORONTO FC MEDIA CONFERENCE

May 28, 2016

Greg Vanney

Harrison, New Jersey

New York Red Bulls - 3, Toronto FC - 0

GREG VANNEY: (No audio) coming off of their last game, and we had prepared ourselves and talked as a group and worked this week on the start to the game and the importance to the start to the game and what we wanted to do.

We were left with some choices in the beginning of the game, and I thought we made the wrong choice. We tried to slip a ball underneath when the space was actually behind the back line early on. We turned that one over, and within one or two passes, it's a free kick just outside of our box. All week, it's again, working through and talking about set piece defending. Obviously they drop three, I think, in the previous game on set pieces.

So it's something that their service is very good, and guys get to good spots. We were flat footed, I thought, when the service came in, so we found ourselves down quickly. With that, I think we compounded it with more sort of tentative, if you will, play, in terms of getting ourselves out of our half of the field and actually playing when there was time to play.

We kept ourselves under pressure, and eventually it was more mistakes and 3-0 and now you're really in an uphill battle. After that, we go up a man or they go down a man, however you want to look at it, and getting into the half, we have the penalty kick and to me that was a very decisive moment. If we score that penalty kick, and it was so early in the second half, if we don't make what appeared to be a silly error again where a guy gets into the box too soon and now we have to retake it after we make it. It's just a silly, silly error, and we don't capitalize on it the second time.

I just think you're going to have either a ton of belief and think you really have a chance to go fight this one out. Or when that happens, maybe it's a little bit of a feel like this isn't going to be our night, so there's that.

But having said that, I thought the guys competed for the rest of the half. I thought we still got ourselves into some pretty dangerous situations and some chances, but unable to capitalize, and that's been a little bit of the season, a little bit.

If it's not Sebastian, then who is going to step up and put the ball in the back of the net? And the one, I guess, the one thing to take away in this game was we had a number of guys who had opportunities get out there and play and to try to get their chance to put one in the back of the net, and we weren't able to do it.

Q. What did Bradley Wright-Phillips do to make the Red Bull attack so difficult in the first half hour?
GREG VANNEY: Yeah, our mistakes is a big part of it. Obviously they're a good team and they move the ball. And Bradley Wright-Phillips is a crafty forward and finds his spaces. Then set pieces.

So that's a big part of it. If you turn over the ball in your half of the field frequently, then that's what they live on with the pressure that they put on, and we did. We gave the ball away a couple times or a handful of times early in the second half and got pinned in our half. So it's just giving them repetition after repetition to attack our box and our goal.

To their credit, they're a good team and he's a good forward. But you can't just keep giving them opportunities by turning the ball over in your half of the field. You've got to be able to play through the pressure or play beyond the pressure and move the game into their half of the field, and we didn't do that well enough, and we didn't defend well enough on set pieces.

Q. Do you have an update on Giovinco?
GREG VANNEY: I would say it doesn't look like anything significant in terms of amount of time. We'll see as we assess over the next 24 hours. But I think he felt it coming on, and whatever it exactly is, I'm not sure. But I think he felt it coming on, and was able to probably catch himself at an appropriate time to hopefully salvage some time off.

Q. (Inaudible) you guys started out in the season, and kind of changed now (Inaudible)?
GREG VANNEY: I think it's critical errors, really. Tonight, again, set piece defending was an issue. Then I think also we can't make a couple mistakes. The one that Bradley Wright-Phillips gets and gets into the box. Drew does a pretty good job of standing up. We've got to get support to him faster.

Drew was a little unfortunate because I think he went to block the shot and it actually hit his heel and went between his legs. But we've got to make plays. The other side of it is we've got to be able to relieve our defensive repetitions by keeping the ball a little bit by not making errors and possession and turning over the ball on our half of the field. We've got to be better with the ball.

Part of it is also that we've got to be able to score goals because that puts a lot of pressure on the defenders if we're not putting the ball in the back of the net.

By and large, I didn't think, and obviously they played a fair amount of the game a man down, so it's not totally fair to say. But I think they scored on the chances that they had by and large. Even when we were defending in the first part of the first half, it wasn't like chance after chance. It wasn't one of those situations. We were in our half, but we were protecting our goal pretty well, and that's that.

Q. FC Toronto played two games without (Inaudible) are you concerned now that Giovinco (Inaudible) scoring all winning games? Because a few comments from a few other coaches said he's very dangerous the way he plays.
GREG VANNEY: Sure.

Q. Are you concerned now that he might be injured?
GREG VANNEY: Well, of course I'm concerned. He's, as voted by most, last year the best player in the league. Obviously a guy who not only scores goals, but he creates goals and he creates opportunities and he draws attention. But it's not just Seba, Jozy's also out. Seba's out. We've got, you know, that's a fair portion of the attack when you live in a world that we live in in MLS and two of your best players are your forwards and unfortunately we don't have access to them right now. So that's going to affect our attack.

After that, we have some younger players who are showing potential, but showing potential and scoring in Major League Soccer doesn't necessarily happen overnight. So, yeah, I mean, in terms of concern, yeah. Sure Of course we have concern when, like I said, two of our designated players and two of our big guys on the attack are unavailable right now.

Q. You guys come back to action on June 18th and three tough games between L.A., Seattle and Orlando, and two of those are at home. What are the things you guys will be assessing during that break?
GREG VANNEY: Get healthy. I think our record is like 4-1-1 when we're healthy, so that's a big part of it. Again, that's not many games, by the way, when we're healthy. That's only six games, because Jozy missed a fair chunk of the beginning of the season and then he was out again recently, and we missed some guys over the last week.

But we've got to get healthy. That's the number one thing and get ourselves a little bit sharper in the final third and around the goal, obviously, tighten up a few things that, again, we saw tonight and over last week in terms of our set piece defending and things like that.

But it's not we don't need to reinvent ourselves. We don't need to do anything new and exciting. All we need to do is get healthy, and again, tighten up some things that are a little bit loose and be a little sharper in front of the goal.

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