The New York Red Bulls could only find the back of the net once against the Chicago Fire, but that wasn't enough.
The Red Bulls lost their first match at home over their last dozen games, 2-1, on Saturday afternoon.
"In the end, we didn't look the way we wanted, and we're going to find ways to improve on it," Head Coach Jesse Marsch said in his postgame press conference.
Marsch said that Chicago really set the tone early and kept hammering all game.
"They came out and they won a lot of duels in the first half, aerial duels, tackles," Marsch said. "They fought, they battled, and then they caused trouble on our back line."
Goalkeeper and captain Luis Robles agreed.
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"Unfortunately, it just took us too long to figure out how we wanted to play and how we wanted to attack," Robles said. "I felt that there were a number of chances in the second half, but the urgency was missing until we conceded the second goal."
Despite outshooting their opponents 22-4, the Red Bulls said they didn't create enough dangerous situations.
"I think we had a lot of chances. We just needed to finish them off," Murillo said.
The Fire scored their first goal on an amazing strike off a corner kick, with Aleksander Katai with a one-time strike into the back of the net. Chicago netted their second after a penalty kick conversion.
"We have to do better on those moments and we have to do better on set pieces," Marsch said. "It's a number of games now where off of set pieces we have not been good. Work to do."
Bradley Wright-Phillips pulled one back for New York as they threatened a come back, tapping in a ball off a corner kick with the bottom of his boot.
"Just lucky. In the right area, at the right time," Wright-Phillips said.
The Red Bulls tried to play out of the back for most of the game against Chicago, with long balls over top.
"I think we tried to play out of the back a little bit, we didn’t really have too much success," Tim Parker said. "They dropped off and sat back on us so we tried to put the ball up the field so we could pick it up in better spots and we could go from there. We had some success with it but not as much as we would have liked."
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The Red Bulls will continue to work as the team continues to come together after a whirlwind start to the season.
"We need to just keep working and keep developing a better understanding, keep integrating Kaku and keep getting this team so that we're really all on the same page," Marsch said. "It's normal for it not to be perfect right now, and you know -- but we've got to have urgency in the workday and the work week and especially now our schedule gets tough."
New York will travel cross-country for their next match to take on Zlatan Ibrahimovic and the LA Galaxy.
"We'll manage it and we'll find ways to get better," Marsch said.
