Portland Timbers manager Caleb Porter says that the players are finding it hard to find their feet once again after a bad 4-2 defeat against Seattle Sounders. The club came into the match on a good run of form after having been unbeaten in the last three, but they were unable to stop Sigi Schmid’s team from going on a rampant spree. They managed to go 3-0 in the match with less than 20 minutes. Even though Portland managed to pull back to goals and finish the match in a respectable fashion, it has been seen as a very poor result for the club.

It is also result that hits hard on their aspirations to finish in the top six that would guarantee them a place in the play-offs. The three dropped points has allowed the likes of Vancouver Whitecaps and Colorado Rapids to close the gap on Portland. Even though Portland have a decent four-point advantage over Colorado Rapids, they are just one point above Vancouver Whitecaps who also have a game in hand. Hence, there is a danger of dropping out of the play-off places with only a handful of matches remaining in the season. Reflecting on this possibility, Porter said that he is working hard to ensure that the next match against Vancouver Whitecaps ends in a positive way.

“We obviously took the loss hard against Seattle. Every game is the same, but there’s certain games you take harder than others. That being a rivalry game, there’s a lot of reasons we took it hard. So I think it took a couple of more days to get over it, but the message to the group today was, we have to get over it. We’ve got to stay positive. We have to keep fighting and grinding like we have all season. We have to stick together,” said Porter.