Ghana and Columbus Crew defender, Jonathan Mensah, has challenged his teammates to develop a strong defensive mindset they had earlier in the season.
Mensah helped his side to record six drawn games in a row, which the former Ashgold player said was not helping the club’s ambition of playing in the playoffs.
“Start of the season, we had that killer instinct where we all defended as a team and won games,” defender Jonathan Mensah said. “But now it’s like we’re up 2-1 and we want to go again (and score) instead of keeping the ball, winning some fouls, killing games.”
The Black and Gold side occupies the last but one bottom on the eastern conference league table and are seven points away from playing in the playoff of the MLS.
Crew’s coach, Caleb Porter, posited that the team’s defence that was the strength of the club has changed for some time.
“It’s disappointing that we’re not winning every game scoring as many goals as we are. Last two games, I thought, in particular, we should’ve gotten four more points” he said of ties against Toronto FC and FC Cincinnati”.
Not long ago, the Crew was without its top three centre backs and still remains without one, Aboubacar Keita. Josh Williams is coming back from an injury that kept him out seven of the past 11 games.
The Crew has also played without its top three left-backs since Hector Jimenez went out with an MCL injury for at least a month on August 3.
“Giving up goals has a lot to do with just maybe continuity in the backline, we’ve had zero continuity in our back lines, and that’s not by design,” he added.