SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Dominic Kinnear was exactly half a season into his return as the San Jose Earthquakes’ coach when he told reporters earlier this week that he had enjoyed coaching this group of players “because it’s almost to the point where I know exactly what I’m going to get.”
That presumably made Friday’s performance all the more difficult to comprehend. San Jose laid their first true egg at new Avaya Stadium, looking by turns lethargic and disjointed in losing 2-0 to a Houston squad that hadn’t won on the road in two months.
It was the kind of night that left Kinnear and his players fighting to take responsibility for the club’s first loss in six home appearances.
“I’ll take the blame for this one,” Kinnear told reporters. “Every once in a while, a coach doesn’t prepare his team properly. I don’t think we played well tonight and I think I had a big part in that. . . . A coach is supposed to help his team win the game, or help his team not lose the game. I don’t think I coached a very good game today.”
Quakes center back Clarence Goodson wasn’t willing to let the rest of the roster off the hook that easily.
“That’s nice of him to say, but it’s a collective effort,” Goodson said. “I think we let ourselves down tonight. We’ve set a standard this year that’s a lot higher than that. . . . It was just too many guys tonight that looked a little sleepy, didn’t really want the ball and collectively we didn’t play well enough.”
San Jose allowed eight shots on goal -- five individually to Ricardo Clark, the former Quake who scored the 10th-minute opener with a diving header -- to a team that came in averaging 3.11 per game, dead last in MLS.
The result dropped San Jose (7-7-4) to .500 on the season, keeping them out of playoff position in the Western Conference on total points and moving them further back from the sixth-ranked Galaxy in terms of points-per-game.
“We had two big games -- one against LA, one against Portland,” Goodson said. “I think guys were up for those games and came home and, for whatever reason, it looked like guys thought we could just turn up and get a victory. That’s absolutely not the case.”
Goalkeeper David Bingham said his club wasn’t suffering any aftereffects from giving up a game-winning goal to the Timbers in second-half stoppage time during their last match.
“It’s not an emotional letdown, it’s just a letdown,” Bingham said. “To be successful in this league, you’ve got to be picking up points. We let one slip away last week up in Portland, and then you have to win your home games to be successful -- and we know that.”
Before they get another chance to win at Avaya, the Quakes will have to travel to LA and Vancouver. A defeat against the Galaxy -- who are 8-1-2 at StubHub Center -- would put San Jose on their first three-game losing streak of the season.
“We didn’t play our best tonight, and we’re not claiming that by any means,” Bingham said. “That being said, it’s a long year, and we have to pick ourselves up and get back to work, because we need to go to LA and pick up points this coming week. . . . It’s easier to forget about a game like this when you win the next one.”
