Union forward Jack McInerney does battle with Toronto
defender Gale Agbossoumonde during Saturday's 1-1 draw.
(Times Staff/ERIC HARTLINE)

Union manager John Hackworth 
On the draw: 
“This is one of those games where a draw feels like a loss. I definitely feel like we struggled there. I know that what I was told on the sidelines, what I saw live and what I saw on the replay are completely different. But you can’t do anything about that now. It is what it is and at the end of the day you have to take your chances and finish them, and we didn’t do much of that.”

On possessions and change in play:
“We’re not a long ball team. At half time the stats were much more possession oriented. In the first half we had the ball 66% of the time. So I don’t know what to tell you other than I think we had it more than they did and it was just a terrible, ugly game. It was a restart game. Between some tactics by Toronto and some interesting management of someone else on the field - it was just a game that was stopping and starting the whole time and it continued to do that throughout the whole game. That’s one of the reasons why as a coach … I know some of the players feel it too, they were frustrated by the tempo of the game.”

On the starting front three of Jack McInerney, Conor Casey and Sebastien Le Toux:
“I don’t think it was as much our front three as our whole team struggled to keep our game plan. Our possession wasn’t the way we wanted to do it. Even though we had more of the ball, our rhythm and our tempo wasn’t what we had planned on and you’ve got to give a lot of credit to Toronto for that, some other mitigating factors. I think it’s a struggle any time you have to play under those kinds of conditions."
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When Union manager John Hackworth calls Toronto F.C. “sneaky good,” it’s a little difficult to peg just what he means.

Toronto midfielder Luis Silva may have a revamped
Philadelphia Union midfield to contend with Saturday.
(Associated Press)

On paper, the Toronto’s strengths lie at the front and back of the formation. Robert Earnshaw is a tremendous poacher who can make slumbering defenses pay early and often. Danny Califf and Darren O’Dea provide a balanced and seasoned central defense pairing, shoring up a massive weakness of last year’s hapless Toronto team.

But if there’s one area in which Toronto (1-2-2, 5 points) doesn’t jump off the page, it’s the midfield.

That works in the favor of the Union, which are still waiting from a stand-up-and-take-notice performance from its midfield. Even with a greatly improved Toronto team coming to town, this could be a chance for that performance.
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