CARSON, Calif. -- The way Toronto FC coach John Carver saw it, his side played defense with a noose around their necks. And it was goalkeeper Greg Sutton of all people who forced the club to ultimately hang itself.
Sutton had a ball slip through his fingers and across the goal line deep in second-half stoppage time as Toronto FC lost 2-1 to Chivas USA at The Home Depot Center on Saturday.
"You can't defend like that. I thought it was going to come earlier," Carver said. "It was suicide defending and that's not good enough."
Toronto FC fell to 2-9-0 on the road and 7-10-5 overall. While the attack struggled on Saturday, one goal may have been enough to pull out a result.
But it was Atiba Harris who struck late. Sacha Kljestan took a corner kick and found Harris in front of the goal. Harris fired a shot on goal that had just enough behind it to get past Sutton's fingers and across the goal line.
Carver said the entire sequence leading up to the goal was inexcusable -- that Sutton played a key role in the breakdown made things worse.
"It was crazy, wasn't it? There was seconds left," Carver said. "We have the ball with the goalkeeper. He then rolls it out to one of our midfield players who was running with his back to the play. It ends up going out for a corner and it's in the back of the net. What is frustrating is that it comes from a guy who is an experienced player, an international... He's made some good saves in the game that's important. But with his experience I expected him just to keep it and then stick it in behind, we see the game out, we get the draw and it's better than losing all three points."
Perhaps Toronto FC players had just three additional minutes left in their bodies, so when the match went into the fourth minute of stoppage time they could not respond.
"It was a tough way to lose it in the last couple of seconds," Toronto defender Tyrone Marshall said. "I think we're trying to defend to the best of our abilities but that's just a little lapse in concentration. It's one of those things when you're fighting and scrapping and not an ounce of energy left. It's just one of those things that happened. We fought to the bitter end and we left everything on the pitch."
Jim Brennan had put Toronto FC ahead 1-0 in the 19th minute, but even that bit of fortune -- it was just Toronto's 12th road goal of the season -- was met with misfortune.
"They came down and the ball I guess went in between one of the player's legs," Marshall said about the pass that set up Alecko Eskandrian's equalizer. "I don't think it was a lucky pass got in between a player's legs and he got into a good position and he knocked it in."
Chivas USA, though, had multiple scoring opportunities from then on. Eskandarian had two chances that he failed to put away while Justin Braun had a late breakaway Sutton saved.
The defensive effort was poor as the match spiraled out of control, Carver said.
"I've been crying out for weeks and weeks and weeks that we need some strikers but you can't defend like that," he said. "That was disastrous. For me, that's the worst we've played since I've been here."
Toronto FC will host Chivas USA Saturday at BMO Field but the lineup won't look anything like Saturday's as 10 players will go away to their respective national teams.
"Fortunately from their point-of-view they all go off on international duty now," Carver said, "because if they'd have to be there, they'd go in Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday working on defending. I'm absolutely furious."
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