Houston Dynamo lament poor first half vs. Real Salt Lake, but question no-call on Abdoulie Mansally elbow

The Houston Dynamo took two steps back on Saturday night.

After claiming a 2-0 win against the San Jose Earthquakes last week on the road, Houston found themselves on the opposite end of that scoreline away to Real Salt Lake. In particular, they fell prey to a second-half red card and a poor night creating chances, but the issues started from the beginning.

“I think the first half we let ourselves down. I think that wasn’t our best performance at all and we just lacked a little bit of grit, determination, and tenacity in the first half,” Dynamo goalkeeper Tyler Deric said after the game. “But give the guys credit, we really turned it around and unfortunately we got the red card so the hill was a little bit tougher to climb. But overall the first-half performance really did kill us.”

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Against an RSL team that had previously struggled in defense this season, Houston had a chance to take advantage but could not put a cohesive attack together. They completed 65 percent of their passes in the first half, but midway through the period that number was as low as 55 percent.

Their counterparts were not much better. RSL struggled on the whole Saturday, but the class of Javier Morales, who hit a spectacular 36th-minute shot to claim the first goal and also set up Joao Plata’s clincher in the 65th minute, saved them.

“I think the first goal was a self-inflicted mistake, as we’ve seen,” head coach Owen Coyle said after the game. “We’ve given the ball away in a cheap area and Morales does what he does very well. He’s an outstanding player, and he nestles one right in the corner. We didn’t defend well enough for the first goal because we had the ball and we gave it away.”

Making matters worse was a 51st-minute red card to Kofi Sarkodie that put them at a man disadvantage after they were already 1-0 down. Sarkodie slid late into Abdoulie Mansally, who immediately went down, drawing the straight red.

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Coyle wasn't sure about the ejection, but admitted that he needed to look at it again. But in the same vein, an elbow from Mansally in the 26th minute went uncalled and it ended up breaking the nose of Dynamo midfielder Alex.

“I’ve got to say I think Real Salt Lake was very fortunate to have 11 men on the park, given the elbow to Alex. I’ve got a player in there with a broken nose – clear elbow – and [a red] is not given,” Coyle said. “And then all of a sudden we find ourselves down to 10 men when Kofi [Sarkodie] comes in.”

Houston responded after the red card. In fact, their attack got better and started to produce chances. But the numerical disadvantage and a misfiring attack for large stretches was too much to overcome, and the consistency meter swung back into the red as it often has this season for the Dynamo.

“There was a fire that got lit up in some people and I don’t know,” Deric said. “I think we needed to do that from minute one. We have to have that tenacity from minute one. Red card or not, I think the result was justified.”

Darrell Lovell covers the Houston Dynamo for MLSsoccer.com.