Davy Arnaud makes his debut as head coach of the Dynamo on Saturday when Houston plays host to the Colorado Rapids.
Arnaud, 39, was promoted from his assistant’s job of the past three seasons to interim coach when Wilmer Cabrera was fired on Tuesday.
The Dynamo (9-13-3, 30 points) have lost four straight and are 2-11-1 in their past 14 games after a club-record 7-2-2 start. With nine games remaining, the Dynamo are seven points behind the Portland Timbers for the final playoff spot in the Western Conference.
“My focus has solely been on what can I do right now, what can we do right now to affect this organization in a positive way,” Arnaud said. “Our goal as a club is what we can do to affect this group in a positive way to turn this thing around.”
Cabrera had a 32-39-22 record in MLS play and coached the Dynamo to the 2018 U.S. Open Cup title.
Colorado (7-13-5, 26 points) also has an interim coach, Conor Casey, who replaced Anthony Hudson on May 1 with the Rapids at 0-7-2.
The Rapids’ slim chances for the playoffs in the West took a hit with a 1-0 loss at Minnesota United on Wednesday.
“It was just one of those nights, honestly,” Colorado forward Jonathan Lewis said. “Defensively we weren’t bad. Going forward we weren’t bad. We were just unlucky.”
Colorado’s Clint Irwin played for injured goalkeeper Tim Howard (calf) and made eight saves, including a penalty kick by Darwin Quintero.
“We don’t have a lot of time to dwell on things,” Casey said. “It will be good to shift our focus and take a look at Houston and get ready to go there and put in a good performance.”
Arnaud won’t make many lineup changes.
“We’ve had success with this group of players playing a certain type of way,” he said. “We just need to get back to doing those things and fix the things we’ve struggled with lately.”
–Field Level Media