John Thorrington scored the only goal for the Fire as they went on to beat the LA Galaxy at the Home Depot Center . Even though the Fire were missing several key players, as were the LA Galaxy, the Fire should have put the Galaxy away easily, but struggled instead.

The Fire wouldn’t have the services of their superstar Cuauhtémoc Blanco; the Galaxy didn’t have the services of their two superstars, David Beckham, and Landon Donovan. The last time the Fire didn’t have Blanco playing, they had a victory over Chivas USA . Without Blanco, the Fire looked faster and were playing good, but the only problem was they had Marco Pappa, and Gonzalo Segares then and not now. Along with Blanco, these two Fire starters were missing but that didn’t stop the Fire from looking better than the Galaxy in the first half.

Although the Fire did look better than the Galaxy in the first, its not saying much since the Fire played terrible. The Fire only had a couple of opportunities to score with the closest coming in the 30th minute after Chris Rolfe took a shot that was saved by Steve Cronin’s fingertips.

The biggest story coming from the first half was Patrick Nyarko’s injury. The rookie, who has been looking like the next best striker in the MLS, left in the 22nd minute when he injured his leg. Nyarko looked devastated on the bench, along with Fire fans who now have to deal with having Andy Herron and Tomasz Frankowski as their only forwards on the bench. Herron and Frankowski haven’t shown much this season, Frankowski has looked better but Hamlett prefers to play Herron for reasons unknown, but once again Herron was brought in tonight before Frankowski.

Coach Hamlett also keeps making questionable choices like keeping Logan Pause in the starting eleven. At times you can clearly see Pause looking uncomfortable with the ball at his feet. Pause has managed to also seem “invisible” on the field throughout games as well. The Fire desperately wanted the services of Lidar Marmol from the New York Red Bulls, and got they got him because they had his rights. After being hyped up as the next best defender for the Fire that could play the defensive mid-field spot, the Fire have barely used him. Hamlett seems to be playing favorites with Andy Herron and Logan Pause because he has been with them longer than he has been with Frankowski, and Marmol. Hamlett’s choices like this, along with his line-up formations have been slowly destroying the Fire.

In the second half the Fire were still winning the possession battle but still not making good moves until the 65th minute. After a nice pass from Brian McBride, John Thorrington who has enjoyed great success against the Galaxy, had a great run and scored the first goal of the match.

Chris Rolfe struggled throughout the match, and the man who usually has a great knack for scoring goals had trouble controlling the ball with his feet and getting off good shots, with the exception of his earlier shot. In the 72nd minute after a Greg Vanney mistake, Chris Rolfe had the best opportunity to score but somehow managed to miss. Chris Rolfe’s play in this match ended up looking more like Chad Barrett’s then his own play that Fire fans love.

In the 82nd minute, Fire veteran and MLS original Diego Gutierrez was found open on the left side and had an opportunity to send in a cross to the box where his teammates were waiting. What should have been an easy cross ended up being crossed behind the goal. The question that arises from this is, why does Hamlett play Gutierrez when he has a healthy Dasan Robinson on the bench who is also much younger? Hamlett decided to wait until the 90th to put Robinson in the match when he should have came in much earlier.

Yes, the Fire may have won this game, and yes we should all be happy, but this team still has problems it should sort out. This LA Galaxy team is not very good, and they' even worse when they don’t have their two best players. The Chicago Fire is a better than how they've been playing and Hamlett needs to put the best players out there, not those who he seems to favor.

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