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“We’re at crunch time with a lot of important games ahead of us and each one we’ve got to approach with the right mentality in the right way,” the coach added.

One constant for the Reds is team captain Michael Bradley, who brushed away a suggestion on Thursday that he and his teammates might be getting anxious or nervous — like their fans — over the fact that they’ve yet to solidify a playoff spot.

“Excited, motivated. Not anxious in anyway,” Bradley said. “Still nine games left. More than a quarter of the season. We understand you get to this time of year and the magnifying glass gets put on that much closer. And we’ve got to be better, we’ve got to be sharper, we’ve got to understand that every play can make an even bigger difference. But we feel good about the group that we have and we’re excited about the opportunities that are going to be there for us as we move to the end of the season.

“It’s been a strange season,” added Bradley, when asked if his club has under-performed, even with the team short-handed a times. “You lose a few very important guys (Sebastian Giovinco, Victor Vazquez) from last year, late in pre-season. Then the season starts and you’re without Jozy (Altidore) and (Alejandro) Pozuelo. You play a handful of games without them and then they come back and we’ve got to add them back in.

“Just as you’re kind of getting into a little bit of a rhythm, you lose a big group of guys for Gold Cup. It’s been a busy stretch. So it’s easy to look and say, ‘Yeah, we left points on the table here, here, here.’ But it’s not always that simple. It’s not always that straight forward.

“Ultimately, there will be more time at the end of the year to look at some of those things closer,” Bradley continued. “The reality of it is so much of the league is within a handful of points of each other. And if you can put together a good few weeks, where you play well and come away with good results, then you shoot yourself up the table real quick. (But) on the flip side, you can drop down.

“It’s an important time of year.”