MONTREAL – The Montreal Impact have been punching above their weight in the CONCACAF Champions League, but they weren’t very inspiring in a 2-2 draw vs Orlando City on Saturday at Olympic Stadium, which leaves the Impact winless in their first three games in MLS.

Though there’s still a very long way to go in the season and plenty of time to improve, not beating an expansion team at home that had seven players on international duty doesn’t exactly bode well for the Impact. Orlando coach Adrian Heath wasn’t even able to bring a complete roster for the game—he only had three outfield players on the bench.

Even worse was that Montreal had a two-goal lead in the first half and let it slip away.

“We let our guard down,” Impact forward Jack McInerney said. “It’s 2-0 against an expansion team at home: the biggest thing at that point is to keep a clean sheet.

“We controlled the game. When you let your guard down with a player like Kaka on the field, you’re going to have problems. He changed the game.”

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Not appearing to want to fully exert himself—the cement-like turf at Olympic Stadium isn’t very kind on the knees—Kaka was pretty quiet throughout the game. He still showed his class on some sublimely delivered set pieces, as well as in the lead up to both of Orlando’s quick-fire goals, of which he assisted on one and scored the other.

Defensively, the Impact looked a lot more fragile and unsure of themselves than they have been this season, which probably had something to do with the absence of Laurent Ciman, who’s on international duty this week with Belgium. Ciman has been a real leader for the Impact on the back line and if Saturday’s defensive performance is a true indication of how Montreal will look without him, then they better hope he stays healthy and fit this season, or else they’re in trouble.

Another concern was the Impact’s lack of ideas going forward.

“In terms of cohesion, we’re still not a finely tuned team, where we know what happens after this play, after this play, after this play,” midfielder Patrice Bernier told Sportsnet.

The team’s attacks always seem rather monotonous. The Impact are rarely ever able to press opponents and nor do they seem able to shift into a higher gear when they needed. After Orlando went down two goals, the visitors were able to react; they raised the tempo of their game; they showed urgency. The Impact are simply not able to do the same.

Coach Frank Klopas made some tactical changes at halftime—the Impact’s fullbacks got forward more—but they still weren’t able to pick up the rhythm and put Orlando under sustained pressure in the final 20 minutes, as you would expect a home side to do.

Furthermore, outside of trying to get the ball to Ignacio Piatti in dangerous areas as much as possible, there doesn’t seem to be a great deal of collective understanding of how to move forward, combine and break teams down.

Once Orlando set up a lower defensive block in their end, there was no way through.

“We were better with the ball (in the second half) but still in the final third they did a good job clogging the middle and getting behind the ball and even though we had a lot of possession in the second half we didn’t create dangerous opportunities,” Klopas said.

“We were close but I think we didn’t create enough to go ahead.”

One bright spot for the Impact was the performance of McInerney, who before Saturday’s game had looked vastly out of form. Against Orlando he bagged his first goal of the season with a lovely dink over goalkeeper Donovan Ricketts.

“I’ve been training well and working hard and finally it paid off for me,” McInerney said.

But all in all, Montreal seems far from a finished product.

Nick Sabetti is a Montreal-based writer. Follow him on Twitter