Toronto FC will have to wait a little bit longer to get its defensive quarterback back into the starting line-up.

Coach Greg Vanney confirmed that veteran centre back Steven Caldwell is still nursing a nagging calf injury and won’t play in Sunday’s road game vs. Orlando City.

Caldwell, 34, has sat out the last three games since coming out at halftime of the Reds’ 2-0 loss to the Columbus Crew on March 14.

Right fullback Mark Bloom, who has yet to play a single minute this season, will also miss Saturday’s contest, also with a calf problem. Vanney said he hopes to have both players take part in training next week, and possibly play on the weekend.

Soccer Central podcast: SPORTSNET.CA’s Soccer Central podcast, hosted by John Molinaro and James Sharman, takes an in-depth look at the beautiful game and offers timely and thoughtful analysis on the sport’s biggest issues. To listen and subscribe to the podcast, CLICK HERE.

“The prognosis is we’re optimistic (for) next week. They should start integrating back into training and we’ll look at next week,” Vanney told reporters after Friday’s practice.

Bloom told Sportsnet he had an MRI that revealed that his calf injury was “worse than I thought,” but he added he was confident he’ll be available soon.

Rookie centre-back Clement Siminon, who’s played one game so far in 2015, remains out injured.

The good news for Toronto is that French midfielder Benoit Cheyrou, who sat out last weekend’s 3-2 loss to FC Dallas, is fit and is expected to start in the middle of the park next to Michael Bradley.

The continued absence of two defensive starters from a season ago in Caldwell and Bloom is bad news for a Toronto side that has conceded 11 goals and yet to record a clean sheet through the first five games of the MLS campaign.

Since taking over from Ryan Nelsen last season, Vanney has preached that he wants his team to be aggressive—both in attacking and defending. Vanney still believes in that philosophy even with the team mired in a defensive slump. He just wants his players to be more selective in applying their aggression.

“There are moments in the game where you want to be aggressive and there are moments where (it isn’t ideal) to be aggressive and we need to recover and keep things in front of us and reorganize. For us, it’s finding the right balance—when you possess and have a lot of attacking numbers in attacking third and the ball transitions, you shouldn’t just turn around and sprint to the top of your box and defend,” Vanney explained.

“You should be able to get them under pressure and force them to turn over the ball. At the same time you can’t expose the space behind you.”

He later added that his team has to do a better job of “keeping the game in front of us.”

Right fullback Warren Creavalle is available for selection on Sunday after serving his one-game suspension. But look for Justin Morrow, who was moved from the centre to the right side of defence after 10 minutes into the Dallas game, to start at right fullback vs. Orlando.

“Obviously, it’s not his natural position but he did a fantastic job defensively and competed very well. … He understands the outside back position, and the decisions that have to be made. He very much showed that (in Dallas),” Vanney said.

A left fullback by trade, Morrow has played in the middle and on the right as Vanney has had to deal with injury, suspension and depth issues this season. Morrow revealed that he’d never played at right fullback before the Dallas contest where the Reds went down 2-0 after 10 minutes.

“Obviously, it wasn’t the greatest start, so I was just worried about staying tight defensively,” Morrow said.

Asked if he could play there again in Orlando, Morrow confidently answered: “It’s something I can handle. If it’s something I have to do again then I’m comfortable there.”

After Orlando, TFC wraps up its seven-game road stretch to open the regular season on May 2 vs. the Philadelphia Union.