BRIDGEVIEW, Ill. – Caleb Porter admitted his side probably didn’t deserve three points as the Portland Timbers failed to win on the road for the seventh time this season, leaving the Prairie State with a single point after Saturday's 1-1 draw against the Chicago Fire.

As they have done in each of their last five games away from Providence Park, the reigning MLS Cup champions took the lead when Diego Valeri capitalized on some careless defending from the Fire’s Rodrigo Ramos to calmly slot the ball past Sean Johnson in the 18th minute.

Their lead lasted only two minutes as David Accam drew the hosts level from an incisive Kennedy Igboananike cross. It took a great performance from goalkeeper Jake Gleeson for the Timbers to hold firm and move to 16 points (4-6-4).

Asked if he was concerned about his side’s lack of success on the road this season (the Timbers are 0-4-3), Porter insisted he had seen enough positives on their travels to not be worried by their lack of wins.

“No, because we’ve been one of the best road teams, historically speaking and we’ve been very close,” Porter said. “If there was a pattern of us not winning on the road, we weren’t playing well, or we weren’t close then I would be worried.

“The last five road games we’ve scored the first goal and in the last five road games we’ve been in a position to get three points.”

The Timbers dominated possession with 57 percent, but failed to translate that into anything tangible in front of goal. Fire goalkeeper Sean Johnson made just one save of note from a total of eight shots.

Porter was satisfied with the point given the absence of key players and suggested it positions his side perfectly to move level on points with the San Jose Earthquakes, who visit Portland this coming Wednesday.

“We’ll take this point and file it away,” he added. “We had a lot of guys out and any time you go on the road you’ll take a point, and also I’m not sure we deserved three.

“When you look at that second half I thought Chicago was the better team, they put us under pressure and when things aren’t going your way that’s the mark of a good team; you grind, you put the point in the bag and you get out of there. And that’s what we did.”

Gleeson was certainly the busier of the two goalkeepers, making five saves from the Fire’s 17 shots, and Porter identified his performance as key to securing a share of the spoils.

“I thought the back four was excellent,” he added. “Jake Gleeson came up big a couple of times, and we really weren’t clicking in the attack. Part of that is Darlington Nagbe is a very good, very big player for us and how we look to play.”