Hartford Athletic look to bounce back from a disappointing 2-nil loss to Loudoun United as they travel to Indianapolis to take on Indy Eleven in a rare Sunday evening fixture. It's part of a long road stretch for Hartford, who are in the midst of a month away from home and have just one point while failing to score from the first three games of that run.

Against Loudoun, the Latics started brightly, having the better of the opening exchanges but faded after the half-hour mark. It was a performance that is summed up where this team is right now: still in possession of enough talent to compete at the Championship level but so ravaged by injuries that they can’t sustain it for 90 minutes or fight back into a game that is getting away from them.  

“Really good for the first 30-35 minutes,” said manager Brendan Burke when speaking to the media. “Just a kind of a mindless let down at the end of the first half.  And then we weren't as good coming out of the break. We had to take Sadat [Anaku] off because of minutes restrictions. We couldn't get Addy [Adewale Obalola] on because of minutes restrictions.”

It was unfortunate that Anaku and Obalola, along with Emannuel Samadia, were still on minutes restrictions, but also good news to see their minutes expanded from the previous week against Phoenix. As Hartford tries to recover from a rash of injuries that have seen as many as eight of the first-choice game-day 18 completely unavailable for selection, the return of those players is a hopeful sign, particularly as the Latics were able to find some positive intent for a half hour. Burke emphasized both points, highlighting that his team was able to take a good approach, even though the absence of key players meant that consistency was out of the question.

“Our energy was good," he said. "I think Sadat helped stretch the line. I think the tempo on the ball was pretty good, especially considering we were without Manu [Emmanuel Samadia] and Seb [Sebastian Anderson]. They typically up the tempo and the service volume. I think we could have gotten forward a little bit more on the left side, but we did a decent job of getting forward on the right side. Ultimately we're patchwork right now and some of those relationships aren't fully developed. So you see flashes of really good stuff, but the consistency isn't there yet.”

With Michee Ngalina, Augustine Williams, Samuel Careaga and Abdullah Taofeek all unavailable against Loudoun, Hartford’s attack was makeshift, featuring Anaku alongside Barry Coffeey and loanee Michael Adedokun. With an actual week of training under his belt, Burke was full of praise for the midfielder, who was on the pitch during Hartford’s brightest stretches of attacking play last Saturday.

“Mikey's been really good. I think his passing is sharp. He plays forward with real intent. I think he will have goals in him, Great character, high IQ. He's asking a lot of good questions. It's hard to jump in and learn a team system overnight, but he seems to be doing just that.I thought he was one of our high performers at Loudon the other day.”

Adedokun will continue to get chances to impress over the coming week, but competition for minutes should tighten as Anaku and Obalola see their minutes expanded, and Ngalina, Taofeek and Williams all return from injury, creating more of a logjam among the front four. And there should be good news elsewhere on the injury front as well, with Matt Real and Sebastian Anderson likely to return to action in the next six days, leaving only Samuel Careaga on the injury list.

And those returns will be even more valuable as Hartford enters a brutal stretch of three games in six days, with two of those fixtures being on the road. It’s another nightmare bit of scheduling for the Latics, and it’s a problem that continues to plague the USL Championship. That process of scheduling is a little opaque – it’s unclear exactly how the league uses the information they receive from teams to actually create the schedule – and it absolutely has a competitive impact. Looking ahead to the Cup Quarterfinal on Wednesday, Charlotte will not only have an extra day of rest, it will be playing its fourth consecutive home game, while Hartford will be playing their fifth consecutive road game - and will have traveled just in the 72 hours between the two games.

“I can't speak to what they do internally to to build that [the schedule],” said Burke when asked about the fixture congestion. “But I know each team is able to submit dates that they want and it'll be important for us to really focus on that internally and and really hold fast on having a more balanced schedule next year. That helps protect the guys from injury. Our rosters aren't big enough in this league to deal with that kind of strain on on players because of the demands.”

The Blazing Musket understands that the USL Championship denied a request by Hartford to have this fixture against Indy Eleven moved 24 hours earlier, and so the Latics will make the best of a bad situation. And there will be plenty of other challenges on Sunday evening, between Indy’s physicality and the poor surface at Michael A. Carroll Stadium.

“It's a bad turf surface,” said Burke. “So the ball’s going to be bouncing around a little. Second balls become really important.”

Those conditions will require an additional level of focus from Hartford, who have sometimes been guilty of losing track of the second ball this season.

And they’ll have to maintain that focus against a team that is very direct, and has the physicality to cause problems, as the Latics saw earlier this season at Trinity Health Stadium.

“They're a very big team,” said Burke. “They're very athletic. [Bruno] Rendon is one of the elite athletes in the league and but also brings size and they have three guys, four guys in the center of midfield or that play inverted that can all really pass over distance and cut you open if you aren't closing the windows fast enough. So it's it's a big test.”

Earlier this season, Indy gave Hartford problems on the counter, slicing forward twice to score two goals in a 2-all draw. It’s a problem that might suggest a different approach, perhaps sitting back a little more to nullify the threat of the counter, but Burke was quick to point back to the quality of their midfielders, who will create an entirely different set of problems if allowed time and space.

“There's only so much you can do. If you sit back, then you allow those 3 or 4 guys that can really open the game with their passing ability. You know, you're talking about [Aodhan] Quinn and [Jack] Blake and Cam Lindley,  they have a lot of technical ability to support all the size and athleticism. So if you sit off them, I don't think that's a good solution.”

Ultimately, Hartford need to start finding its way towards playing its game, rather than reacting to the tactical problems created by the opposition. The first half hour in Loudoun showed Hartford can do that. So did the last half hour against Orange County a few weeks ago. That requires the Latics to play with positivity and aggression, regardless of who is on the pitch.

But Burke is also trying to make sure that their team health trends in a positive direction.

“We're trying to stay more aggressive through the second-half of the season,” Burke said of their approach. “But I've been quite frankly kind of holding the guys back so we don't pick up any more injuries until we have full training sessions like we did [on Thursday].”

Contained in that sentiment is the glimmer of hope that things might be starting to trend in the right direction, as Burke is inching towards having his full roster available on any given day. This week will be a difficult one, and Hartford will absolutely be prioritizing the midweek USL Cup quarterfinal, but Sunday night in Indianapolis is an opportunity to build the right mindset, regardless of results. The Latics have shown an occasional good half hour recently; perhaps an entire half of positive football would count as a step in the right direction. 

One step in the right direction might not feel like enough, given Hartford’s circumstances, given their recent results and the stage of the season. And make no mistake, the Latics are approaching Sunday’s fixture with full recognition of those facts.

“We haven’t won in a very long time,” said Burke. “There’s going to be a lot of desperation in that game.”