Houston, TX – Real Salt Lake will be trying to turn around its poor form away from home on Saturday at Robertson Stadium when the club meets the Houston Dynamo.
Coach Jason Kreis saw his team win its first two away games to start the season, but since that time, they have claimed just three points from their last seven road contests.
The latest setback came at Toronto FC last weekend in a 1-0 defeat as RSL was held without a goal for the third time in four games.
Salt Lake is only four points back of fourth-place Colorado in the Western Conference with four games in hand, but Kreis knows that his team must improve away from Rio Tinto Stadium to get going back in the right direction.
"I think that we're a strong enough team that we shouldn't have the road record that we have right now," said Kreis. "It should be better.
"It's a really difficult situation sometimes, because I preach to these guys so much that our biggest focus is just how we perform, and I feel like if they perform well, we don't want to ever be too focused on the results. And that's a little bit of a paradox, because really it's the results that matter, isn't it?"
Houston's results have been just fine of late with the Dynamo bringing a four- game unbeaten streak into Saturday's match after a last-minute goal from Bobby Boswell allowed the club to claim a 1-1 draw with New England.
The result still left Houston without a win on the road this season, but the club's home form has been good, allowing Dominic Kinnear's team to sit just five points back of the Eastern Conference leading Columbus Crew.
Houston has made a habit of scoring late goals to rescue points as Wednesday's result was the sixth time this season that the club has scored a goal in the 83rd minute or later to claim at least a point.
"It's easy to put your head down and just not give up, and (think) maybe this isn't our night, but credit to our guys over the last four games," said midfielder Brad Davis. "I think everybody's put it out there and really stayed together and concentrated for the full 90 minutes and luckily [Wednesday] it paid off."
Adam Moffat will miss Saturday's match through suspension for Houston, while RSL will be without midfielder Will Johnson because of an accumulation of yellow cards.