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Montreal hopes for better defensive outing against Chivas

Jul 5, 2013 - 8:49 PM Montreal, QC (Sports Network) - Chivas USA and the Montreal Impact enter Sunday's match at Saputo Stadium in completely opposite ends of the spectrum.

While Montreal has resided at or near the top of the Eastern Conference for much of the season, Chivas has fallen on hard times after a decent start and brings a 12-game winless streak into the match.

However, Chivas appears to be a team growing in confidence despite its last win in the league coming on March 30.

The Goats are starting to come together under new head coach Jose Luis Real, and the club is coming off of its first clean sheet of the season.

A 0-0 draw at FC Dallas on Thursday marked the first contest in a three-game road trip for Chivas, which is simply looking for any kind of positives to take going forward.

"It's a building block. We're unbeaten in the last two games and we still have two more left on this road trip, so we need to take that confidence with us knowing that we can get points anywhere," said Chivas goalkeeper Dan Kennedy. "We got through today, and now it's about recovering quick because we have a game Sunday in Montreal. Fortunately, Montreal are not in the best form right now and we're coming into a little bit of a better way. So that should be a good game for us."

Montreal may be sitting in a good place in the standings, but the club must find a way to improve on a suddenly leaky defense which has yielded seven goals in its past two games.

The good news is that the Impact has scored six goals in that two-game span, but has only managed to earn one point, which came on Wednesday in a 3-3 comeback draw at Toronto FC.

"We scored six [goals] in the last two," Montreal's Davy Arnaud said after the 3-3 draw with TFC, which followed a 4-3 defeat to Colorado. "That should be enough for more than just one point."

In fact, Montreal has had trouble keeping goals out as well this season, recording just two clean sheets in 16 league games this season.

The weakness has been magnified over the past two games, but it is a problem that must be corrected not only by the defenders, but by the whole team according to assistant coach Mauro Biello.

"Obviously there are things we must fix and improve on," Biello told MLSsoccer.com on Wednesday night. "When you allow three goals - seven in two games - you've got work to do. And it's not just the defenders. It's the whole team that must defend better, and we're aware of that. We'll keep working in order to improve."