(Sports Network) - Chivas USA manager Preki wouldn't exactly say his club was robbed of a point, or even three, but admitted last week's 3-2 loss to the Chicago Fire was a "weird" game with a "lot of calls."

Chicago converted two penalty kicks in the win, the second in the 96th minute, to hand Chivas USA just its second loss of the season.

"Do I agree with all the calls? Probably not, but that's the way it is," Preki said.

Chivas USA had its winless stretch extended to three matches - two draws and a loss - but Preki wasn't upset with the effort.

"I thought my group played their hearts out, I thought there was only one team who was looking to score and looking to play football out there, and at 2-1 we had quite a few chances to put that game away and we don't," he said.

Chivas (7-2-3), which leads the Western Conference and MLS with 24 points, will try to bounce back Saturday against the Seattle Sounders FC (4-2-5) at The Home Depot Center.

"The best remedy I've seen for getting out of the hole is just hard work," said Chivas defender Carey Talley. "Hard work is going get us our next win. Seattle is going to be a very difficult team, but it's one that I'm excited about."

Chivas plays its fourth home game in its last five games this weekend and needs a win before the start of a run when it plays five of its next six and seven of its next nine on the road.

"I guess it is a bit of a slump for us because of all the wins that we've had this season," Talley said. "The worst part about it is that we probably should have had nine points from [our last] three games. We had chances and were still doing things with the ball, but we've just come up a little short."

Despite the "slump," Chivas USA defender Shavar Thomas added, "it's just three games, we'll be fine."

One bright spot in last week's loss was Paulo Nagamura fourth goal this year - which equals his career total. Eduardo Lillingston also has four goals, while Maykel Galindo has returned to health and chipped in two goals in limited time.

Chivas still has injury concerns with defenders Bobby Burling (hernia), Ante Jazic (concussion) and Lawson Vaughn (ankle), goalkeeper Dan Kennedy (knee), forward Ante Razov (ankle) and midfielder Cesar Zamora (hamstring) all out.

In addition to those losses, defender Jonathan Bornstein and midfielder Sacha Kljestan are with the U.S. national team for Saturday's World Cup qualifier vs. Honduras.

Chivas does have an early edge in the teams' series, winning the first meeting 2-0 on April 18. Seattle goalie Kasey Keller was ejected in the first half of that match, and an own goal by James Riley and a Chukwudi Chijindu goal helped Chivas win.

Seattle got off to a perfect start this season, winning its first three matches without allowing a goal but the Chivas loss was the second of two straight. The expansion club has just one win since, tying its last five matches.

Seattle tied the Columbus Crew, current coach Sigi Schmid's former team, last weekend 1-1. Sounders FC will be without Chris Eylander (knee), Zach Scott (abdominal), Taylor Graham (metatarsal) and Jarrod Smith (international call-up with New Zealand), while midfielder Osvaldo Alsonso (quad) is questionable.

Keller admitted the team's current run is "frustrating," but "it's better than losing."

"I think two or three of them, we're happy with, but a couple of them we're not," said Keller, who has four shutouts. "We knew we should have beat Dallas, we knew we should have won [last week], we know we should have beat L.A.

"We can do better."





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