St. Louis City SC suffered its’ third straight defeat as Sporting Kansas City blanked St. Louis 2-0 at Children’s Mercy Park on Saturday night. City started the match brightly, with Conrad Wallem rattling the woodwork in the 16th minute of the match. The visitors would continue the strong start with Wallem and Akil Watts firing shots towards the Kansas City keeper before Olof Mellberg was forced to make an early substitution due to injury. Centerback Joakim Nilsson went down with what Mellberg described as a “knee injury” in the 26th minute, forcing the St. Louis manager to make an early change with Tomáš Ostrák coming into the fray. As a result of Ostrak’s introduction, Wallem was moved to the left-hand side where he proved to be impactful at times, linking up with Celio Pompeu in the attack.
“With Joakim’s injury we decided to put Conrad on the left,” Mellberg said after the match. “Tomáš is a different profile in that position; more of a possession player so we didn’t have as much of that in behind after that. But on the other hand, we created a lot on that left hand side with good combinations between Cello, Conrad and Célio.”
St. Louis would create a few more shots in the first half, racking up .93 expected goals on six opportunities while holding Sporting to just .11 xG over the first forty-five as the teams entered the break on even terms.
The second half saw the hosts looking to capitalize on the new coach bounce, wasting little time in creating chances from Joaquín Fernández and Jake Davis in the 52nd minute of play. St. Louis would counter with a pair of opportunities of their own with Marcel Hartel and Wallem forcing saves from John Pulskamp in the 54th and 57th minute respectively.
Despite the push from City, the hosts finally found the breakthrough as Dejan Joveljić slipped into space behind Kyle Hiebert before slotting a shot past Ben Lundt in the 71st minute. It was an opener that seemed to catch Mellberg by surprise.
“I felt at that moment, before they [Kansas City] scored, they were struggling, and they were tired. We had good energy; we were finding space where we wanted; the moment we conceded; it wasn’t a good one.”
From there, the hosts were in the ascendancy; as Sporting created six more chances over the final twenty-three minutes; including the second goal of the contest from Joveljić in the 88th minute to seal the game for Kansas City, who ended their 212 day winless streak with the victory.
“We have to have a good look at why we didn’t score on all those chances,” Mellberg said. “Defended well until then and then the last 15-20 is not good. They got energy from the goal and we dropped a little bit. That’s when they created the chances in the game. They had one half chance in the first half but up until the first goal they didn’t have anything . Then they created some danger and obviously the second goal after that.”
With the loss, City slides to 2-3-2 on the season and ends match week seven in 11th place with eight points from seven games.
Courtesy g+ gameflow
City’s Mentality Called into Question by Pfannenstiel?
During his weekly appearance on KMOX on Sunday, Sporting Director Lutz Pfannenstiel didn’t hold back when asked about the mentality and toughness of the squad he’s put together.
“I think going into a derby game, you need to be a little bit tougher when it comes to the mindset; need to work a little bit harder to get out there and take on the fight,” he said. “We created the chances, we missed it, we hit the post, we hit whatever; then they score with one of their first chances. After that, the heads went down. We didn’t really recover from that. Not good enough, we need to get better.”
City will have to get better in a hurry as their schedule includes a drastic uptick in difficulty over the next few weeks.
“We play against two of the best teams in the country in the next two weeks,” Pfannenstiel told KMOX. “If you play like that, I’m not really positive. We need to change our mind set. We need to change our aggression, and we need to be up for it, otherwise they will beat us.”
Players Taking Responsibility for Performances
As pressure mounts on both Pfannenstiel and Mellberg to turn the recent run of form around, at least one member of the squad feels the responsibility for the poor start isn’t limited to the manager.
“I think people always ask the coaches what’s wrong but as players we have to take some of that accountability on ourselves and look at what we could have done individually as players,” Josh Yaro said after the loss. “We got prepped really well for this game and everything that we got prepped is how they came out. The coaches did what they had to do. I think tonight it was on us as players to finish the job,” he continued. “As players we have to look ourselves in the mirror and go ‘maybe tonight was a night we could have done a lot better’ because we got prepped exactly how they came out. We had everything we needed to go out and win.”
It was the fifth time in seven matches that City has failed to score but Yaro indicated that it’s not just on one group of players to fix the issue.
“The way we’re conditioned with this club; it’s ’you defend as a team, you score as a team’ and so at the end of the day it’s all of us,” Yaro said. “From the goalkeeper all the way up to the forwards, it’s our jobs. When we build out and progress the ball, everyone has to play a part to get it to the strikers for us to get a goal. It’s the same thing when we defend. It’s not a striker thing, it’s not a midfield thing, it’s the whole team.”
Players’ Confidence Isn’t Shaken By Poor Start
While Yaro didn’t shy away from acknowledging the poor start by the team offensively, he remained steadfast in his belief in the squad to right the ship.
“I think this team is still pretty confident in what we can do. We’re going to continue working, we’re going to take it game by game and we’re going to turn it around,” he said.” “You’ve seen it in MLS; you win 1-2 games and all of the sudden it’s a different season you’re looking at. We’re hoping for that break; we’re working for that break and I’m confident that break is going to come soon.”
St. Louis City will host the Eastern Conference leading Columbus Crew on Sunday at Energizer Park.
Taking his passion for soccer and St. Louis to the next level, Jeremy aims to provide analytical coverage of all this St. Louis City SC.
