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| Great live band, massive goddamn loss. |
The Basics & the Big Picture
3-4-8, 17 pts., 23 gf, 25 ga (-2); home 3-2-3, away 0-2-5; 11th West, 23rd overall
Last 10: LTWTTWLLLT
Venue: AHHAAHHAHA
St. Louis is not the punch-you-in-the-mouth-and-steal-all-your-points team they were in 2023. Confidence sustained the belief they could bully other teams into submission and I’m pretty sure that dried up by the beginning of April 2024. If not then, the beginning of May finished it off. The 2-1-7 record they had by May 5, 2024 only looks worse after a string of losses (v LAFC, @ CIN and v SEA) landed themwhere they are now (see above).
On a raw numbers level, they hew close to average for goals scored and allowed (the average across MLS is currently 24.03 goals coming and going) and their stats leaders are Joao Klauss (5 goals, 3 assists), Celio Pompeu (3 goals, 3 assists), Samuel Adeniran (2 goals, 1 assist), and Tomas Totland (2 goals, 2 assists). Also of note, their assist leader, Eduard Lowen, who has three goals (plus one assist) has played just 379 minutes this season. That’s due to a hamstring injury and doing the right thing by his wife who has had some medical issues. And good for him for doing that.
I built my impression of St. Louis CITY 2024 on stats and highlights review of the home win over Chicago Fire FC, the home loss versus Los Angeles FC, and the road loss at FC Cincinnati, plus the stats and longer looks at the home loss versus the Seattle Sounders and last weekend’s wild road draw at Inter (Asshole) Miami CF. Some details aside – e.g., I expect them to get all up in Portland the same way they did against Chicago (and Miami; honestly, MLS’s big-spending darlings basically handed them a loaded gun) – I didn’t see a ton of what Portland typically does in all my review. Still, LAFC and Seattle offered some smart pointers as to how to absorb St. Louis’ pressure and break them – e.g., they don’t have a ton of ideas outside of turning the ball over in dangerous places, so don’t let them – but, bluntly, Seattle had no goddamn business winning that game (per either numbers or eye-test). I can, however, see Portland riding out the pressure and wrecking St. Louis a la LAFC, even without a Denis Bouanga to call our own…
One more thing to flag before walking through personnel: I read something (this, in fact) that challenges the “they don’t have a ton of ideas” note above. Specifically:
"In field tilt, they’ve jumped from mid-table last year to second behind only the Crew."
"Their expected assists per 90 has jumped from about .75 last season to over 1.00 in 2024."
"They’ve increased their number of passes in the attacking third by about 20%."
"Touches in the opponent box have jumped from about 20.5 per game last year to 28.7 per game this year, which is a 40% increase."
In other words, and against my premise, they have more ideas than they used to. Moving on now to…
The Team
St. Louis head coach Bradley Carnell seems to favor the 4-2-3-1 at home and he has eight, maybe ten players, he leans on for starts. I mean barring injury and all that. Going by position…
Goalkeeper
Roman Burki, he has played every minute of every game and he is still good enough to keep them in games they should lose all by his lonesome (see the Cincy game, even if he failed).
The Defense
Carnell doesn’t deviate from a back four, even on the road, and he relies on the rather massive and arguably slowing Tim Parker (evidence for slowing here) to anchor it. Tomas Totland (right) and Anthony Markanich (left) typically start as the fullbacks and the other center back spot rotates between Joakim Nilsson and Kyle Hiebert. I don’t know much about anyone besides Parker, but that set up has delivered average returns. The only time I saw St. Louis get outright beat up was the loss to Cincy, but that was also an experimental lineup.
The (Likely) Deep Midfield
Former DC United homegrown (and frequent loanee) Chris Durkin has been the regular fixture and, so long as Lowen isn’t available, I think Tomas Ostrak counts as the other regular (he's broken, fwiw). Njabulo Blom (South African) filled in after Ostrak went “poof,” but I’m also…fairly confident that Lowen will start against Portland because he went the full 90 against Miami.
The Attacking Mids
Barring suspensions or injury (nope on both counts), Portland should see (left to right) Celio Pompeu, Indiana Vassilev and Rasmus Alm in those spots (Vassilev strikes me as the most useful of the bunch, fwiw). Aziel Jackson’s another option, but, apart from Pompeu (more below), and per the numbers they post, most of them rate as more capable great – i.e., they’ll get the job done to the extent the Timbers allow them to…but ain’t that the story of 2024?
Lone Forward
Beyond being St. Louis’ leading scorer, Klauss is a goddamn wrecking ball. He’ll run down Portland’s d-mids if allowed to and he hip-checks hard and, often as not, legally. He’s a better target than his current numbers suggest and a decent finisher. And, if Klauss craps out, can’t play, or if Carnell just wants a different (or additional) look, he can call Samuel Adeniran off the bench. Klauss’ work-rate and physicality makes him a game-changer, but neither are league-elite – especially given the service they’ve had of late.
1) X = Pompeu
Klauss and Lowen get the headlines, but Pompeu’s one to watch because 1) he’s a skilled ‘n’ sneaky little shit and 2) he plays on Portland’s right, aka, Mosqueraville…when the mayor’s in town, that is. St. Louis like to isolate and I saw him beat a healthy share of fullbacks in one-on-ones. He didn’t run behind so much as get his heel on the touchline so he can get a good run at the fullback. Oh, should the Timbers defense leave him space on the weak side, he shoots from range all right.
2) They Haven’t Had Lowen
Lowen’s long-term absence is the asterisk both for this weekend’s game and St. Louis CITY’s season as a whole. Apart from hitting the odd brilliant pass and delivering a better than av-e-rage dead-ball, Lowen is their composure. For a guy just coming back, he played a solid game at Miami, and I’d expect him to make not just Klauss/Adeniran, but St. Louis (probable) three attacking mids better as well…so, I guess Y = Lowen.
3) They Look Stretchable
Even if they don’t press like they used to, St. Louis takes real risks in their project of taking the game to the opposition – which, again, I’d expect as Plan A v Portland. That translates to Burki receiving back passes on St. Louis’ side of the middle third when they’re on the ball and pressing. A good transition team feasts on that – e.g., that’s basically how LAFC beat them – and Portland’s attack has been consistent enough to where one would think they can make that work. In any event, beating St. Louis is something like 75% about being able to break pressure.
That’s it for this report. We’ll see what the Timbers make of it Saturday.
Great stuff, Jeff - a very nicely written preview of our opponent.
ReplyDeleteSTL is a prototype/clone of the teams - DCU, Philly, HOU, CHRL, MIN - that have beat PTFC like a drum all season.
High press, create turnovers, play direct to goal on a short field, rinse and repeat... This style is the one we have yet to even match up with, much less play well against.
Even with the poor results so far this year, STL rates as a solid favorite this week. They have Lowen back, healthy, and can't wait to show the home crowd how hard they'll push to get back to winning ways.
All this means PTFC better have mended a LOT of bad habits REAL quick in order to compete, much less win Saturday... Imperatively, the soft, soft midfield play cannot show up again; nor can they snore through another first half.
But, can't trust 'em to do either, can we...
Post match: Good PTFC effort tonite.
ReplyDeleteA very good road point delivers both hope and momentum, gained with a very short bench that stood tall.
The back line was excellent; Midfield exorcised a good many demons at the expense of STL's cowabunga press, and together they kept us even on a night when the attackers, lacking chemistry without Pipe, mostly misfired.