The interim head coach of St. Louis City, David Critchely, wants to use the disappointment of the 1-1 draw of his team with FC Dallas as fuel against CF Montreal this weekend.
Critchley watched while the opening goal of Celio Pompeu was quickly canceled by Petar Musa, where Dallas had sent goalkeeper Michael Collodi in the 16th minute.
St. Louis dominated the procedure and registered a gigantic 42 shots that generated an expected goals (XG) a total of 3.64, but they could not find a way.
That result also brought their slender hope for reaching the play -offs, with St. Louis in the 14th in the Western Conference, 13 points on drift of a place in the late season.
“Yes, it feels like a loss,” Critchley admitted. “Regardless of that they sent the keeper in the game early, their playing style was something we prepared for.
“It was something we expected. We knew they would be in a layer of block. We had to create moments of those opportunities and the performance was not there.
“We had turned them all the way back to their own box, and then we made a big mistake on a complex deep in our own half and suddenly we turned the ball.
“In general, we could not find a way to win the game. We have to look at ourselves and think about how we can have that number of opportunities and not come up with three points.”
St. Louis makes the journey to Stad Saputo to face a Montreal side that is well equipped after they have not played a league game since 30 August, when they pulled 1-1 with Toronto FC.
Jonathan Osorio’s 88th minute equalizer saw Toronto grab a point, and with that ended the end of the already slender hope of Montreal in a place in the play-offs with five more games.
But the results have been better for Montreal lately, and the defeat has not tasted against the Chicago Fire since July 19, while they also collect victories against the New England Revolution and Austin FC in their undefeated piece of five games.
And fresh from the international break of September, the interim boss of Montreal Marco Donadel believes that his side feels refreshed to attack their latest competitions.
“It has been a bit more relaxed, especially within the staff because we have experienced a period of not having a competition to prepare in the MLS,” Donadel said.
“We try to give our best for the team to succeed in the remaining games of the season. We have taken two days off to get some energy and we returned to a nice day.
“This week we enjoyed training without talking about the last game. That is not our focus. We are thinking of the next game and we are back in our normal routine.”
Players to watch
CF Montreal – Prince Owusu
Owusu played for Montreal in what a disappointing season has been for his team, and scored 12 goals in 29 performances so far.
But he was helped by Dante Sealy, who scored six times, where the pair contributes to more than half of the 29 goals of Montreal in the MLS.
Since the beginning of July, the duo has scored nine out of 12 goals of the team, with Owusu scored five and found the back of the net four times.
St. Louis City – Eduard Lowen
Lowen gave the assist to the only goal of St. Louis in their last match, because he registered a target contribution in three straight MLS matches (two goals, one assist).
There have been two longer stripes in club history – five straight ahead Joao Klauss and four straight Rasmus Alm, both in 2023.
Match prediction: CF Montreal Win
Montreal and St. Louis meet for the first time. This weekend’s visitors are Winless in their last five games (D1 L4) against Canadian MLS clubs and have one of all time on the road in Canada (in Toronto in July 2023).
However, Montreal is unbeaten in their last five games in the regular season (W2 D3), similar to the longest undefeated run of the team in the last three seasons. They last had a longer unbeaten streak when having an eight-game run to end the 2022 season.
And after playing a draw with FC Dallas, St. Louis hopes to have found their shooting boots since.
They recorded 42 shot in their last competition, 15 more than they had in another MLS match in team history. It was the second most shots that were ever made by a team in an MLS competition (San Jose Earthquakes-43, August 2019 against the Vancouver WhiteCaps).
Opta wins probability
CF Montreal – 43%
Drawing – 26.7%
St. Louis City – 30.3%
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