Saturday night saw Minnesota United fall for the third time on the bounce. Offence has started to come into it's own, but the Loons defence has fallen at the same time. Cameron Knowles said to the media last week that due to the fixture congestion, much of that defensive work was in the video room. Following the l0ss Knowles said that his side was still letting in too many transition chances.
“You look at the nature of the ball in behind and a rebound that gets knocked back in. And so we have to look at all things that lead up and all the moments that lead up to those chances going in," Knowles said. "But certainly difficult to give up a lead and give it up there quickly because we have struggled to score the first goal. We've often found ourselves chasing. And so there's a lot of enthusiasm for the group in terms of scoring that first goal, getting off to a good start, and especially seeing it play out the way that we thought that would. And like I said before, getting that chance through a transition moment.”
Once St. Louis took a convincing lead, they completely changed their play style. Going to playing at a much slower pace and working through and breaking down the Loons defence. City's style created a massive issue as MNUFC had to run around the pitch constantly to try and pull the ball back.
“They're very good and what they do, they're very good in the way that and how fluid they are. How they manipulate you with the ball, how their players move to create space to move the opposition, and how they speed it up," said Knowles. "When you start to press them, and you actually do start to get pressure to the ball, and they find little spaces, whether it's creating out wide, or when you start to open up to defend the width, they're coming through the middle. So, no, they're a very good team. They're a tough, tough group, really talented, and you see it with their depth, they rotate their squad a little bit, and then they have guys coming into the game that are really high level.”
One small thing without question changed the match more than anything else. Just less than 20 minutes after the Loons second goal and while appearing threatening, Kyle Duncan was shown his second yellow of the night and sent off. Duncan's sending off killed any chance of getting two goals back in 10 minutes plus stoppage.
“It's always difficult. I haven't seen it back. But like I've said before, you've got four officials and you've got a VAR crew to look at things. You're looking to make a change and bring another substitute in as well, and when you're already down and then you're down a man having to chase the game against a team that's already very, very good with the ball," manager Cameron Knowles said post match. "But I thought the guys really stood up in that moment. It would be very easy to crumble, and they stood up and continue to create chances, continued to be resolute with the way they defended, the tenacity that they showed, or Aziel Jackson coming in showed exactly that, some bites and tenacity, some quality that helped us and his energy coming on as well. So tough situation to go down to 10, but I thought the way that the guys responded was excellent.”
After receiving a card in Saturday's match in the Gateway City, Michael Boxall will miss this weekends match against the Galaxy. It's expected that Duggan, who missed Saturday due to "tightness", will return to action this weekend. However that is not a guarantee and could lead to both of the Loons top centre-backs being out for the match.
“It's difficult. You look at Morris [Duggan] being a late scratch as well. His availability for the next game too was going to be uncertain. So we have to see how he comes along this week. But it wasn't until the day before the game that that determination was made that he wouldn't be fit to play and we knew going into it and even in the last game three defenders sitting on yellow card accumulation is a difficult spot to be in," said manager Cameron Knowles. "And even Jeff [Jefferson Diaz] coming into the game knowing that he was in a similar situation, has done well to not get himself a booking in that. All of a sudden, with that injury and with that suspension, we become thin. We're fortunate that we've got some good minutes into Nico [Nicolás Romero] and Carlos [Harvey], who haven't been playing a ton, in recent weeks, but have played a lot for this club in the past seasons.”
