City SC hits the wall, City2 takes the top spot
With St. Louis City SC’s hopes and dreams officially dashed as of last Saturday, the team doesn’t have much to lose and has very little to gain, at least in the standings.
City SC is 13th in the Western Conference, 24th overall, and that’s the best it can do. City SC isn’t mathematically clear of finishing last in the league, but as long as one of the six teams beneath it loses twice over the final weeks of the season, that won’t happen either. So if ever there was a time for experimenting, City SC’s game at Austin on Saturday is it.
How much of that interim coach David Critchley will do is in flux, because even if the team can’t change its place in the standings, wins still resonate for a team that has had so few of them this season.
“The last couple of games, not the LAFC one, but the prior two games, I was able to find a formula where we won the game and were good but were able to get City2 guys in and get guys opportunities,” Critchley said. “You have to find that balance. The one thing that no one inside these walls wants is to go out for the next two games and lose the last two games. So we want to pick up points. We want to be competitive, but also find opportunities as well, based on who is coming back next year, who are the young players that we feel like can be really good and impactful for the future success of the club. So it’s always just finding a balancing act. There’s no one formula where next week I’m not going to go super young and have the youngest lineup out there. It’s just going to be consistently finding opportunities.”
Some changes may be out of Critchley’s control. City SC could be without midfielder Eduard Lowen, who missed practice on Thursday for personal reasons, with his availability for the weekend uncertain. (There was no update on his status on Friday.) Lowen missed 16 of 18 games between March 30 and July 13, and City SC had one win, 11 losses and four ties in that span.
If Lowen can’t play, Critchley’s options are some combination of Chris Durkin, Alfredo Morales, Tomas Ostrak and Seth Antwi.
“It does (leave a big hole),” he said. “Thankfully, I’ve been happy with the rest of the positions of the (central midfielders) this week specifically. I think Chris, Alfie, Tomas and Seth have all trained well. All four of them rotated into what I would consider the starting 11 for opportunities to get some reps in what we’re looking for tactically. So I feel like all four could be prepared. But no doubt, if we don’t have Edu, it’ll be a missing piece for us. He has a massive impact on this team.”
With a string of good results, Critchley had been sticking with the same lineup, with only the changes that were necessitated by availability. But coming off the 3-0 loss to Los Angeles FC, he has the opportunity to change things up.
One change apparently will be to bring right back Tomas Totland back into the starting lineup. Conrad Wallem had been doing well in that spot, forcing Totland to the bench. Once a fixture in the City SC lineup, Totland had played only 58 minutes over the team’s past nine games. At the start of the season, he missed four games with a hamstring injury, had recovered enough to get back into the lineup, but then suffered a separate hamstring injury and missed six games. When he was healthy again, he went back in the lineup, starting six of eight games, but they were not his best and was sat in favor of Wallem.
“Tomas will have a big feature this weekend, that’s what I’ll say on that,” Critchley said. “As he went through his injury and came back in and got put into a position where the entire system and philosophy changed in the wide areas. Probably was one of the players that just took a little bit of time to adjust. But as of late, he’s been training very well. … Going across the Montreal, San Jose games, we just found ourselves in a lead and where we didn’t want to rotate the back line in these situations when we had the lead and we had to then defend moments. So that’s out of his control, unfortunately. But what is in his control is how he trains, how he prepares. He’s been doing that very well for a few weeks now. So you’ll see him featured in the next two games.”
“It’s definitely been a difficult season,” Totland said. “It’s most of all because of how the body has been with both the hamstring injuries, it’s been a whole new thing for me and how to deal with that has been a new thing to learn. It’s nothing to hide that it hasn’t been the greatest of seasons. I haven’t gotten to play as much as I would have wanted. But it’s still a lot of football to play this year and next year. That’s what I’m focusing on.
“I’ve never had an injury that’s taken me out of a game for eight years up until now. So it’s been difficult. But that’s in the past now, and I look forward. I think it’s going to be good with some time off to reflect and get the body rested again, and then start building up to 2026 so I have a year there without injuries.”
While Wallem has fit in nicely since being put at right back this season, he’s on loan from Slavia Prague and that loan ends at the end of the season. City SC has a purchase option, size unknown, in the loan, and that will be one of the decisions the sporting director, identity unknown, will have to make.
Center backs Henry Kessler and Fallou Fall are both expected back in the lineup.
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Tom Timmermann | Post-Dispatch
Soccer reporter
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