SKC must 'stop shooting ourselves in the foot', urges goalkeeper Cleveland

Sporting Kansas City goalkeeper Stefan Cleveland has urged his team-mates to "stop shooting ourselves in the foot" following a recent run of red cards.

SKC have lost each of their last three games in MLS, and the last two were both 2-0 defeats following red cards.

They lost to the Houston Dynamo following Lasse Johnsen's first-half dismissal while the match was goalless, and the same scenario panned out against the Colorado Rapids when Kwaku Agyabeng was shown a straight red.

Cleveland believes his team-mates must be more disciplined ahead of their clash with St. Louis City, with SKC bottom of the Western Conference.

"Red cards change games," said Cleveland. "It's really difficult.

"At the end of the day, I thought we fought really well. Even the Houston game, obviously, two really difficult goals to concede. We handed them two goals, but other than that, they didn't really create much.

"So that's two games in a row where we played with 10 men for more than 90 minutes [in total] and defended really well.

"We've got to stop shooting ourselves in the foot and make the plays that we need to make."

Head coach Raphael Wicky, however, defended his players following their recent dismissals.

"It's not that we had many red cards. We have now had two in a row," said Wicky.

"I don't think we are a team who are extremely hard and had a lot of yellow cards and a lot of reckless challenges.

"I think, at the end of the day, when you get a yellow or a red card, most of them are wrong decisions by players.

"In general, I'm not concerned. It just doesn't help. It just doesn't help then when you have to play games for a full half with one man less, because in both games, we were competitive."

St. Louis are flying high at the moment, sitting sixth in the West following a nine-game unbeaten run in MLS (W7 D2).

PLAYERS TO WATCH

Sporting Kansas City – Calvin Harris

SKC mustered just six shots in their loss to Colorado on Saturday, the MLS-leading 11th time they have failed to attempt 10 shots in a match this season.

Harris was responsible for three of those shots, which amounted to 0.8 xG, the second-most of any player in the match.

St. Louis City – Simon Becher

Becher scored his third career MLS brace, and second for St. Louis, in their win over the San Jose Earthquakes.

Becher is the fourth different player with at least two multi-goal regular-season matches for St. Louis, joining Joao Klauss (four), Samuel Adeniran (two) and Marcel Hartel (two).

MATCH PREDICTION – ST. LOUIS CITY WIN

St. Louis extended their club-record unbeaten run to 10 matches in all competitions (W7 D3) with a 3-1 win at San Jose on Saturday.

Four of those matches have been on the road (W3 D1), equalling their longest road unbeaten run in all competitions (W1 D3 from July to September 2024).

SKC, meanwhile, have lost five of their last six matches, including losing each of the last three without scoring a goal.

Sporting have suffered an MLS-high eight shutout losses this season, only losing more matches to nil in 1999 (14), 2009 (nine) and 2010 (nine).

There has been only one road win in 11 all-time meetings between SKC and St. Louis, a 4-1 away victory for Sporting KC in the 2023 playoffs. Since their playoff sweep of St. Louis in 2023, Sporting have managed just one win in six matchups (D3 L2).

OPTA WIN PROBABILITY

Sporting Kansas City – 31.2%

Draw – 25.1%

St. Louis City – 43.7%