Sports Mole previews Sunday’s Major League Soccer clash between St Louis City and Atlanta United, including predictions, team news and possible lineups.
St Louis City will set out to end a barren run of seven games without a victory when they welcome Atlanta United to CITYPARK on Sunday.
The away side, meanwhile, head to Missouri this weekend in search of consecutive wins having returned to winning ways in their most recent outing.
Match preview
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St Louis City came away empty-handed from a second straight game as they were comprehensively beaten 3-0 by Colorado Rapids on Thursday.
After going behind to Djordje Mihailovic‘s opener, Bradley Carnell‘s men spurned a golden opportunity to level matters from the spot through Eduard Lowen after which Mihailovic added a second-half double to seal the deal.
As a result, St Louis have now dropped to 12th place in the Western Conference of the MLS table and are now six points away from playoff contention.
Lying in store next is the challenge of an opposing outfit who claimed a hard-fought 2-1 win in the only previous edition of this fixture last February.
Having managed just one goal across their last four home matches, Sunday’s hosts will need to turn the screw in attack if they are to kickstart their season with maximum points this weekend.
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Atlanta just about got the better of DC United courtesy of a narrow 1-0 win when the teams went head to head at Audi Field on Thursday.
Rob Valentino‘s men broke the deadlock 11 minutes from time through Thiago Almada and that proved to be the all-important moment in a tight affair.
With 20 points picked up from 18 matches so far, The Five Stripes sit ninth in the Western Conference standings, ahead of Philadelphia Union only on goal difference in the race for the final playoff spot.
Currently on a run of three straight away wins, Sunday’s visitors have been impressive on the road of late and now seek to keep the juggernaut rolling.
St Louis City Major League Soccer form:
Atlanta United Major League Soccer form:
Team News
Luis Abram, Saba Lobjanidze and Bartosz Slisz are all on international duty, ruling them out of contention for Atlanta United in this one.
The away side will also be without the services of Thiago Almada, who will serve a one-game ban here, while Edwin Mosquera misses out with a muscle problem.
Having seen his side fail to score in three matches on the bounce, Bradley Carnell could contemplate making some changes to his attacking unit.
This could see 25-year-old Samuel Adeniran come into the lineup for what would be a first starting appearance for the home side in just over a month.
St Louis City possible starting lineup:
Burki; Totland, Nerwinski, Yaro, Markanich, Watts; Durkin, Blom, Lowen; Klauss, Kijima
Atlanta United possible starting lineup:
Guzan; Wiley, Williams, Cobb, Morales, Lennon; Muyamba, McCarty, Fortune; Silva, Rios
We say: St Louis City 1-1 Atlanta United
Both sides have made relatively underwhelming starts to the new campaign and will be looking to get themselves back on track with all three points here. We are anticipating an open and end to end clash with honours even at the end of the 90 minutes.
For data analysis of the most likely results, scorelines and more for this match please click here.