It was a frustrating day for CITY, as a San Diego side already eliminated from playoff contention came to town and, despite CITY leading in xG, shots, shots on target, and xPts, they came away with no points in a 1-0 loss that leaves them in a very tenuous position in their chase for home-field advantage in the first round of the MLS playoffs. Let's look at the match's only goal. CITY possessed the ball for long stretches of play yesterday, and ultimately it was their finishing that let them down, but here's an example of the disconnectedness of their attack recently: they have the ball on the edge of the pitch, but with no one central, they can't create quick entry opportunities into the box to pressure defenses. That aside, this sequence starts with a player (Durkin) finally moving into that highlighted area. He has two San Diego players, separated by about 6 feet, directly between himself and Carol Holse and Rafa Navarro at the top of the box, but he attempts to play the ball through this narrow gap - as he does, he drops his head and doesn't see the defensive rotation that filled that space, with San Diego's Alejandro Alvarado stepping up and Marcus Ingvartsen sliding over. As Durkin makes the pass, Ingvartsen stretches to deflect it, and immediately, Anders Dreyer starts sprinting towards CITY's end - followed by Tomas Totland, who also read the play correctly and tracks the San Diego winger. Durkin steps in to recover the ball after the deflection, but Ingvartsen slides it past the CITY midfielder to Alvarado, who sees Dreyer make his run and hits a long, driven pass upfield. When Dryer receives the ball, Totland is in a good position to defend him, and Daniel Edelman sprints back to support. Unfortunately, Ben Lundt is poorly positioned, caught in no-man's-land after coming forward when Alvarado made the pass. This was a bad read: he failed to recognize that Totland was in a position to defend, and the CITY GK's positioning just inside the top of the box meant he couldn't prevent a chipped ball from Dreyer over the top. The forced entry pass from Durkin (who struggled with his passing all day) was the start of this sequence, but Lundt's read, positioning, and failure to trust Totland to be able to recover defensively gifted San Diego their goal, and ultimately, the win.   submitted by   /u/STLSoccerNews   to   r/stlouiscitysc [link]   [comments]