Interim St. Louis City head coach David Critchley has called on his side to be "more ruthless" after their 2-1 defeat to Minnesota United before the Leagues Cup break. 

Critchley watched on as Kevin Yeboah's penalty brace, one of which was a 90th-minute winner, overturned Eduard Lowen's spot-kick in the first half for St. Louis. 

St. Louis were reduced to 10 men in the 72nd minute when Chris Durkin was shown a straight red card, leaving them unable to hold on for a precious point in their season. 

That result saw them remain at the wrong end of the Western Conference table, sitting in 14th and two points ahead of bottom club Los Angeles Galaxy. 

Reflecting on their last match, Critchley stated that his side dominated the metrics but required more ruthlessness to hold onto results.

"I thought we were brilliant on both sides of the ball," Critchley said.

"I know we had a lot of it in the first half, but even the little moments like the counter pressing and being aggressive to get it back very quickly put us in a really good position to keep pinning them back and create a goal eventually with Edu's [Lowen] penalty.

"It was a great first half. But we do have to be more ruthless. We have to score more goals in these moments and really put teams to bed.

"They came out a little passive in the first half, and we had such high field tilt, such high possession, such high xG, so all the data was in our favour.

"But we know when you leave good teams hanging around like that, they can hurt you in small moments, and we saw that in the second half."

St. Louis will be looking to recover from that result, but they have a huge task ahead of them as they host nailed on playoff side Nashville SC on Saturday.

Nashville, who sit third in the Eastern Conference, stumbled in their last MLS outing against San Diego FC, courtesy of a decisive second-half goal from Hirving Lozano.

Lozano broke the deadlock in the 53rd minute at Snapdragon Stadium, putting San Diego ahead, with Sam Surridge and Hany Mukhtar squandering chances in the second half.

The loss saw Nashville's impressive 10-match MLS scoring streak come to an end, as they had not been shut out since a goalless draw against D.C. United on May 17.

PLAYERS TO WATCH

St. Louis City – Eduard Lowen

Lowen completed 57 of his 60 passes against Minnesota while also scoring his side's only goal with a strike from 12 yards. 

Owing to his strong performance, Lowen became the first player in St. Louis' club history to have an MLS match with both a passing accuracy of at least 95% (min. 50 passes) and a goal.

Nashville SC – Sam Surridge

Surridge has been a vital part of Nashville's success this season. The striker has bagged 18 goals this season – more than any other Nashville player and joint-most in the league with Inter Miami's Lionel Messi.

Despite an uncharacteristically poor outing against San Diego, Surridge still managed to create one big chance and fire one of Nashville's four shots on target.

MATCH PREDICTION: NASHVILLE WIN

Nashville SC have lost each of their last two away matches (to Inter Miami and San Diego), after recording a seven-match road unbeaten streak in all competitions (W5 D2).

But BJ Callaghan's side have not lost three straight road games since a four-game skid in July 2024, meaning that St. Louis will certainly have their work cut out for them.

After starting the season with a four-game unbeaten streak (W2 D2), this weekend's hosts have earned just 10 points in league play (W2 D4 L14). In that time (since March 22), St. Louis' 10 points are the fewest picked up by MLS teams.

The only previous meeting between these two sides was a 3-1 home win by Nashville in June 2023. Mukhtar scored all three of Nashville's goals, the most recent of his four career MLS hat-tricks.

OPTA WIN PROBABILITY

St. Louis City – 28.3%

Draw – 24.3%

Nashville – 47.4%