The Philadelphia Union's interim head coach Ryan Richter was pleased to build some positive momentum following a victorious start to his reign, but he knows their standards cannot drop against the Seattle Sounders.

The Union fired Bradley Carnell at the start of the MLS World Cup break, having made a historically poor start to the season with just one win in 15 games.

Richter has taken the reins on a caretaker basis, with his first game at the helm resulting in a 3-1 victory over the New York Red Bulls on Wednesday.

Milan Iloski, Indiana Vassilev and Niel Pierre scored for Richter's side, who now turn their attention towards back-to-back home games versus Seattle and Atlanta United.

"It's a good way to start, but it's one game," Richter said afterwards. "But it was nice to get some positive momentum going into the second half of the season.

"It's so important for us to start in the right way. Now, we turn around and play again in a couple of days, and we have to approach it with that same fighting spirit in the next game."

While the Union are still bottom of the Eastern Conference, Seattle are sixth in the West, though a run of four straight defeats either side of the hiatus – their worst losing run under Brian Schmetzer – has them looking over their shoulder in the playoff race.

The Sounders have lost 5-1 to the Portland Timbers and 3-1 to Austin FC since returning to action, leading Schmetzer to demand more from his senior players.

"I think the outcome of the game doesn't bear this out, but we went over a lot of details after the Portland game about different solutions, stuff that was in our control," he said after the defeat to Austin on Wednesday.

"But the challenge is that when players don't perform, you know, it starts to fall on me. I think the coaching staff did a good job of preparing the gameplan.

"We were in the game until the end, but we need to step up and make more plays offensively. We need to be a little more dangerous in front of goal to get us out of a slump.

"I'm not putting any added pressure on the senior guys that isn't unreasonable to their status in the group. And I'm trying to, with the younger guys who maybe need a little more seasoning, put a coaching arm around their shoulder.

"They're not going to quit. They're not going to give up. We've got two more hard road games, but they're not going to stop fighting."

PLAYERS TO WATCH

Philadelphia Union – Nathan Harriel

Harriel leads all players in MLS for interceptions this season, with 47, as well as making 36 tackles to rank just outside the top 10 for that metric.

The centre-back has won 56.6% of his ground duels this year (69/122) and 71.3% of his aerial duels (67/94) – no player in the league has won more aerial battles.

Seattle Sounders – Paul Rothrock

Rothrock scored his fifth goal of the campaign during Seattle's defeat to Austin, the most of any Sounders player ahead of Cristian Roldan and Albert Rusnak (two each).

Those goals have come from 2.2 expected goals (xG), with Rothrock's + 2.8 overperformance being the eighth-highest of any player in the league.

MATCH PREDICTION – PHILADELPHIA UNION WIN

Seattle are on their longest losing streak in MLS play since suffering five straight defeats in 2015. 

Schmetzer's team have also scored just six goals in eight road trips this year, the fewest by any team on the road in the Western Conference, despite many of those teams only playing seven away games.

Philadelphia will hope they have turned a corner following their victory over the Red Bulls, and they are actually unbeaten in their last four home matches, albeit they drew three in a row before Wednesday's victory.

OPTA WIN PROBABILITY

Philadelphia Union – 43.9%

Seattle Sounders – 31.2%

Draw – 24.9%