Interim Sporting Kansas City head coach Kerry Zavagnin believes his team's performances are improving despite slipping to an eighth defeat of the season last time out.

Santiago Moreno's stunning overhead kick was the difference as the Portland Timbers ran out 1-0 winners against Sporting KC at Providence Park over the weekend.

Indeed, Sporting have now conceded 13 first-half goals this season, the second most in MLS this campaign, behind only the Chicago Fire (15).

And ahead of taking on fellow strugglers St. Louis City, Zavagnin said that praising his team's displays despite their losses was not him being a "cheerleader", but a quest to instil some belief into his squad.

"I think we got off to a little bit of a slow start. They threw a lot at us early and put a lot of pressure on us, but that's to be expected when you come and play Portland at their home," Zavagnin said. "I thought they scored a fantastic goal - an excellent goal.

"Then we stabilised, and we created our own chances. Over the course of the game, I think it was a relatively even, back-and-forth game. We started the second half extremely well, and I thought we were going to get a goal in the first 15 minutes.

"There are a lot of positives. I know it's not easy to digest any time you lose a game, but our performances over the last couple of weeks have been stabilising, and we're doing a lot of good things in the game. That's not being a cheerleader, that's looking at it from a realistic perspective."

St. Louis, meanwhile, saw their winless run in the MLS continue after they were beaten 2-1 by San Diego FC last time out, leaving them 13th in the Western Conference.

Head coach Olof Mellberg was forced into three changes around the 70th minute, with Joao Klauss, Tomas Ostrak and Jannes Horn all replaced in quick succession.

Following the match, Mellberg claimed that the only reason he made those substitutions was due to a lack of fitness in those players, something he said needed to improve.

"It was unfortunate because [the substituted players] got tired. They asked to be taken off," Mellberg explained. "We really need to work on that fitness to be able to keep the guys for longer who are doing well.

"Similar to the last game in Seattle where we also took Tomas [Ostrak] off, he had a good game.

"A little bit unfortunate to have to make changes at that point because we looked good, and we are short already.

"So I don't want to fault any of the guys that came on. It's never good to have to make so many changes during a season, and we have some guys who have played in five different positions."

PLAYERS TO WATCH

St. Louis – Joao Klauss

Though Klauss was one of the players that Mellberg wanted to see improve their fitness, there is no denying the Brazilian's quality in the final third.

Against San Diego, he had joint-team-high totals for shots (four), touches in the opposition box (five) and chances created (two).

Sporting Kansas – Dejan Joveljic

After starting the season in fine form, Joveljic is without a goal in his last four MLS appearances, but he does have a good record against St. Louis.  

He has three goals in five outings against them, but he has just won one of his matches against this week's opponents (D3 L1).

MATCH PREDICTION: ST. LOUIS WIN

This will be the 10th all-time meeting between St. Louis and Sporting Kansas. The only away win in the first nine meetings was a 4-1 victory for Sporting in St. Louis in the 2023 playoffs.

But both sides are in poor form. St. Louis are winless in eight straight regular-season matches (D2 L6), the second-longest winless run in league play in club history (nine straight in 2024). 

Sporting Kansas, meanwhile, have lost 18 of their last 21 away matches in all competitions dating back to last May (W2 D1), including dropping 10 of their last 11 on the road.

OPTA WIN PROBABILITY

St. Louis – 51.5%

Draw – 24.7%

Sporting Kansas – 23.8%