St. Louis City SC: What Needs Fixing For 2025?
St. Louis City SC is a mess right now; why?
Remember way back in 2023 when St. Louis City SC took the MLS by storm and was one of the best teams in the league? It seems like a long time ago, because things didn’t go as planned since then.
I want to say there is a simple fix; I want to say if you fix X, everything else will come in line. Unfortunately, there is no simple fix, no player to add, no coach to come in.
The Players: I like many of the players on the team as individuals; there are guys that are solid players. We have the best goalie in the league. We have some young players that could be the core of the team.
But when things go wrong, the players collapse. We’ve seen players pretty much give up in games. We’ve seen players bicker with each other on the pitch. Last season, we saw Njabulo Blom sulk on the bench rather than stand with his teammates during PKs.
Besides that, we’re not seeing a physical team; the first 2 seasons, City was aggressive. They would fight for the ball and put pressure on the other team all over the pitch. It doesn’t feel that way this year.
The players need to show a little more fight. Rather than hang you head when down by 2, push a little harder. Pick each other up. The fans are seeing the effort and are starting to turn.
The Coaching: Olof Mellberg came into this season as a little bit of an unknown; he was a defender for Aston Villa and Sweden during his playing day before coaching in Sweden. The hope was a defensive first shift in tactics, as this has been a weak spot the previous 2 seasons.
And after a hot start, that defensive effort has disappeared. Part of that is injuries, part of that is Mellberg’s inability to adjust. We’ve seen many games where the team takes an early lead, then sits back and allows the opponent to get back into the game. Why not keep pressing the offense?
Mellberg also won’t throw a consistent lineup out there; again, injuries are piling up, but we’ve seen Celio Pompeu start and score, then sit the next game. We see Akil Watts and Josh Yaro continue to start games while struggling on the pitch. Why trade for Xande Silva if you won’t play him?
We’re also seeing a lot of players play out of position. I think we can agree that Kyle Hiebert shouldn’t be center back; he’s much more suited for a wing. It feels like Alfredo Morales, Conrad Wallem, Watts, and Yaro have been all over the field.
Maybe things would have been different if Henry Kessler and Tomas Totland didn’t get injured, or if Edu Lowen didn’t need time away from the team.
The Training Staff: Maybe some of the injuries could have been prevented. I know that finding out Roman Burki broke his hand the day before a game is troubling; shouldn’t the day before a game be for walk throughs?
Jarryd Phillips is the Director of Sports Performance for City SC and joined the club from the New England Revolution. He’s a proponent of data-driven training and repetition, and, according to this Reddit post, believed his methods would keep players healthy. Unfortunately there have been a good amount of injuries during training sessions.
His time in New England wasn’t completely void of injuries, as the above mentioned Reddit post pointed out.
Maybe it’s time to reevaluate the training process and how to keep the players on the field better.
The Front Office: Lutz Pfannenstiel has been the Sporting Director since the club was created and he deserves some credit for the first season. Unfortunately, he can only ride on that for so long.
Lutz has raided the Bundesliga 2 to rebuild the roster at last summer’s transfer window and it looked like that was the fix to get the team back on track. But we’ve started season 3 as we started season 2.
The biggest issue this season was bringing in a head coach whose style didn’t match the roster as it was built; which is a key reason so many guys are playing out of position. It would have been better for find a coach that fits with what is already in place or turn the roster over completely, which is impossible.
Lutz also needs to look outside the Bundesliga for available players. They might have better luck getting quality players from the 2nd and 3rd tiers in England. They aren’t going to get the Lionel Messi caliber players for multiple reasons; why not look at the next tier down.
They should also look at some aging players; Thomas Muller of Bayern is a good example. He’s towards the end of his playing career, but interested in making the jump to the MLS. There are other players like this that could be of interest.
The Ownership: There are definite pluses with the ownership group, but they have a hand in why the team is struggling; they don’t spend money. The lack of spending is keeping top free agents from joining the club (along with other factors, like St. Louis being a smaller market).
The lack of spending is unjustifiable based off the amount of money they are making. Right now, ticket prices are extremely high; City has one of the highest average ticket prices per game, second only to Miami. That’s not fair for the product that’s one the field, nor is fair to not put that money back into the team.
The ownership group would be better off lowering prices to make interest in the team sustainable; once the honeymoon period is over, there will be a lot more open seats. We’ve already seen it with the League’s Cup game.
The Fans: We’re as much to blame for this as anyone. After that first season, there were unrealistic expectations that the team would be one of the best in the league. When you look at traditional expansion teams, it takes a few years to find their footing. Developing young players takes time and, usually, the type of players expansion teams attract aren’t always of the highest quality.
Maybe we should have known better to believe that City was going to win the Supporters’ Shield in the first 5 seasons. Maybe after last season’s start, we should have reset expectations. At this point, I’m lowering my expectations until changes are made.
There’s a lot of work to be done with this team, and I don’t expect it to be done soon; the damage is already done for this season. I’m not against a complete overhaul at this point; Olof has proved he’s not the guy, Lutz has to be on the hotseat if the summer transfer window is a dud, and something needs to be done about the training problems.
