Portland Timbers v St. Louis City: Neville determined to use ´wake-up call´ as motivation

Phil Neville believes Portland Timbers can use their recent defeats as motivation in the second half of the season, starting with St. Louis City.

The Timbers’ Leagues Cup run came to an end against Saturday’s opponents, losing 3-1 in the round of 32 nearly three weeks ago.

They were in good form in MLS before that, and sit eighth in the Western Conference, but lost their last league game 3-2 against LA Galaxy before the break.

Now, Neville is targeting a strong finish to the regular season.

“In life sometimes you get a jolt or a little reminder of the work that needs to be done, and we got that,” Neville said.

“We’ve had a lot of plaudits and people saying good things about us, but our last result was a wake-up call to the work we still need to do to be successful in this league.

“We’ve got nine games left in the season, and we need the mentality to win these games.”

Lkin’ towards the weekend @OficialEvander x #RCTID pic.twitter.com/QfyVRsi788

— Portland Timbers (@TimbersFC) August 21, 2024

After knocking out the Timbers, St. Louis were left disappointed in the quarter-final of the Leagues Cup following a 4-2 defeat to Club America.

They return to MLS action sitting 13th in the table, 10 points off the playoff places, and interim head coach John Hackworth is hopeful they can take the positives from their Cup run into the second half of the season.

“There are little details that slip, and we let guys have too much time on the ball, don’t get matched up in the box, don’t recover in the right way,” Hackworth said.

“Those are things that teams can learn to do for sure. We can create really great chances and have lots of positives to take away from games.”

PLAYERS TO WATCH

Portland Timbers – Evander

Evander has recorded a goal contribution in each of his last six regular-season appearances. The only longer streak in Timbers’ history was a nine-match run with a goal contribution by Diego Valeri in 2017.

St. Louis City – Roman Burki

St. Louis have managed just three wins in their last 30 MLS road games in all competitions and are winless in each of their last 15, dating back to last October (six draws, nine losses).

They have failed to keep a clean sheet in each of their last seven such matches, and if Roman Burki is able to get a clean sheet, he may be able to help them end that streak.

MATCH PREDICTION: PORTLAND TIMBERS WIN

St. Louis defeated the Timbers 3-1 in the Leagues Cup Round of 32 at home on August 9. It was the first home win by either team against the other in four all-time meetings.

Portland have scored at least twice in an MLS-high 19 of their 25 matches this regular season, including the last seven in a row. The Timbers have scored two or more goals 20 or more times in an MLS season just once before, doing so in 2014 (21 times).

Meanwhile, St. Louis have managed just one win in their last 14 regular-season matches (four draws, nine losses), a 2-0 victory over league-worst San Jose Earthquakes in July.

In fact, since that run began in mid-May, San Jose (four) are the only team that have collected fewer points than St. Louis City (seven).

OPTA WIN PROBABILITY

Portland Timbers – 51.5%

Draw – 24.7%

St. Louis City – 23.8%