Sporting Kansas City v Houston Dynamo – MLS Betting Preview and Prediction
This Sunday, September 1, we will get to witness a Western Conference clash between Sporting Kansas City and Houston Dynamo at Children’s Mercy Park, the home ground of the Wizards.
Sporting Kansas City chasing playoffs finish
Two successive wins at Children’s Mercy Park catapulted Sporting Kansas City back into the race for the top seven finish, which might still be far away, however, it’s not an impossible task anymore. Looking back at their last five fixtures, SKC lost two and won three. Real Salt Lake (1:2) and Orlando City (1:0) both proved to be too tough of a nut to crack, whereas it was Seattle Sounders (2:3), and most recently SJ Earthquakes (2:1) and Minnesota United (1:0) who fell under the might of SKC. As it stands now, Sporting Kansas City are six points adrift of seventh place, meaning there is still enough games for them to climb their way into the postseason. That is, however, if they can keep with their strong form and avoid further injuries, which have had a huge negative effect on their season so far.
Houston Dynamo in a downward spiral
The last couple of months have not been too kind for Houston Dynamo. In fact, it would be fair to say this whole MLS season did not go as planned for the Orange. Sitting at 10th spot in the league with a less-than-impressive 9-4-14 record, Houston Dynamo have found themselves in a dry spell of no wins in the last six league fixtures. Furthermore, Dynamo have won only two fixtures and drew one out of last 15 played, meaning they lost 12/15 fixtures in the last two months and I don’t think we need to paint out how bad that is.
As it was expected, the Texan head coach Wilmer Cabrera was fired and is now replaced by interim manager Davy Arnaud, who will try to salvage as much as possible in the remaining fixtures. However, it does not seem like Arnaud has what it takes to save his team from falling even deeper in the remaining fixtures. That became rather obvious in Houston 1:5 away defeat against their rivals FC Dallas last weekend, which not only deepened their problems on the leaderboard but also did not go down well with their fanbase. While a defeat was expected on that day, considering Dynamo are poor travellers, a 1:5 was too much to go unnoticed.
Verdict & Prediction
Houston Dynamo are a huge mess right now, with a 5-1-0 record in the last five fixtures and 1-0-11 record in the last 12 away games. We can’t imagine seeing them magically improving ahead of their weekend clash with Sporting Kansas, who have their own problems, yet they are far smaller compared to those the Texans are going through. The biggest issue for SKC was (and still is) the lack of a proper striker, yet there is some hope in Eric Hurtado, who has shown an impressive form. He will still need some help from the midfield to be as efficient as the Wizards expect him to be, still, there is some potential in him. With some issues in their firepower, SKC best bet is to strengthen their defence and use the logic “defence is the best attack”. At the end of the day, if you keep a clean sheet, you can’t lose, which is the strategy we saw in their fixture against Minnesota last week (1:0).
As far as our prediction is concerned, we can imagine Houston walking away with anything here. They seem to get worse each week, and with an away match at Children’s Mercy Park on the menu, the Texans will need to produce a miracle to walk away with anything.
Prediction: Sporting Kansas City -1.00 Asian Handicap
Odds: 2.25 Sportmarket
