Match Day 11: Something Has to Give

Tomorrow night in Houston two teams that are winless in a combined 11 straight games will square off a BBVA Compass Stadium when Sporting KC and the Houston Dynamo face off. While Kansas City is winless in their last five games since a 2-0 win over the New York Red Bulls, the Dynamo are winless in six since a 5-0 win over FC Dallas. Saying the two teams aren't in form would be putting it politely.

Houston is currently sitting in last place in the Western Conference with just five points from their first eight games on the season. They're scoring plenty of goals on this season, 14 so far (although five came in one game), but at the same time cannot keep from giving up goals. Houston has allowed the third most goals so far this season, 16, one behind second place Dallas, and two behind league leaders, New York, although both have played two more games than Houston has at this early point of the season.

Kansas City for their part hasn't been playing poorly for much of their five game winless streak, they just are struggling to finish, having scored just four goals in their winless run. The defense has continued to play fairly well, they've allowed more than one goal just twice this season, and haven't let any games get away from them so far this season. The 3-4-3 lineup last week that KC pulled out last week surprised the LA Galaxy a bit and I think at this point is something that Peter Vermes can keep in his pocket to pull out when he needs to. This weekend though I'm not sure he goes with that lineup on the road. I have a feeling he's going to revert back to the 4-3-3 that he's used for the past few years as it will allow Kansas City more in the center of midfield against the Dynamo and allow their press that has been more successful on the road this year.

Davis - Dwyer - Zusi

Espinoza - Feilhaber

Olum

Sinovic - Besler - Coelho - Myers

Melia

Number to Remember - 1 - That's the number of home wins that host in this series has in the last nine league games in this series. The home team is 1-3-5 with the last home winning being a Dynamo win 1-0 last year at BBVA Compass Stadium. KC also had a draw there last year, the dramatic 4-4 draw that saw the end of the Luis Marin experiment.

Key Match Up - Brad Davis vs the Dynamo - Davis spent 10 years in Houston playing for the Dynamo, appearing over 250 times in league play. This will be the first time Davis goes back to Houston and the first time he'll face off against the team he spent so much time with.

PREDICTION - Kansas City has trouble scoring goals, while Houston has trouble stopping them, something seems like it will give tomorrow. Either Kansas City's offense will wake up, or Houston's defense will. KC has offensive weapons that could take advantage of Houston's leaky defense if they can get going. That's a big question though the way the offense has played at times lately. Houston also has the ability to really hit KC hard on the counter with the likes of Giles Barnes. Unfortunately I don't see either team breaking their winless run tomorrow.

SKC - 2 (Dwyer, Davis)
HOU - 2 (Bruin, Barnes)