Injury Updates

OUT:

• M – Bernardo Anor (left lower leg injury)
• M/D – Thomas de Villardi (left Achilles injury)
• M – Sam Cronin (head injury)

QUESTIONABLE:

• D – Marc Burch (left thigh)

Training Notes

• With three matches in the span of seven days, training has been light this week. On Friday, the starters worked on tactics, formation and finishing while Mark Watson worked with the new-look backline. With both Michael Boxall and Francisco Calvo will be away on international duty, expect Joe Greenspan — who was loaned out to Pittsburgh Riverhounds for a single match last weekend — to get the nod.
• Abu Danladi — who came out of the win in Atlanta with an injury — and Marc Burch — who was held out of Tuesday’s match — both trained in full. Both should be good to go for this weekend’s match.

Gaffer’s Quote

Adrian Heath on how he plans to line up against Sporting KC: “Well we’ll go 4-4-2. I said I wanted to get Abu [Danladi] and Christian [Ramirez] playing as an orthodox two, rather than one and one underneath. We’ve got a lot of opportunity and it’s been forced on us a little bit by the International call ups, but it is something I wanted to try. So, we’ll give it a go and see how it is. It’s a little bit of a novelty these days to see a 4-4-2. You know, we’ve got 5-4-3, 3-5-2, 4-2-3-1, you name them. But, you know, this one used to be the staple diet of everybody. We’ve gone through it and we’ll see how we do.”

Marquee Matchups

• Ike Opara vs. Christian Ramirez: Opara is a two-way defender who has found the back of the net twice against the Loons this season. Ramirez is on a roll for Minnesota recently scoring equalizing goals in three of the last four matches and picking up right where he left off when he got injured.
• Seth Sinovic vs. Jerome Thiesson: Both outside backs love to get up in the attack and send balls in from the flank so they could be going one-on-one at both ends of the pitch.