Skidding Cincinnati seeks higher efficiency vs. Montreal

FC Cincinnati and CF Montreal are clubs on different ends of the Major League Soccer standings, but both enter Saturday’s match in Cincinnati needing a positive result.

Cincinnati (15-8-3, 48 points) enters with a four-match losing streak. July 6 was the second-place side’s last victory, a 6-1 win over Inter Miami. Last weekend, without coach Pat Noonan on the sideline due to a two-match suspension, Cincinnati fell to the same Miami side 2-0 after giving up two goals in the first six minutes.

Cincinnati has been outscored 9-2 during the skid while struggling to figure things out on both sides of the ball.

“We’re not performing well, we’re not defending well in isolated moments,” Noonan said. “We’re getting punished for that. Individual performance, team performances, not great at the moment and as a result we’re playing catch-up in games.”

Luciano Acosta is a lone bright spot, creating five goals in his past five regular-season matches. He could find more on Saturday against a struggling CF Montreal.

Montreal (6-11-9, 27 points) is riding a two-match losing streak, falling farther out of the playoff picture. After sitting in a playoff spot in July, Montreal resides outside of a postseason berth in 11th place.

Plus, those two losses include a 6-0 defeat to the New England Revolution on Saturday, their first match since returning from the Leagues Cup break.

“You can’t build something on a game like this,” defender Joel Waterman said. “We need to forget it and move on to the next game.”

The three-man Montreal backline, anchored by Waterman, has allowed opponents to create the most shots on goal in the league (143) and surrendered the most goals per match in the Eastern Conference (2.04).

Despite the struggles, a victory for Montreal could put the Canadian side back into one of the nine MLS Cup playoff spots, and Cincinnati already has had its struggles against Montreal this season.

On April 13, Cincinnati traveled to Montreal to lose 2-1. Ariel Lassiter and Josef Martinez scored the two goals in the victory, the last game before Martinez missed two months due to injury. Since returning, he has three goals in nine appearances.

–Field Level Media