Houston, TX (SportsNetwork.com) - The Columbus Crew will attempt to get their season back on track when they head to BBVA Compass Stadium to face the Houston Dynamo on Wednesday.
Columbus began the season with three successive wins, but a run of five matches without a victory has seen the club slip to fourth place in the Eastern Conference.
The Crew most recently suffered a 2-0 loss at Sporting Kansas City, a result that was made all the worse by a second-half red card to Wil Trapp.
The young center-midfielder will miss Wednesday's clash with Houston through suspension, giving head coach Gregg Berhalter a slight selection problem for the match.
"I don't think there's a like-for-like replacement in the whole league for Wil Trapp," Berhalter told the club's official website.
While there are comparable players to Trapp around MLS, the 21-year-old has established himself as one of the league's premier players in the center of the park.
Trapp is one of just five players with more than 700 total touches - his total of 703 ranks fifth in MLS. His total of 593 passes ranks fourth among all MLS players and his 518 successful passes rank just one behind the Philadelphia Union's Vincent Nogueira for the league lead.
Houston will look to capitalize on Trapp's absence, and judging by the Dynamo's emphatic victory last weekend, they are well-equipped to do so.
Dominic Kinnear's men fell behind early on against Chivas USA but stormed back to claim a resounding 4-1 win at the StubHub Center.
"I think the best thing was that we went down a goal, and it's not a great thing to go down a goal early, but I thought our response was fantastic," Kinnear told MLSsoccer.com after the match. "Scored three great goals before the break and took our time and pick-and-chose our moments to go forward."
It looked like the Dynamo would be doomed to a seventh straight match without a win when Erick Torres converted an early penalty for the Goats, but the Dynamo, led by brace from Giles Barnes, notched four unanswered goals to get their third win of the season.
"(I'm) really happy for the guys, they've been working hard and catching a lot of grief from a lot of people, both inside the organization and out, and I didn't like it," Kinnear continued. "You always want to win. We never step on the field not wanting the result to go our way. So it's nice to see that we won a game."
[SportsNetwork.com]
