How Will CITY’s New Formation Affect The Fullbacks? (Wingbacks?)

There are a lot of historical things that happened over the first two years of St. Louis CITY SC history, but let’s take a moment to archive some tactical history from these last year seasons. 

~~While playing a back four defense CITY consistently attacked high and wide with their fullbacks~~

With the switch to an odd-man defense it means team’s fullback wingbacks can provide as much width in attack and press as needed without having to worry about covering an unreasonable amount of space on the back end. 

And that should mean only good things for Tomas Totland along the right side. And on the left side it should be Jay Reid who has a chance to benefit greatly. (Conrad Wallem has a hold on the spot after an impressive preseason, but Reid is also hurt and will miss the start of the season and this is about the returning player) 

(Just in case you forgot what he looked like over the last 3+ months.)

A lot of that is up in the air because he missed the preseason and will miss the start of the season while returning from offseason surgery, but if you saw what Reid put on fill in his almost 800 minutes last season it’s not hard to see how he converts. Reid finished the 2024 season in the top 15% of players at his position in /90 numbers in things like:

• Passes into penalty area, 1.60 (92nd percentile)
• Crosses into penalty area , 0.98 (97th)
• Shot-Creating Actions, 2.95 (85th)
• Goal-Creating Actions, 0.61 (98th)
• Blocks, 1.84 (92nd)
• Interceptions, 1.48 (85th)
• Successful Take-Ons, 1.48 (94th)
• Successful Take-On %, 75% (97th)

Once he’s back in action it will be intriguing to see how Olof gets him involved. One thing that should help is the versatility of Conrad Wallem to play all across the midfield/attack, opening up chances for Reid to slide into a more natural position that projects to fit his game like a glove.