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“I think at the moment, every game is a must win for us,� he said. “We just need to try to pick up points as many as we can now.�

And with the team having matched the club-record winless streak of nine games, a streak that led to the firing of Bradley Carnell last season, Mellberg also knows that not winning is the kind of thing that can get a coach not employed.

“We all know that we need to get results,� he said, “and the results are on me. So all coaches know that if you’re not doing well, results, you’re always under pressure.�

Mellberg said the topic hasn’t come up in his daily conversations with sporting director Lutz Pfannenstiel, but that doesn’t change the urgency. After missing a golden opportunity to get a win by giving up two goals in the final 20 minutes on Wednesday with Sporting Kansas City, City SC’s next chance to get a win is a bit harder, with the team traveling to St. Paul, Minnesota, to face Minnesota United, which sits in third place in the Western Conference, on Saturday at 7:30 p.m.

City SC, winless in nine in a row, has six losses and three ties as it has produced just three of a possible 27 points.

In a condition that speaks volumes about the team, it has allowed eight goals in the 70th minute or after in its past four games. That has turned two wins into ties and one tie into a loss.

Mellberg thinks the problem is both mental and physical.

“I think this is something that we have been working hard on from preseason,� he said. “I mentioned it early in preseason, working on the nonstop players, and that is physically, and it’s mentally, and it’s a difference you see in a player at the very highest level, they are able to play 90 minutes, from a physical point of view and from a mental point of view and they’re able to do so two, three times a week. I had a long period in my career when I could have two, three games a week, 90 minutes, season after season. So, it’s obviously really nice when you have as many players as possible who are able to do so for various reasons. We don’t have that at the moment, so it gives us a challenge and it’s a puzzle for every game.�

“We just need to put a complete 90 minutes together,� said defender Henry Kessler, who returned to the April 13 on Wednesday. “We’ve played really good at times, and this last game had a 2-0 lead. We have had leads late before. So I think it’s about just putting a full game together for 90 minutes.�

Kessler is part of a returning wave of players who have been out with injuries. He missed five games with a hamstring injury. Eduard Lowen and Chris Durkin both practiced Thursday, and Mellberg said both could be available on Saturday with Durkin, who the team thought might be ready to go on Wednesday before having a setback, the closer of the two. That would leave City SC without only Rasmus Alm, who has been out since the start of the season, Alfredo Morales, Tomas Totland and Jannes Horn, who hurt his knee in practice on Tuesday and who Mellberg was optimistic wouldn’t be out long.

This is the most crowded point in the schedule for City SC. After playing Minnesota on Saturday, it returns to play it again on Wednesday in the U.S. Open Cup, and then heads west for Colorado. By the time it’s done, that will be six games in three weeks, which will tax the team’s limping lineup even more. And there isn’t much practice time to work on things.

Also, Mellberg wasn’t happy with his team’s lack of intensity at the start of the Sporting Kansas City game.

“We were not happy with the intensity we played in the in the first half,� he said. “It was a slow game, low intensity game. They played with quite low intensity as well. So it was one of those and we’re looking at every individual player, how their numbers look from a physical point of view. And if there are the reasons for tiredness, then you know, we need to really have a look at that, because we need energy on Saturday, for sure.�

“There’s always pressure,� Kessler said. “There’s pressure to win all the time. So even when you are winning, there’s pressure to win. But yeah, we’re feeling pressure. But pressure is a privilege. That’s something that you want. It means there’s something worth playing for. So I think that’s a good thing. And no, we’re sticking together through this, and we’ll find a way out together. That’s how we’ll get it done.�