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St. Louis City SC has taken a big step forward in the entertainment value of its games since David Critchley took over as interim ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥, but have been stagnant in the standings.

City SC wasted no time in falling behind 2-0, gave up a third goal in the 22nd minute and just when it looked like the club was headed for a painful loss, snapped out of it, scoring two goals in the final 10 minutes of the first half on a sweltering Wednesday night at Energizer Park. But City SC couldn’t score again while Orlando City scored in the 82nd to wrap up a 4-2 win and extend City SC’s winless streak to three games after winning its first game under Critchley and, significantly, checked one more game off its schedule, increasing the degree of difficulty on making the playoffs.

Klauss scored his fifth goal in four games under Critchley and Simon Becher scored his first goal since the third week of the season. Roman Burki had an exceptional night in goal, even if Orlando did score four goals.

It will be a quick turnaround for City SC, which will travel to play Houston on Saturday.

But as encouraging and entertaining as the offensive resurgence of the team is, the club has allowed 10 goals in four games since firing Olof Mellberg and replacing him with Critchley. 

A madcap first half said City SC fall behind 3-0 just 22 minutes into the game, only to rally and cut the lead to 3-2 at the intermission and revive a crowd that had to be reconsidering its options for an evening’s entertainment.

Orlando scored twice in the first nine minutes, with Ramiro Enrique scoring from close range after Orlando passed its way through the City SC defense in the seventh minute. Two minutes, City SC gave Marco Pasalic way too much room on a counter and he pulled up and scored from 24 yards to make it 2-0.

City SC rebounded and had some chances, but Orlando, up two on the road, was content to drop players back. And still they threatened. In the 22nd minute, a far too casual exchange of passes by Akil Watts and Timo Baumgartl led to Watts mishandling the ball, with Eduard Atuesta picking it off and passing it to Enrique, who was alone on Burki, and scored to make it 3-0.

The game could have gotten out of hand if not for Burki, who made a series of saves on strong Orlando chances. Finally, in the 41st minute, Tomas Totland played a ball to Becher on the run. He got into the Orlando box, pulled up to let the defender go past him, moved the ball from his left foot to his right and scored his second goal of the season. He got a big hug from his buddy Klauss after the goal.

In the 48th minute, Totland played a ball into the box that Atuesta tried to clear but missed and it came to Klauss, who controlled it and scored from about 6 yards out.