Coming back to town: Dynamo hoping to be Crew-el to Columbus

Sunday night, the Houston Dynamo will hope Columbus will be Crew-el to be kind in the right measure to the tune of three points to the Orange. And after last week, I think we're all hoping for a very, very, very good sign that our march to the MLS elite will continue apace.

The Orange face the Crew, hoping to extend our home unbeaten streak to 21 games, at BBVA Compass Stadium Sunday at 8 p.m. Dynamo have not lost at home in over a year, the last time being against, you guessed it, Columbus on June 18, 2011. Houston is sitting on 40 points (11-6-7) entering the weekend, good for third in the East, while Columbus has amassed 29 pts. (8-8-5). As we all know, the good guys have been on a tear. Since starting the season a very unremarkable 5-5-5, Dynamo have gone 6-1-2, the 1 being of course last weekend's 2-0 loss at New York.

I have to admit that my knowledge of all things Columbus-related is limited at best, so to bring myself, and all of you, up to speed, we'll turn to the tales of the tape, just after the jump

Whoops! How did that get in there. That's the deal with ear worms. They're tricky little buggers.

Before we look at more recent results, let's turn back to April 21, in particular Dynamo's 2-2 draw at Crew Stadium.

Couple things there. Both good and bad. First, remember when Will Bruin used to be a goal-scoring machine? Yeah, me too. What happened to that guy? And second, remember when we were making regular defense lapses just after scoring goals? Good thing that's not around any more.

Back to the present day, the Crew are 1-1-1 on their last three, winning at Sporting Kansas City on July 28, losing at DC United Aug. 4, and then drawing at home 1-1 to the LA Galaxy this past Wednesday, Aug. 15. Here are the highlights of those three games:

First, the KC game:

And here's the loss at RFK:

And finally the draw with LA, the first game the team played since the tragic death of Kirk Urso.

So, let's start the discussion. What do you see there that you think we could exploit? I'm looking at an uneven team that is occasionally strong in attack ad defense, but you never are quite sure what you're going to see. Personally, I'm seeing a team that is eminently beatable. What do you think?