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Under doctor’s orders, St. Louis City SC midfielder Chris Durkin spent his offseason sitting around and resting the knee injury that kept him out of the final four games of last season.

If you know anything about Durkin, who was one of the ironmen for City SC last season, you know sitting around is not something he enjoys.

“A lot of boiling in my own thoughts,� he said.

But after a few months forced to sit idle, Durkin is back. He came on at halftime of City SC’s second game, against San Diego, then started and played 75 minutes against the Los Angeles Galaxy on Sunday. That number is likely to grow Saturday when City SC faces the Seattle Sounders at Energizer Park.

City SC coach Olof Mellberg hasn’t worked with Durkin for long, but he’s quickly learned about the personality of the team’s No. 1 defensive midfielder.

“I think it reflects the way you see him play on the pitch,� Mellberg said. “Hard working, energy, loyal. So we’ve gotta maximize that capacity.�

The energy that makes Durkin play that way on the field is what made it so hard for him when he was forced to stay off it. Durkin was regularly one of the top players on the team in mileage covered in a game last season. Even with missing those last four games, Durkin was second among City SC field players in minutes played.

“It was a great lesson into learning that things aren’t always the way I want them to be,� he said, “and it’s not always my timing. It’s definitely not. And, yeah, it was just a great learning lesson for me, and really just made me super hungry to be back on the field.�

Durkin initially hurt his knee in City SC’s game with Minnesota and came off at halftime, but he tried to play on it the following week and only lasted 24 minutes before he had to come out.

“Definitely pushed a little bit too much there,� he said. “Thought I was invincible and that something can’t happen to me, but I got humbled pretty quick.

“The doctors think that the action that happened on the pitch was the straw that broke the camel’s back. It was going to happen at some point, I think through wear and tear, I have a bit of a genetic problem already, a little bit more of additional bone growth. So now it’s just about maintenance and being smart.�

At the time of the injury, Durkin had played in 34 of City SC’s 36 games across all competitions, and the only ones he missed were because of suspensions because of accumulated yellow cards. City SC had three times last season when it played three games in eight or nine days, and only once did a player go 90 minutes in all three games in one of those stretches. Naturally, it was Durkin.

Team doctors wanted to fix the problem with rest rather than a potentially invasive surgery, and it has seemed to work. From the San Jose game on Sept. 21, he didn’t touch a ball until late January. Durkin was late to join camp but he’s been able to get back on the field and has missed only one game.

“It was kind of a double-edged sword of tendon issues along with bone issues,� he said, “so kind of juggling both things and just required a lot of rest to basically let it reset. I think the silver lining is that it allowed my whole body to take a big reset, which I’ve really never done in my career. So, I know they say that you come back stronger. I don’t necessarily think that means just body wise. I think mentally, you come back stronger as well.�

That already has stood out to Mellberg.

“A lot of energy and hard work,� he said. “He’s good on the ball as well. I think he did really well on a few occasions, opening up, finding good balls in behind and diagonally. So we still have some work to do with him. He’s maybe not used to playing in this system, and he didn’t get that many minutes in in preseason, or no minutes at all.�

City SC has posted shutouts in its first three games and can tie a league record with a fourth to start the season, but it comes against a team that so far has been the toughest challenge for City SC in its brief existence: Seattle. City SC is 0-4 against the Sounders, the only Western Conference team against which it has not gotten a point against.

“They have a lot of speed,� said defender Tomas Totland. “They’re confident on the ball and solid in defense. They’re just throughout a tough team to play, and they know how they want to play. They’re one of those teams that you just know is going to play well and on Saturday, we have to look our best.�

It is the end of a run of five games in 15 days (and eight in 25 days) for Seattle, which was eliminated from the CONCACAF Champions Cup on Tuesday with a 4-1 loss to Cruz Azul in Mexico City.

“We try to take advantage of that,� Mellberg said. “We’ve had more rest than them, they came back after long travels, we definitely should have better energy. It’s a good team we play, they have qualities in high intensity energy and on the ball, we have to be prepared. But it should be an advantage for us having a couple days more rest.�