Good Monday morning Caps fans, hope you all had a relaxing weekend and that any mothers out there had a lovely day.

The Caps were lackluster away to LAFC, getting thoroughly outplayed and falling 3-0. This was largely at the hands of two men: Cristian Oliveira and Denis Bouanga, who combined to give LAFC a first-half lead they would comfortably sit on for the remainder of the match.

Playing away to LAFC is never easy and matches like this certainly happen. But the performance was concerning, as it underscored what is quickly becoming a weakness of the Caps defensively: the right side.

Mathias Laborda and Ryan Raposo were consistently getting cooked in this one. On some level, it is understandable — almost everyone gets cooked by Bouanga. But this has seemingly been a problem all year, in part because Raposo is not especially strong defensively.

This could be overcome, but for a few things. One, Mathias Laborda isn’t particularly mobile, making him vulnerable 1v1 a lot of the time. If the Caps are able to force a lot of weak looping crosses into the center of the pitch, that’s OK. But if a team is like LAFC, relying on a lot of individual duels to feed low crosses, this creates problems.

And, two, Raposo hasn’t been especially sharp this year going forward, the redeeming quality that is supposed to make this all worth it.

Sam Adekugbe remains out so this is a problem that will exist, in some form, for another few weeks. And, in fairness to both Laborda and Raposo, this was a match where you basically wanted to fire everyone except for Yohei Takaoka and, maybe, Fafa Picault into the sun.

But you wonder if Vanni Sartini, who has rotated in favor of Bjorn Utvik a couple of times, might be considering his options. Utvik isn’t going to solve all of these problems either (if 1v1 defending is your concern, you probably want Javain Brown out there) but he has generally looked comfortable when called upon this year in a way that Laborda hasn’t really. There isn’t really a clear upgrade on Raposo at the moment (Giuseppe Bovalina will get called upon at some point but remains a black box for now) but this is something Vanni Sartini is going to need to figure out.

Given that this is the Caps’ third loss this year, there isn’t a real need to hit the panic button yet. But an away trip to a resurgent Colorado Rapids side will pose a test that Vancouver will have to figure out. And the Seattle Sounders will be desperate for points as well next weekend. The Caps’ goal at the moment needs to be to tread water and stay above the mass of mediocre teams below them in the west, hovering around the playoff line.

Shameless Self Promotion

A look at a team performance that gave a sense of deja vu for how they collapsed away at LAFC.

Best of the Rest

Things fared better for the Whitecaps 2 side, which came out on top in a seven-goal thrilled on Sunday afternoon

Vancouver FC will play a match in Kelowna, as the Canadian Premier League tries to expand its footprint in British Columbia

Some teams (Atlanta United? New England?) are struggling. But why aren’t their coaches more on the hot seat?

Toronto FC and NYCFC made the headlines over the weekend, with a fiery brawl culminating in John Herdman alleging NYCFC manager Nick Cushing punched a player earlier this year