Good Monday morning Caps fans, hope you all had a lovely weekend and a good start to your June.
The Vancouver Whitecaps were probably quite happy to turn the calendar on the month of May and they started off the new month with a win at home over Colorado. It certainly wasn’t their best performance and we can dissect it a bit below but I also don’t think it was quite as dismal as some people were making it out to be.
Make no mistake, the first half was bad. Colorado should have had a couple of goals by halftime and the Caps didn’t create much (their best chance came off a free kick). Vanni Sartini seemingly compounded problems by subbing off Tristan Blackmon, leaving the Caps without a single natural centerback in their backline, which contributed to the sole Rapids goal.
The defense is probably the most concerning part about the moment but I thought things looked better once Bjorn Utvik was introduced. Mathias Laborda hasn’t been great this year and has turned into the whipping boy for fans but I did think he showed improvement upon moving to the wide CB position. He just simply isn’t the type of guy you want in the middle of the backline and that contributed to a lot of the problems here.
Going forward, things looked much better once Fafa Picault entered the match, occupying defenders and allowing Ryan Gauld and Ali Ahmed more space. Sebastian Berhalter, who looked excellent in this one, also found plenty of room to work as a right wingback.
This is still an attack that doesn’t seem to want to take risks, however, beyond lumping the ball into the box in search of Brian White’s head. Given that White isn’t in good form at the moment, that hasn’t been going too hot. Ultimately, this team is too intent on searching for the perfect ball or perfect shot and needs to be more content pulling the trigger. Damir Kreilach’s winner came off of a deflected shot after all.
A bit of rest will probably also do some good. When the Caps travel to New England in two weeks they may well have Sam Adekugbe back from injury and will also be starting a full compliment of centerbacks (actual, natural centerbacks). Whether that will fix things remains to be seen.
In the meantime, three points sees this team up to fifth in the Western Conference, which feels about right all things considered. MLS is all about finding ways to win when you’re not at your best and, after a bad month, I’m not going to be too picky about how they chose to get things done.
Shameless Self Promotion
Live from BC Place, we hear from Vanni Sartini et al in our post-match recap about their takeaways from Saturday’s match.
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