The Vancouver Whitecaps are winless in 6. They are very unlikely to avoid the play-in game. Reddit and Twitter are increasingly being filled with calls for Vanni Sartini’s job. All of this when just a few short weeks ago it looked like the Whitecaps were cruising to a top 4 spot and possibly even the club’s MLS points record. So what exactly happened? How real is this fall-off? Is the sky falling?

To try to establish this, let’s look at each of the games in this winless skid individually (all data from Fbref). 

Game 1: Vancouver Whitecaps 1-1 Houston Dynamo 

The xG in this game was 1.3-1.1 for Houston. If not for their penalty, the Whitecaps would have out xG’d them in their own stadium. Houston did dominate possession, and the penalty resulted from that pressure, but it’s not like the Whitecaps gave up a lot of chances in this game. For a road game that includes a cross-continental flight, I would say this performance is fine.

Game 2: Vancouver Whitecaps 2-4 L.A Galaxy

The xG in this one was 1.7-1.4 for the Galaxy. Score effects were a major factor in this one. The Whitecaps set up to defend and hit on the counter. That mostly worked until Gabriel Pec capitalized on a fortunate bounce and scored on a screened Takaoka. After that, the Whitecaps got caught multiple times selling out for an equalizer. A deserved win for the Galaxy, no doubt, but the scoreline is probably not reflective of the balance of play. 

Game 2.5: Vancouver Whitecaps 0-0 Toronto F.C

It’s not an MLS game, so there is limited data available on this one. But aside from the penalty (which, by the way, the Whitecaps very much could have had a penalty as well) there really weren’t any big chances created by anyone in this game. I doubt either team cracked 1 xG from open play. It’s not great, but maybe you can put that down to final nerves. 

Game 3: Vancouver Whitecaps 1-1 Portland Timbers

Most of the time, this game ends in a Whitecaps win. They out xG’d Portland 1-0.5. A deflected goal was Portland’s saving grace. Now, it is concerning that the Whitecaps were only able to put up 1 xG at home against a fringe playoff team. There were once again long periods where the Whitecaps had to bend but not break (flukey-deflected goals can be a consequence of that). But, again, most of the time this game ends in a win. 

Game 4: Vancouver Whitecaps 0-3 Seattle Sounders

This is the first true disaster in the stretch of games (though, again xG was 1.7-1.0 so a 3-0 may flatter the Sounders a little bit). Basically, nothing went right, Vancouver was on the back foot from the start and only created some chances with the game already lost. Of note, Ryan Gauld was unavailable for this game. 

Game 5: Vancouver Whitecaps 0-1 Minnesota United

Full disclosure, I have not watched this game. I was on vacation at the time. But based on the highlights and online commentary suggests Minnesota got a 50/50 penalty call and the Whitecaps did not get a 50/50 call and also had a goal dubiously disallowed. The Whitecaps obviously struggled to create chances, again. There was obviously an element of bad luck with the calls but even if you flipped the penalty calls, Minnesota still would have out xG’d the ‘Caps in their own stadium. Not good! 

Game 6: Vancouver Whitecaps 1-2 LAFC 

A weird game, courtesy of the leagues cup, where neither team had their full complement of players available. The xG was basically a coin flip. Does that represent a turn-around from the previous two awful games? I don’t know, you can’t really say because both teams were missing so many players. 

So, what I see from those games is that the Whitecaps have not been good but were pretty unfortunate to not win *at all* during that stretch. If you take out the penalties then the xG for and against in the MLS games is almost exactly even. So, say the ref doesn’t give Minnesota the penalty and does give the Whitecaps one. Just that little change makes their xG for an against exactly even during this period. Funny how things can turn so much on little moments like that, it’s all about fine… *gunshot*

That said an expected goal difference of 0 is not anything worth celebrating. Basically, my read on the situation is a lot of unlucky stuff happened (marginal penalty calls going against them, players being injured or struggling for fitness, fixture congestion thanks to League Cup results that didn’t even involve them, MLS playing through international breaks and Ryan Gauld suddenly getting called up, etc.) and the Whitecaps as they are currently constructed are not good enough to weather a bunch of unlucky stuff happening to them. Those factors exacerbated the same problems I identified back in July as being barriers to the team joining the MLS elite:

This is Fine…If…| A Review of the Whitecaps Season so Far

All of this stuff has been extremely prevalent over Vancouver’s winless run. The chances they created were generally high danger but there were much too few of them. They struggled to create through the dangerous central areas of the pitch. That lack of penetration also put a lot more stress on their defence because they just were not posing a consistent threat.

How likely is that to change? It’s very hard to say. Stuart Armstrong, the guy who was supposed to address a lot of those problems has barely played, struggling to get up to speed with an injury ruling him out for the end of the English season (Which ended all the way back in May). Will he be fit enough to make an impact in the playoffs? I don’t know! I’m not a sports scientist. I would imagine two more weeks of training plus one more game would make *some* difference but I’m not remotely qualified to say how much. Armstrong does still pop in the tiny sample size of Fbref data we have but it’s way too few minutes to draw any firm conclusions.

We, of course, should also consider that the games are not played by cold calculating computers. They are played by humans with hopes, dreams, and irrational fears just like the rest of us. You can show them all the data you want but if the vibes are bad, and they don’t *feel* like they can win they are going to play worse. I think you have definitely seen some evidence of gripping the proverbial stick too hard as this winless streak has progressed (over-hit passes, bad touches, etc.).

Fatigue also seems to be a major issue. The lack of depth on the team, especially in the forward areas, has been commented on a lot. They do look very run down, it has to be said.

So, lastly, I want to say a quick word about #VanniOut. I can respect it, if you always held that opinion. I don’t personally agree but it’s well within the realm of reasonable thought. But I don’t really respect changing your opinion *now.* It’s exactly the same team with the same strengths and weaknesses as before! It’s completely reactionary to change your position with results if the underlying play remained basically exactly the same the whole time.

That said, I would like to issue a plea for more Deiber Caicedo! Like Armstrong, match fitness has been a struggle with the Colombian season ending in June. But Caicedo has done something awesome basically every time he’s stepped on the pitch. I don’t think giving him more minutes would have significantly impacted results but, to quote Mathew Baldisimo, “play that boi more!”