The Vancouver Whitecaps extended their unbeaten run to three with a convincing 3-0 win over SKC. Despite a slight lull in the second half, the ‘Caps never looked that troubled.

I think SKC might legitimately have a worse defence than Valour FC. They are better at other stuff, of course, but they looked like they had no idea what to do in the first half. Jayden Nelson racked up 8 shot contributions in this one, and could have had significantly more if his decision making were a little more on point and if SKC didn’t figure out the strategy of hitting the deck the second they made any contact with him. JC Ngando also had probably his best performance of the season, racking up 3 shot contributions of his own and doing a good job of progressing the ball in general.

Now, the MLS website credits SKC with 2 xG in this game. They don’t have the xG timelines anymore, so you can’t see what they awarded to each individual shot, but 2 feels very high to me. It is certainly true that SKC turned the heat up after Andres Cubas was subbed off, a move that was apparently precautionary against some minor groin tightness. But I’m having a hard time seeing 2 xG worth of shots in what SKC did (The MLS website numbers notoriously skew high). I actually thought the backline did rather well. The two best chances SKC had were a result of a giveaway by Mathias Laborda and a play where Edier Ocampo was on the ground after some contact to the face. I thought we might have seen the last of Bjorn Inge Utvik, but the run of games he has gotten seems to have helped him find a decent rhythm. Obviously, he isn’t Ranko Veselinovic, but I was feeling a little bit less worried after this game.

I thought perhaps Jesper Sørensen was a little bit slow to use his substitutes. Sabbi and Ngando both had strong performances, but those performances saw them do a lot of running, and some early changes might have seen the second half lull be a little bit less pronounced. I had to feel for Giuseppe Bovalina and Nelson Pierre, as this would normally be the sort of game you would want to get them some minutes. But precautionary subs of Cubas and Blackmon probably denied them that opportunity.

The Whitecaps get a bit of a break, with their next game coming August 9th on the road against San Jose. Ironically, after weeks and weeks where the Whitecaps probably wanted a break, this one comes at a bit of an inopportune time. The Whitecaps are finally getting healthy and have been gaining momentum again in recent matches.