Saturday night at BC Place, the Vancouver Whitecaps dropped a 3-1 result to visiting St. Louis City SC, as their mixed form continued, conceding three consecutive goals in the first half after opening the scoring inside the first two minutes.

While the Whitecaps have had some disappointing performances since the World Cup break, you’ve still been able to say that they were the better team in most matches. Yet, I think you’d need a lot of copium to feel that way about this one. St. Louis overpowered the home side at the end of the first half, and despite a second half of throwing everything forward to get back in the match, the Whitecaps had little substantive to show for their efforts.

There’s little rest coming for Jesper Sørensen’s side, with another midweek match inbound, though it is against a much weaker LA Galaxy side.

Alright, without further delay, on to the player grades we go.

Yohei Takaoka – 5.5

He was caught flopping around on City’s third goal, but overall, it’s hard to pin Vancouver’s defensive struggles on him, as the backline in front of him gave away too many high-quality looks.

Mihail Gherasimencov – 4.5

This was a pretty rough one for the youngster. It looked to me as though missing out on Ocampo threw the whole line out of balance. Laborda was dragged out to support Mihail, which also left spaces between the two CBs. To my eye, this weakness at RB played a big part in all three of St. Louis’s goals.

Mathias Laborda – 6.0

On a really bad night for the backline, I actually thought Laborda was alright. He was strong in his duels and solid with his passing. Though, as a non-natural CB, you don’t get that leadership to hold the line together.

Tristan Blackmon – 5.0

I do feel like we are getting some shades of Blackmon under Sartini again this season, where the reigning Defender of the Year will suffer from headloss on occasion, either losing track of the line or going on an adventure for no apparent reason. Again, I think this was exacerbated by the change at RB in this one.

Tate Johnson – 5.5

I think Johnson held up alright in this one, though his passing was not super sharp, and there were a couple of moments where he could have been quicker to close down.

Jeevan Badwal – 5.5

Not a great match from Jeevan. He shades more on the technical side, and this match was quite physical, which is not a great matchup for him as a number eight. I’m not going to be too mad at Badwal for this, as he’s just 20 and has already grown a lot. That said, this is maybe one Larraz should have started.

Andres Cubas – 6.5

He did a lot of thankless work in this one, no surprise there, as he led the team with 12 defensive contributions. I will say that without Berhalter, something that has been a bit exposed is that Cubas is a destroying specialist, and without a progressive, box-crashing beast beside him, Cubas is now being asked to do some things where he is less well-equipped.

Emmanuel Sabbi – 7.0

Scored a nice early goal with a quality finish after some dogged defensive work. In general, the final product is hit and miss for him, but the effort is always there.

Thomas Müller – 5.5

This was a pretty poor showing for the German. He’s always going to make some smart plays and create a few chances, but it felt like he was physically outmatched, as he lost a bunch of 50/50s and looked a step slow. He also needs to start shooting more.

Bruno Caicedo – 5.5

This is the duality of a mercurial young South American winger. He is electric on the ball going forward, but positioning, pressing, tracking back, and overall workrate are very hit or miss. The Whitecaps definitely felt that in this one, as the front four really failed to press effectively after the first 20ish minutes.

Rayan Elloumi – 5.0

I would say something similar about Elloumi. The goals will come and go, but the Whitecaps need more from the man leading the line in terms of pressing and presence in duels. Without putting the visitors under pressure playing out of the back, it was too easy for St. Louis to muck things up in the midfield and create problems in the final third.

Substitutes – 6.5

Everyone who came off the bench did a decent job, but obviously there was little in the way of a final breakthrough, so any praise has to be tempered accordingly. Given recent performances, I think you want Gauld and Larraz to be your starting XI over Badwal and Müller, all things equal.

Ok, those were my thoughts from the match this weekend. Let me know yours in the comments, as always.