Good Monday morning Caps fans. I hope you are having a good Labour Day holiday and that the long weekend is treating you well.

The Caps ran up against a red hot St. Louis City team on Saturday, but once again their 3-1 loss seemed more self inflicted than anything else.

To be sure, St. Louis is in excellent form right now. And they had plenty of quality to take advantage of what the Caps were giving them and were deserved winners.

But the defense repeatedly got shredded and the Caps had no answer. Part of this was due to having to start Mihail Gherasimencov at right back, with the youngster struggling with the pace of St. Louis at a position he does not naturally play. The rest of the backline didn’t cover themselves in glory either, with disjointed marking helping St. Louis jump out to their 3-1 lead.

The attack, meanwhile, sputtered after Emmanuel Sabbi’s early goal. The passing in the final third caused some potentially dangerous chances to go to waste and the wide players didn’t ever make a mark on the match after the early going when the Caps seemed comfortably in control. Thomas Müller struggled and things just never really got going.

The next two matches are against weaker teams and the Caps will have more of a chance to impose themselves on LA and Austin. It’s probably best just to memory hole this match and move on. It would be nice, however, to get a statement win against a top Western Conference side before the playoffs, something that has somewhat eluded the Caps to date.

Shameless Self Promotion

More on Saturday’s disappointment against St. Louis.

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