Saturday night in Los Angeles, the Vancouver Whitecaps will continue their road week with a visit to familiar foes LAFC.

The biggest talking point from a Whitecaps perspective going into this one, beyond Vancouver’s poor form, is that Marc Dos Santos was fired on September 27 following a 1–0 loss to FC Dallas. This will be LAFC’s first match under interim head coach Xavi Tamarit.

While LAFC have won just one of their last nine matches since the Leagues Cup break, the struggles go back further than that. After starting the season unbeaten in their first 11 matches across all competitions, LAFC managed just six wins in their next 22 MLS games. That extended downturn ultimately cost Dos Santos his job, with Tamarit now tasked with restoring consistency and getting the club back on track.

LAFC go as far as Son and Bouanga will take them. That much is obvious. However, the pair’s individual quality has not been enough to prevent a prolonged slump. The problem has been getting the team as a whole to perform consistently. Dos Santos admitted earlier in the season that a more defensive tactical approach had taken LAFC away from their attacking identity, even if the defensive results have been relatively strong, with LAFC boasting the second-best defensive record in the West and the third-best in the league.

Our friends at Angles on Parade have highlighted concerns with LAFC’s attacking play and their reliance on predictable possession patterns. Separately, criticism of Son Heung-min’s role has focused on how often he has to drop deep to get involved in the build-up, rather than receiving the ball in more dangerous areas. Bouanga, meanwhile, remains most dangerous when attacking from the left channel, but LAFC need to do more to create opportunities for their star forwards rather than relying on individual moments of quality.

The underlying numbers also tell a distinct story. LAFC have retained some of the fundamental elements of their game under Steve Cherundolo, but have changed in one very important respect. The Black and Gold have the league’s highest rate of opponent vertical tendency, meaning their deep defensive lines and low pressure encourage opponents to play directly. That is not particularly surprising. What is jarring, however, is that under Dos Santos’ watch, LAFC also ranked 25th in the league in their own vertical tendency.

For a team that has historically thrived on the transition game, that simply isn’t an acceptable rate. Sitting deep and absorbing pressure only makes sense if you’re going to use those tactics to punish opponents for their mistakes. Instead, the numbers suggest that Hugo Lloris and the LAFC defensive line have been doing a tremendous job, but there hasn’t been nearly enough payoff for all the defensive work they’ve been asked to do.

How much of this has Xavi Tamarit been able to correct in such a short time? We’ll have to wait and see.

What we do know is that the Whitecaps will be without Thomas Müller for this match after he suffered a hamstring injury on Tuesday in Chicago. Vancouver will, however, have key contributors Andrés Cubas and Édier Ocampo back in the mix, which should provide a boost.

For Vancouver, I don’t think radical changes are needed, but they do need to do a better job of executing Jesper Sørensen’s game plan. In that respect, a possession-optional team like LAFC could be a better matchup than facing a side coached by a very good possession-minded manager like Gregg Berhalter.

All things considered, I think the new-coach bounce might be enough for the two sides to split the spoils in this one, but there’s only one way to find out.