VANCOUVER, B.C. – The Vancouver Whitecaps made a storming start to the new season, racking up four wins in their first five games on their way to the top of the standings.
Since then, inconsistency has plagued the team, to the extent that it’s become hard to predict what Whitecaps side will turn up in matches.
With only two wins, and eight points, in their last seven matches, Vancouver are struggling to find their rhythm. They've been showing flashes of attacking brilliance, but too many times the vital connection of final passes has been missing, with plays breaking down on the edge of the box.
"I'm open and honest enough to say we need to be better, if we're going to be a top team in this league, in the final third areas," Whitecaps head coach Carl Robinson said. "We're very good defensively, but we do make defensive mistakes as we showed last week. But as I keep saying we're a work in progress.
"We continue to work every day on our patterns of play, on our attacking phases in the final third. Sometime they come off and sometimes they don't. When they do, we're good to watch; and when they don't, we could be frustrating to watch."
Robinson has regularly stated that he expects a lack of consistency from his young side, but the Whitecaps’ struggles to break down opponents have persisted in recent weeks. And it's not solely due to what the 'Caps are, and aren't, doing themselves, they say.
Teams have been focusing heavily on the Whitecaps' key attacking players in recent matches, successfully neutralizing their effect. Saturday’s 2-0 loss to the Seattle Sounders was a prime example.
Osvaldo Alonso, Seattle’s pesky defensive midfielder, shadowed playmaker Pedro Morales the entire match, while they double-teamed winger Kekuta Manneh, previously a regular thorn in the Sounders’ side. It resulted in a near-perfect road performance at BC Place.
"With Seattle, they knew that they were going to double up on Kekuta on the wing, and you saw that," goalkeeper David Ousted said. "They did it the entire game. So when [teams] do that, when they double up on our guys, there's going to be other guys free. At these times, they can step up and go in and take responsibility and get on the ball.
"That's hopefully going to be a strength that when they double up on our guys, there's going to be other guys free, and luckily we've got a lot of guys who are good on the ball."
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Ousted also expects some inconsistency from the young 'Caps but sees how they respond to shaky performances as key to success over the long haul, with their chance for redemption coming on the road Saturday against the Colorado Rapids (9 pm ET; MLS LIVE in US, TSN1 in Canada).
"We definitely want to be consistent, but over an entire season there will be fallouts," Ousted said. "There will be performances that you're not entirely happy with. What's important is that you look at what went wrong and what didn't go your way and try and change it and take it into the next game.
"We've been good at rebounding this year, and that's going to be a strength for this team I feel because I can probably promise you that we won't win every game from here on. So rebounding from losses is going to be huge for us."
