<i>"One swallow does not a summer make, nor one fine day; similarly one day or brief time of happiness does not make a person entirely happy."</i>
<i>Aristotle</i>
Wise words from the Greek philosopher and if we were to put them into a modern day football setting, then it’s a pretty good reflection of the recent happenings in Whitecapsland.
One win does not a season make. Similarly, one game does not make everything suddenly right with the tactics, squad and management. After Seattle, one game doesn't make everything wrong either, but when you have more of those to draw on in the season so far, it certainly adds more fuel to a rising fire amongst the supporters.
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Last Saturday’s win in New York was as monumental as it was vital as it was unexpected.
With a depleted squad and down in confidence and morale after another agonising Voyageurs Cup defeat, to go east and not only defeat the then leaders of the Eastern Conference but also record your first away win of the season (and first for 11 months) was a coupon buster the likes of which I don’t think I’ve seen from the Whitecaps.
The key was how they would follow that up a week later in Seattle. Could they record back to back away wins for the first time in the MLS era? They’ve struggled to string back to back wins together in general, never mind a win over a Cascadian rival.
In 2011, they managed back to back wins once. In October and with two home games. 2012 saw them manage back to back wins twice and they even got three in a row. More surprising was that there were away games in there.
This season we kicked off with back to back home wins and it's been pretty downhill ever since.
As we now know, they came close to a unique pair of road victories but fell short and it was the same old story of not taking chances and defending poorly that was their undoing. But there is a much deeper read into all of it.
Now I don’t want to underplay the New York result as it was a great win. What was particularly pleasing was that the team didn’t just sit back and played some nice attacking football at times, whilst taking away the potent New York threat in the process. The team played like they had a point to prove. A wounded animal is always dangerous but they showed that they could at least compete when the mood seemed to take them. For a lot of the game, neither side looked capable of winning the match and apart from his winning goal, Kenny Miller had a very quiet game.
Saturday night at the Clink, before a national TV audience on NBC, the Whitecaps once again showed that they can compete and can look a dangerous team when going forward. They played their part in serving up a Cascadian Cup classic, but in the true Jekyll and Hyde manner of this season, they also showed how poor they are defensively and the lack of quality in depth, which we’ve been harping on for weeks now, was more evident than ever.
Before we look at all that I have to sing the positives from the tallest rooftop. The front three were excellent. Camilo's two goals were first class headers that gave the keeper no chance. Kenny Miller's interplay with Camilo and Teibert is looking deadly and he put in one hell of a shift, usually with no support. And what can you say about Russell Teibert? He's get better and better with every game, as his confidence grows. Two fantastic balls for his assists. Take a bow.
The common consensus is that Andy O'Brien going off injured was the turning point. Of course it was to an extent, but the writing was starting to look on the wall by that time as Seattle started to push forward heavily.
I fancied them to grab at least an equaliser even if O'Brien had seen out the full ninety. We'll never know of course unless someone can find the TSN download from the alternative reality where he didn't go off.
Vancouver rode their luck. They were inches, millimeters even, away from Seattle going 2-1 up seconds after we equalised. Obafemi Martins missed a sitter when clean through. And he should have had a penalty when Jun Marques Davidson upended him in the box but the ref gave a free kick on the edge instead.
Greg Klazura's rash tackle in the box may have signaled the beginning of the end, but it was coming.
For me, the turning point came at the start of the second half. The Caps were already starting to look a different team, playing more defensive (as we've come to expect on the road) and on the back foot. Then came Nigel Reo-Coker's miss.
Not for the first time this season, the ball fell to Reo-Coker in a perfect position and he's still to find the net. He's missed from a yard, from a couple, open goals, been through and not shot. He can bemoan the team not taking their chances but he is the prime culprit right now. Slotting away Gspurning's spill and we have potentially a whole different mood in Vancouver today. Sure the keeper made a great leg save but you have to bury those.
Credit to Reo-Coker for getting in the positions. He's been fantastic at bulldozing his way through defences but if you can't finish at the end of it all then it means nothing and four goals in his last seven years of playing indicates he can't finish that well.
That then brings us to the overall lack of support when we break forward. Kenny Miller can't do it all by himself. He was making the runs, crossing or cutting the ball back and there was no-one there to put it away with an empty net beckoning on a couple of occasions. At one point it was him against the five Sounders players that encircled him. What's he meant to do? This is where playing too deep costs us dearly, especially when we don't have the speedsters on.
The midfield fell out of the game in the second half, we basically had a two man mid, with Davidson playing as a fifth defender. At least I think that's what he was doing, he seemed so out of position for most of the game and was caught that way for the first goal.
Matt Watson I seriously forgot was even playing till I met him in the dressing room after the game.
And then there's the defence and the frighteningly lack of depth therein. Where do you even start?
Well I guess it has to be the Rochat trade.
Being away on vacation I never got the chance to write down my thoughts on the transfer. In summary, I felt it was for the best for both parties but the Caps should have got a lot more in return. He simply wasn't performing well for the team at times this season, especially on the road, and the move was right in my view. We can get better. Unfortunately we haven't yet, and therein lies the key issue now.
As we said, the return wasn't and neither was the timing off it. You don't do that two days before a vital derby match.
Was Rennie that keen to ship him off that he didn't want to risk DC signing someone else by keeping him around when we had threadbare defensive coverage? Now, unless the Caps bring someone in this week to replace Rochat, and that was in the pipeline with the transfer, then the timing simply cannot be justified with how things played out in Seattle and the scary defensive depth we have lying ahead of us for Saturday's game against New England.
Jordan Harvey is a borderline adequate MLS left back. He is not a centrehalf, where he had to play on Saturday. Johnny Leveron still needs some guidance out there and he isn't going to get what he needs from Harvey or a fit Brad Rusin or Carlyle Mitchell. This could be bombscare stuff if O'Brien is out for a while.
Regular readers and podcast listeners will know that we've been high on Greg Klazura since his first training camp. He's had a couple of mares though. What I will say in his defence is that two big away games in New York and Seattle should not have been his first MLS minutes. He should have been blooded long before now, to settle in to the League and find his feet. Rennie's poor managing of him could ultimately be Greg's downfall and you have to wonder whether he'll actually kick a MLS ball in the anger for the Caps again. I hope he does. I've seen enough to suggest he can be a good player for us. The first half of the New York game seems to have been forgotten by many, but there is no excuse for the defending on the penalty on Saturday.
The overall defending and marking up is just not showing any signs of improvement. Through balls cut us open time and time again and then there's the marking at set pieces. Without the full strength guys out there and a couple of additions, it's not going to get better any time soon.
If the Whitecaps are going to do anything in MLS this season, then they have to fix their trifecta of problems: take their chances, defend better and stop leaking late goals.
Going in to June, we felt that Martin Rennie needed to take nine points from the five matches to have any chance of keeping his job. With two very winnable home games and a trip to DC, that shouldn't have been too much an ask and the three points in New York was an added bonus.
His job should seem secure till the end of the season but yet it doesn't feel like that right now. Remember, Teitur Thordarson got the boot after earning a draw against New York at Empire.
Having spoken to Rennie a lot over the past year and a half, his whole demeanour post-game on Saturday gave the impression to me of a broken man. He's usually slightly upbeat in defeat and his tone takes on the positive. There was none of that after Seattle. Now it might just have been him feeling completely gutted with how the game played out (the players were certainly the most down in the dressing room that I think I've ever seen them), but things just felt different.
Replacing the manager midseason is a topic that splits the fans and the pundits and if the results and the nature of the non-winning performances continue it's a topic that isn't going to go away.
Rennie is trying to talk a good game to save his job. Referring to the team still being in a "building phase" and referencing Toronto as how chopping and changing manager's regularly is not the way to success. That's the salesman in him coming out. He's selling himself but how much the ownership are buying it remains to be seen.
Should you really class the team as being in the building phase a year and a half into the job? Shouldn't there be some stability by now? We can't even field the same starting eleven two week's running.
And these are your players. You've brought 78% of them in. There are only six players remaining from first kick 2011 and two of them are out injured.
Rennie (and repeated by some of the players, clearly reciting Martin's positivity mantra) made the point that the Caps have lost only two matches from their last ten.
To me this was an interesting selection of the stats. Spin at it's best.
Yes, we have lost two of the last ten. We've also only lost three of the last 13, which sounds even better but wasn't used. In terms of MLS only, it's two defeats in the last six, three from the last eight.
From those last ten, we've won four but only two of the games have been against MLS opposition. Again in MLS terms only, we've won two matches from our last eleven.
And that last stat is the bottom line. The crucial one that Rennie needs to turn around sharpish if he is still going to be the manager of the Whitecaps going in to the summer. It's what the owners will be looking at as they see the Caps sit in 7th spot in the West, four points away from the final playoff position and 12 points behind the Conference leaders already.
The reason we feel June is the crunch month for Rennie is that if there is to be a change then it needs to be done for the transfer window opening next month, so that any new manager can build his own team.
Much was made of last year's mid-season personnel turmoil and the Club have said they won't do that again. They may have no option. They're painting themselves in to a corner here, whether it is Rennie in charge or not. Changes have to be made and we've already seen the start with Rochat going.
This squad is simply not good enough to get the only thing the Whitecaps have got left to play for this season - a playoff spot. We've been saying it here and on the podcast since April. Our depth is not MLS quality to see us through against even tougher opposition than last year.
Some will say give Rennie time. This is modern day football. Not the 1980s and Alex Ferguson getting time at Man United. Like it or not, rightly or wrongly, the owners have put in a lot of money and need to see growth and some return on the pitch. That's what you get with a $35 million franchise fee. It's a results driven environment and time and patience don't sit well in there.
If a manager like Frank Yallop can get the boot after guiding his team to a Supporters' Shield, then Rennie has to be looking over his shoulder.
Many have cited Yallop to be Rennie's replacement if he were to go. We'd wanted him to replace Thordarson/Soehn before Rennie got the job. We'd still like to possibly see that but I'm not sure it would happen and he is more likely to end up in the Canadian national team set up.
The Caps need a change of tactics. Some new blood that knows MLS and has achieved in it before.
Step forward Gary Smith.
Smith guided Colorado Rapids to a surprise 2010 MLS Cup. After being dismissed by Stevenage earlier this year, he is keen to return to Major League Soccer and would be a good fit for Vancouver.
We've also been told that he shares the same agent as Nigel Reo-Coker, who was impressed by Vancouver in earlier dealings.
Let the speculation on Rennie's future continue and the rumour mill on his replacement kick in, but most of all, let's get back to winning ways on Saturday.
Six points out of six is the only acceptable outcome from the next two home games. Failure to deliver and it's going to be a long, hard summer.
'Mon the Caps.
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