Vancouver Whitecaps: Maybe we think too much?

Just when you think that having no football to write about is pretty tough along comes the preseason and you realise that having meaningless football to write about is even tougher.

The Vancouver Whitecaps have been taking a break from beach volleyball and quality time together in the pool to play some games of soccer and the two wins and one defeat contained enough information to allow each of us to cement our hard won preconceptions about the team.

The reality though is that these games are almost solely concerned with getting the players up to match speed and giving the coach the chance to assess a few fringe players and perhaps to look at how one or two partnerships may work in the heat of battle.

For the rest of us there’s nothing meaningful to take away from it all.

Maybe when the team moves from the comfort of Hawaii to the comfort of Las Vegas we will start to see a few patterns emerge but for now the whole thing amounts to far more noise than signal.

It did emerge this week that Brek Shea is no longer a Designated Player on the team and while that is good news there are probably a few people who find their enthusiasm dampened by the fact that Brek Shea is still a player on the team.

It’s possible that he may be used as weight in any trade to bring in a new DP but that can be classed as possible rather than probable right now.

But where is a DP needed?

Almost everywhere of course but in a wide or central role seem the best fit.

The presence of Kei Kamara makes having a player who can get to the byline and whip in a cross a no brainer but Carl Robinson tends to favour the inverted winger over the true wide man and if (big “if”) he does opt for three at the back then the wing backs may be asked to perform that function anyway.

That ever elusive attacking midfielder would be nice of course but while Robinson has stressed that the team need to get more men forward this season that really isn’t how he likes to play the game and it would be particularly enervating to watch a genuine attacking player tethered to the centre circle by tactics and timidity.

So, to summarise, we’ve learned nothing and know no more than we did this time last week.

But at least we’re aware of that and that’s a kind of knowledge if you really think about it.