Vancouver Whitecaps still in a bad place

Earlier in the week Marc Dos Santos had complained that his side suffered more than certain other teams when it came to decisions by VAR.

So it was inevitable that during the 3-1 loss to New York City FC VAR would do what it does best.

Two human beings looked at an incident and decided it was a probably a penalty. Then two other human beings looked at in slow motion and from various different angles and decided it probably wasn’t. Then one of the first human beings looked at in the same way and decided it probably wasn’t either.

The exponentiation of human error is the greatest gift that VAR has given us.

Not that the Whitecaps lost because of that one incident of course.

They committed a series of individual errors and were severely punished for each one by a well drilled and well set up team and this was also episode thirty in the “Can you spot the Whitecaps midfield?” sitcom.

Finding that midfield has to be the main priority for the new Sporting Director.

And excitement at that particular appointment reached fever pitch this week as the club followed up their announcement of two weeks ago that they were beginning the search with the further announcement that they had now hired Nolan Partners, a sports executive search firm, to conduct the search.

Once Nolan Partners announce who they will be appointing to conduct the search the process can really begin in earnest.

On the pitch it will be interesting(ish) to see how both Dos Santos and the team handle the brutal reality of their season being over with four games remaining.

And at least a couple of players should probably have played their last game for the club.

Montero and Erice won’t be back next season (surely) so leave them on the bench and give others the chance to at least get a better feel for MLS and BC Place.

It might even be a good idea for Dos Santos to select who he wants to be his captain for next year since neither Montero or Erice will be back (surely) and hand the armband over to Doneil Henry as a start to instilling a different mentality in the team.

But really we’re just throwing ideas at the wall to see if they stick right now.

Because the squad will, once again, be vastly different next year and both the coach and his new Sporting Director need to ensure that player recruitment is based around a particular playing style and not just bringing in random players because they are available.

That sounds obvious, but the Whitecaps have a nasty habit of ignoring the obvious and going their own sweet way when it comes to running a football club.

Time for the Soccer Shorts player ratings.

Crepeau-4, Nerwinski-5, Henry-6*, Rose-5, Adnan-5, Erice-3, In-Beom-5, Teibert-4, Montero-4, Reyna-6, Ricketts-5 (Sutter-5, Chirinos-4)