GDT: 2012 Whitecaps Thread IV (0-0 draw)

[FDBluth]

Originally Posted by Carl Carlson

The stadium looked packed last night, was it a sellout? It also seemed louder this week. You could clearly hear the you fat bas**** chant and some of the other songs.

I'm glad to see that the Caps were able to get a decent crowd opposite a very important Canucks game. I still feel like they're not nearly present enough in Vancouver sports media coverage, though. Most of Van's sports media are nothing more than hockey nerds.

[metric]

Originally Posted by FDBluth

Some observations:

-The Whitecaps midfield/attack is extremely disorganized. Their shape is terrible. They have almost no center midfield presence whatsoever, and it seems like everyone is just running around all over the place. It seems as though Rennie wants them to play some sort of game where players have freedom to swap positions now and then in the middle of play, but it needs to get a lot better and a lot more organized.

-Too often they try to attack without first getting numbers forward. They're almost trying to play the game too quickly. This is where a few good center mids would come a long way to cleaning things up.

-They're also diving in wayyy too much in the offensive half of the pitch. There's no real need to expand your energy with lunging tackles way down there. Use that energy to high-tail it back so that when the ball is won in defense there are numbers back to start the play going the other way.

-I agree that Watson simply doesn't have the ability to play at this level. Get Koffie back in there as soon as possible. Hopefully Watson doesn't turn into a Carolina pet project for Rennie.

-Le Toux isn't doing quite as much as I hoped. His skill level isn't quite as high as that of the Big 3, and it's noticeable at times during link-up play between him and them.

And now for some positives...

-Demerit is a boss right now. His defensive presence is extremely impressive. He's a big reason why we still haven't conceded a goal.

-The difference in Chiumiento's fitness between this year and last is incredible. It will start to pay off as the season progresses.

-Cannon was spectacular.

He's been amazing for us. People overlook his absence last season way too much. We don't finish at the bottom of the table last season if he were healthy all year, or at least most of it.

New thread here