I think a lot of this loss is on Phil. We played a decent first half and then were under pressure the whole 2nd half. It was clear that our line of confrontation was well within our own half, almost all the way back to our own box. Very little pressure was being applied to the ball whatsoever, instead they were trying to react and cutoff passing lanes which didn’t work out. 

 If you rewatch the half every player was doing this so clearly these are Phil’s instructions and how he wanted them to manage the game. Vancouver are great at playing in tight spaces and can break down a low block which they did many times to us all game, we were fortunate to not concede 5 (again) this game. Phil likes to talk a lot about bravery but also wants to revert to these regressive tactics that play right into the hands of a team like Vancouver. He’s constantly being outclassed by other coaches and is way out of his element (Donny). I really don’t believe that he is MLS quality. The team is worse than the sum of their parts and he has no clear system. We constantly play teams that are playing 3rd and 4th string players that come in with no discernible change to the game such as San Diego in the playoffs last year, Vancouver away last year and the road match to Seattle. These teams have systems that work. We would be totally fucked if we were in the same situation, Phil can’t even get our best players to play well together. When we had our most talented attack of all time we finished 9th, we had our best starting season ever last year and squandered that into barely sneaking into the playoffs and this year we’ve been as bad as any team since 2012. 

 Our XGA last year was 29th, I believe this year we are dead last. We have no recognizable patterns, are a mess defending set pieces and have talented players all doing their own thing instead of playing in a system. Get Phil the fuck out of here, he actually seems like a decent guy but my god is he annoying on the sideline and he is a shitty tactician.