Timbers tumble out of MLS playoffs

What a difference a year made for the Portland Timbers.

In the fall of 2015, the Timbers made a habit of winning games late in the season. They then snuck into the playoffs and won the Major League Soccer championship in rousing fashion.

But on Sunday’s final game of the game 2016 regular-season, they crashed out of the playoffs. Desperately in need of a win to capture a post-season berth like they did last, the Timbers delivered a terrible effort and fell 4-1 to the Vancouver Whitecaps, who had nothing to play for but pride.

Timbers coach Caleb Porter only needed one word to describe his team’s showing.

“Disappointing,” he said. “Obviously, the performance was not good enough. Defensively, we leaked goals. Obviously, without [Liam] Ridgewell and [Diego] Chara, you can see we were missing some quality. But that’s where your depth needs to step up. They didn’t. We had some guys who really had poor performances. You can’t win when you get that – and we got that across the board.”

Porter went on at length about how a lack of depth, especially on the wings, hurt his team at key times during the season and again on Sunday. Giveaways on the wings led to Vancouver’s first two goals, both by Giles Barnes. Now, Porter and the rest of the team’s management will spend part of the off-season evaluating fringe players who were on the verge of becoming starters and bench personnel to determine whether they should stay with the club.

If Sunday’s performance was an accurate indication, they should not.

 “Obviously, there were some turning points that maybe could’ve changed the game. … So those are factors of the game. But when I look at the overall performance, I didn’t think we were good. When I look at the overall performance, I didn’t think we were good. I didn’t think we defended well. I thought we got some surprisingly poor performances out of some of our key guys and some of the depth pieces that we have to plug in with some of the absences that we had. When you look at the last two games – our Champions League game on Wednesday and this game, we had two key guys out in both of those games. I think that sums up our season. On Wednesday, [Fanendo] Adi and [Diego] Valeri were out. When we needed our depth to step up and get the job done, they didn’t. And this game, (Diego) Chara and (Liam) Ridgewell were out. We needed our depth to step up and get the job done. They didn’t.”

Porter thought the situation was exacerbated on the road. The Timbers racked up 12 home wins – the second-highest total in the league – this season. But as a result of Sunday’s loss, they went winless (0-11-6) in 17 games away from Providence Park.

“What do you blame it on?” he asked of the inconsistent season. “You blame it on injuries (or) you blame it on depth. I blame it on depth because, ultimately, you have to have a good enough bench to get the job done regardless of injuries. And, I think Wednesday and (Sunday are) a bit of the story of the season.”