I thought Romney was very strong defensively on the left. Less so on the right. I thought our defense looked about as good as it has all season. I’ll take defensive stability and poor attacking any day over the reverse. When your defense is good you still have a shot to win. That said we have a lot of players that like to stand and wait on offense. Ema was essential to improving that.
It gives every team all the time in the world to set up their defenses. These constant pauses and we dont ever do much team attacking but hail-mary crosses, lucky bounces and individual plays that lead to goal. The element of surprise to unbalance the opponent is lost every time we pause excessively like this. Galaxy players have to look up, see and pass in the run of play. That goes for excessive pauses, back passes and touches. We had way too much respect for SJ and that wacked out D and should have pressed our offence much more. This is not going to work against Dallas.
Interesting words from Romain, and seems like he and Sigi have indeed discussed (in a good way). https://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2018/05/26/finally-romain-alessandrini-returns-scoresheet-la-galaxy
There may be some over-passing but I don't see that as the major problem. The alternative of "just shoot" kind of ignores the fact that you have to shake your defender before you shoot or else it's just a blocked shot.. You have to create space before you shoot and that can be done by a) speed (Ema), b) faking out your defender on the dribble (Keane or last season's Romaine) or by quick or c) very quick, creative passing that befuddles the defense (think Landon, Piatti or half of the ATL team). No one on our team is currently succeeding very often with their dribbling moves - Kamara, Gio, Romaine and Lletget usually get stripped when they try. And the problem with our passing around the box is that the decision making is too slow and too predictable. No real creativity. I almost always know what the next pass will be well before it is delivered. And if I know then so does the opponents defense.
I like the part when he talks about working harder to help out the defense. But offensively speaking I'm not sure I agree with the writer that Romaine's problem has been his new teammates. He's just not as effective of a dribbler when he does get the ball this year, mainly due to a decline in both speed and quickness. Confidence has also been an issue - hopefully that will improve after his goal.
Yes, speed kills and that what we need. basically everything could stay the same if we just did it faster. That fourth gear. We still have trouble with that gear but look at the game change when Boateng comes in. Not only does he directly impact the offense with his speed, he also changes the tempo of the team because of his speed. Once he gets the ball and starts hot-footing it down line the rest of the offense has to run with him. They can no longer do their little pauses because by then Ema is halfway to the goal. Little more speed in execution of basically what they do right now and the near future might look rosier...
Other than obviously getting 3 points and beating teams I must admit your "We Win" posts bring me joy and I get a kick out them every time we win.
There is also talk that e may showing his age. I will give Romain the benefit of the doubt. I think his focus and confidence has been shaken by a great many things, not just team rebuilding and that has affected his performance. He has been hurt, He was being played out of position. He was being played with different team mates when played in his position, Zlatan, Ola are new and unknown and to a certain extent Jona who he played with last year but under diffrent conditions and also Lleget who is back this year after a year out and not playing at 100% yet also different He is very emotional as we have seen, fiery even. He is/was frustrated. Add to that he and his wife just had their first child and that can shoot off your entire social life and sleep-rest patterns all to hell. He'll be ok. The team? I hope is ok but a different matter altogether.
Watching the game again (bits and pieces) I have to say the VAR gods gave one back to us with the non pk call on that handball. Maybe it does even out in the end...
Watched the game in person and while we didn't create many (any?) sterling chances in the final third, I saw some progress in this game. Several players had individually good matches and I think you really have to take into account how defensively organized SJ was. They were playing for the point and clogging up the final third. Still, we need an honest-to-goodness trequartista that can operate around the edge of the box and I don't think we have one in the whole roster, except Alvarez (debut time?). Kneejerks: Jona: I'm a fan of Jona's game, but he's not a real 10. In that part of the field he's much better than his brother at showing for the ball, breaking the press, and keeping the ball circulating and keeping possession. What you lose from him in that position is a 10's propensity to run at the last man or rocket in a shot. We needed another attacker in the final 3rd to break down SJ's compact lines. I was actually hoping we'd see Gio come on. If you could merge Gio and Jona, they'd be one fantastic player. Lletget: As others have said, we could've used his dribbling and shooting in the final 3rd, however I thought he had an excellent game as the box-to-box mid. Romain: Happy to see him get his goal and it was a great one. Took me a second to realize it'd even gone in. Kitchen: I don't understand what Kitchen's doing most of the time. I'm getting the idea that Sigi has given him strict instructions to stay central right in front of the center backs; it seems he's never positioned well to cut out danger of bedevil the opposing teams' danger man. I dunno. They weren't troubled much, but I thought the D held up well. Klimenta look like he's working his way to MLS fitness. Bingham made important saves when asked. In a 4-2-3-1, the 3 are all supposed to be playmarkers and we have, like, none so I don't know why Sigi keeps insisting on it. But whatevs, we found a way to win and I'll take it. Back out of relegation zone!
It happened far on the other end from where I sit, but it looked like a ball-to-hand where the player wasn't making himself bigger to me. But I was far from it.
That’s what I thought live. Watching the replay I think it’s clearly more that his hand was in an unnatural position away from body making him bigger and the hall hit it directly. Happy it went our way.
I know Montreal and SJ are crap, but one positive we can take is that these two games were our first back-to-back shutouts since October of 2016. So we’ve already improved from 2017 in one thing.....
It was a clear handball, but the whole sequence was created when Skjelvik was clearly fouled 10 seconds earlier. It was one of those randomly look the other way fouls that drives me crazy in MLS.
Other random thoughts: I love Romney at left back. He provides more consistent and tighter defense than Cole. Unfortunately Romney isn't as good as a right back. Maybe he'll improve if that is where he ends up. It was a mistake starting Pontius over Ema. As someone else said our midfield is too slow already too afford the luxury of starting him. He should be a late game sub. Glad Sigi woke up to this at minute 45. In the final third we look like the Keystone Kops. Players making the same runs, running into each other. As someone else said - do we even practice? Not a good sign when we end up with only 1 shot on goal -- at home -- against a team that had already coughed up 22 goals in 11 games. Great shot by Alessandrini and as @Berks said it was a major frustration relieving shot. I don't know if it's age or a cumulative result of injuries but Romaine doesn't have the quickness he had last year. He's really struggling to beat players 1v1. Speaking of struggling - Da Boy. Not sure he and Romaine should play together. They both like to dribble through players but our need is for more playmaking. What a surprise that Kitchen unnecessarily gave up a dangerous free kick at the top of the box late in the game. Oh wait, he does that every game. Of course Ema did the same thing and it almost cost us the win. But then Ema single handedly created the chance that won the game so he's mostly forgiven. Yes JDS could play better but he's still a workhorse out there. He was all over the field showing for every pass. Incredible workrate. Kamara obviously has athleticism and is a committed finisher. But watching him play soccer is like watching a colt learn how to stand. We aren't a very good team yet. Even at home against a crappy team we needed some luck to win - that was a pretty clear handball. So I'm really glad we got it done - we can't afford to not pick up points from the weaker teams.[/QUOTE] Ur Kamara comments are so funny...but harsh the dude is a baller...he has poor service and still has gotten 6 or 7 goals? Sigi still can't find a solid starting line up. Our def is still really bad. eMa .needs to start...legit to the bench and gio playg CAM and have JDS cover him on def. I donyd know what udi with a frustrated IBRA? Ask the Mastermind Kris klien .That dude needs to go...why is he so lived by galaxy office? He is the same guy that brought us Gerrard
I don't see any evidence of this. Our offense was more anemic in this game than most games we've played this season. Any time you play at home against a crappy defensive team and only manage 1 shot on goal your offense isn't working that well. There were several reasons we won the last two games as opposed to the previous four, but none of them have much to do with Zlatan: a) we played very weak teams instead of very strong teams B) our defense is a bit better 3) we got favorable ref calls instead of getting screwed by ref iv) we got lucky in the goal-scoring department - we scored on our single shot on goal; they hit the crossbar on theirs (thanks to Bingham's deflection) There may be arguments to be made against Zlatan being on the field but I just don't think our winning the last two should be among the arguments. Personally I think that while Zlatan is a mixed bag he, on balance, is a help to our offense. To get off dangerous shots against good defenses you need something out of the ordinary, whether it be elite athleticism and/or unusual skill sets. This season skill-wise we are really blah - the only creative passer we have is Gio and he is too inconsistent to be a net positive. Our designated dribblers Romaine and Lletget have lost a step and aren't beating players often. However we do have 3 players enough athleticism to break down defenses. None is the complete package but each offers something. Kamara's speed and size are a handful for defenses to handle. Ema is of course one of the fastest players in the league. And Zlatan is a far outlier in terms of size, strength, and finishing skills. I think we need all three of those on the field to break down solid defenses. They don't have to do all the scoring - they just have to create chaos and the scoring opportunities will come for all.