How can you objectively come to that conclusion two games in? Sure, he might turn out that way, in which case this will be Ciani 2.0 but this is not big enough sample size.
Contrary to this forum's narrative, Steres was not just decent, he was good,...in both this game and the last. Definitely not to be blamed for Polenta's mistakes today. I have to believe that Polenta will get better with fitness and continued play. There were some good things in the 1st half, especially our pressuring. Our midfield, especially Boateng and Lletget were very good at disrupting Dallas' play; but we were sloppy in connecting afterward. The midfield pressure was certainly different and much better than last year, and with practice will produce good results. Considering we were missing our best players, Zlatan and Ibra, Lletget off in the 2nd half, on the road and in the heat, and Corona's first game, I think it is way too early to write the team off. I have faith in GBS and the players.
My husband said during the game that we can't judge our center backs until we have decent outside backs, and I think he's correct. Honestly both outside backs are terrible. I prefer Feltscher to Skjelvik. We got a decent central midfielder this week, although he's clearly not 90 minutes ready. Let's wait and see what our brain trust can put together given time.
with a new coach, system and players, there is going to be a lot of hiccups early in the season and I'd rather the team struggle early in the season then late in the season. its a long season with ups and downs, with that being said if this team hasn't improved by June, then I would be worried. on to the next game
Ok I need some answers and I need them now!!!!! Damn it man WTF? How can we still suck so badly on defense? It's like CIF caliber defending out there, never mind the fundamentals can any one in the back line clear a freaking ball or not commit pub league fouls! Please someone help me out explain it to me like I'm a 5yr old please?
But dawdler we have been sucking on defense before GBS! How can we not be able to scout defenders? Ciani, Scklevvvvick, Rolf, Steres, Romney who has fallen out of the planet! Can we only scout players that our dumb ass league forbids us to buy?
By saying "so far..." All we have is 2 games to judge him on, that those 2 games are among the worst performances of any defender in our history, surely.
No. Nice spin, but if a CB needlessly gives away 3 clear cut scoring chances in 2 games, the problem does not lie with the outside backs.
I think he has looked good too, except for his absolutely reckless boneheaded mistakes, so I suppose "mitigated" disaster as skydog said might be appropriate, but disaster nonetheless. I mentioned before, somewhat reminiscent of Leo, looks smooth, cool and level headed, but even Leo was not that disaster prone. I'm not ready to give up on him after two games, but especially the PK play concerns me. I would sit him for a game and let Romney have a go as CB. He's not ready. Maybe a game or two with GII to get his head on straight.
You're right, it's a little too simplistic, and clearly you can judge center backs on their own merits. But really, Polenta has shown some good skill, and he's only two games back from a long layoff. More time to judge is clearly needed. More time to judge the rest of our backline is probably not necessary.
They were good for awhile. Not for 90 minutes, though, unfortunate for Lletget, who would probably have been pulled at 60 minutes anyway. I think given time they could be a great combo, as I said earlier. I hope, anyway. Agree that both outside mids/attackers need to be strong too - Antuna had an invisible game, and Ema didn't cut it.
Well Minnesota will be full of confidence next week. It will be a real challenge for us to get three points.
all I can do is preach patience, we still have another transfer window ahead of us and I've enjoyed the moves GBS and DTK have done in a short period of time, getting rid of Gio and adding a personal favorite like Corona and a young MNT guy like Antuna is all a plus in my book. I'm willing to give them some time, they need to see these guys play some competitive games and evaluate on how they handle pressure situations and how they can bounce back from adversity and with that information, I'm sure they'll make moves accordingly to fix what is broken.
Highlight Time Folks For everyone that is freaking out over this loss I just want to say step away from the edge and calm all the way down please. We are 2 games in, have yet to field the best lineup available and we won the first game. Also a couple of the key guys we have been fielding need I remind any of you, either JUST GOT HERE, HAVE ONLY PLAYED ONE MEANINGFUL GAME WITH THE REST OF THE TEAM and/or ARE STILL GETTING BACK INTO THE SWING OF FULLTIME GAMES!!! This game was always going to be a struggle. Arron Rogers said it best,... R-E-L-A-X As I said earlier this was just a learning experience road game. You have to chalk a game like this up to nothing less than that. I would have even been cool with experimenting with the formation after we went down 2 goals. The best thing that these early games are going to do is help weed out who is truly worthy of being on the bench and who needs to be replaced when the time comes to cut guys and make upgrades in the coming months. So until then let's try not to jump off the bridge.
I read lots of twitter well-wisher comments from his Nacional fans and they kept saying they loved how he played with so much heart & passion. That pk foul might have been an example - he goes for everything, even when he should be a bit more careful. That was an instance of an over-exuberant foul, the kind that Skjblklk would never made. Also the Dallas guy also milked the hell out of it.
Here's my thoughts on each player: Bingham: saved the shots he should have saved. Feltcher: Frustrating, he's pretty good going forward, but Dallas seem to target his side of the field because they know he can and will be exposed. Steres: Solid game, he's been pretty good so far this season. I can see how he won the starting job Polenta: Made some really bad decisions and plays. He's clearly talent and makes a lot of plays that Romney/Steres/Skeljvik/Ciani wouldn't have made, but he seems to drift out of position hunting for the ball. I wonder if he'd be better off with a vocal commando CB partner to keep him in line. I'm hopefully that his bone headed decisions will go away as he works off the rest. Skeljvik: I don't think he did much wrong, didn't do anything going forward, which is a problem. JDS: Our best player on the field. Corona: You can see he's a talented player, but looks rusty and hasn't had time to gel with team. Excited about what's to come. Lleget: Most of our best stuff came through Lleget, but he's obviously rusting after missing the last month of preseason. He's our 4th best player on the team and I think our success this season will be directly related to his fitness. Ema: Dissapointing performance. He's frustrating because some games he shows up and he's unstoppable. Other games, he plays like he did this afternoon. I think he's best on the left side, and preferable coming off the bench. Antuna: I can see that the talent is there, but the decision making is not. I'll think he'll benefit a lot from our midfield getting settled. He's not up for the physical challenge yet. I'm not sure if that will be fixed by time in the gym, or just getting game time. He gets pushed off the ball too easily, and gives the ball away a lot. If the midfield has got it figured out, I think he'll be able to quickly lay the ball off to a midfielder to avoid getting some of the physical battles. Pontius: A non factor. He's not a striker, I think he's best as Romain's back up. I don't blame him for his "absence" today. I don't blame GBS either. We have no forward depth. Alvarez: he really only had 1 moment, and that was an epic moment. It's awesome to see how unfazed he is by the moment at only 16. Zubak: Didn't show much, but was brought on in a game we're down 2 nothing. I'm still optimistic for this season. If we can get results at home until we can bring reinforcements in during the summer, I think we'll be okay.
great to read your individual player comments. Re: Alvarez, did anyone else think that Dallas' 2nd goal may have been partly due to him not tracking back on defense? Seemed like the scorer came from deep for that wide, wide open shot. Great shot but still.
I do agree he has shown some good skill, and I hope it's rust and Polenta can clean up his mistakes. I'm just not nearly as upbeat about him as I was before these past two games.
Camera view was bad but Absolutely. I'm not ready to read the thread yet in its entirety. I was very disappointed in the Galaxy's lack of fight (no desire to high pressure) down 2 goals and essentially giving up. Maybe some of it was ignorance like they really did not know how to high press in a 4-3-3. But it really boggled my mind watching Pontius try to high pressure all by himself. I couldn't figure out where our wide players were? Our midfield seemed invisible (maybe they were gassed?) And where were our outside backs? And Jona kept dropping on top of the centerbacks. It was as if they were stuck executing the same game plan - which would have been fine at 0-0 or 0-1 with lots of time left. I saw some griping about the defense, and there are some issues that just don't go away, but I don't know how you can waste too much time bagging on Polenta's runs forward when we were trailing. I was thinking more like "Why does our CB have more interest going forward than our whole midfield?" So Polenta got caught with his "foot" in the cookie jar. Personally I thought the PK was a bit soft. It was stupid by Polenta, but that contact didn't impact the play and wasn't really dangerous to anyone's safety. But after that game changing call it sure would have been nice to see a replay of the potential handball in the box against Dallas. I hate how key VAR moments of the game are something that fans can't see. Anyway as bad as our defense can be, Dallas was inept attacking and really only had something like 4 dangerous chances in the entire game - 2 of which we gifted them at that point. So bag on Polenta, but that 2nd goal was all Feltcher and the midfield. The problem for me was when Lletget went out we lost the midfield (and by the way why can't VAR look at something like that - and they dole out a retroactive yellow at the next stoppage?). Lletget had squandered two goals, but he was active out there. And as promising as Alvarez looks playing him as 10 is not something he can do apparently in our midfield where he can't treat the 10 role as an entirely offensive position - especially when he is the young fresh legs. And once we were down, it was actually embarrassing how we failed to press and open the game up into a more end to end affair. Anyway - crap effort from the Galaxy after minute 70 (or whatever it was) and fail on GBS not get them to work to get back in the game. But that being said, if you take away the PK and Lletget's bloody nose - I would have like to have seen how that game ended.
He had a beautiful cross that probably should have been a goal, but it is so clear that he is just a level below where our starters should be defensively. In the first minutes of the game JDS wins a ball, shields, and then lays it off to Feltscher who promptly one touch blasts it out of bounds. That play right there in a possession oriented 4-3-3 on the road just kind of sums it up for me. EDIT: And it's this kind of play that although it will never directly lead to giving up a goal will 100% of the time lose the ball. At least Polenta's mistakes are in trying to keep the ball. I really do think those will go away - hopefully because the team play and his form get to mid-season levels (not because he loses all faith in his ability to possess out of the back and trust in his teammates to show for the ball).
That game was shit. It was bad. First half we did nothing. 2nd half we didn't wake up until the 2nd goal went in. Embarrassing away performance.
Liking to read the optimism!! Sorry the game was bad @Skevin - know it sucks when it’s the one game you see in person. I was wondering where our flank play went this game as well. I’m hoping Polenta limits the “Leonardos”. Alvarez is exciting to watch! It was weird seeing Corona out there. Feels like some progress from last year even with the loss. Also liked the selection of JDS as Captain with Zlatan out.