I know NYC and Philly are leagues away in quality, but his game against Philly was his best IMHO (he took that game over and outshone Keane....who does that?)
They seriously need to overhaul their scoring system So Leonardo, who was not only arguably the best defender but hovering around MOTM, according to these 'experts' was LA Galaxy's lowest scoring defender. I mean there's opinion, error and then there's so patently wrong it becomes laughable. Guess which category this comes under. And that's also way too high for Gio and WAYYY too low for Zardes and Lletget. I have no idea what these people are smoking when it comes to scoring time
They are puzzling. Keanne was great but considering the number of chances he missed I would not give him a 10. I would have had all players with a minimum of an 8 on this match. Here is another look at the game. I have never been able to figure these out either but its all interesting and helpful. http://mls.squawka.com/la-galaxy-vs-new-york-city-fc/23-08-2015/us-major-league-soccer/matches
With Ricket's outlet pass to Lletget that stated to sequence for Keane's 2nd goal, I can now vividly imagine every single starting player on the Galaxy having a moment of shear brilliance in this match. When was the last time we could say that about a Galaxy or MLS team?
I really enjoyed watching Rogers and Lleget working together down the left side. Not just the play that led to the assist, but time and time again there was an overlap, or a little one/two. That's what happens when you finally get to play together more than one game in a row!
AJ had a great first half, he was basically on a playoff mode. Maybe his best game of the season. Leo was a monster, maybe his best game in a Galaxy uniform. He had a few very impressing interventions who literally stopped NYCFC attacks like the one against Villa during the second half. In his last three games he has played like the Leonardo of the end of last season. It's almost impossible to bench him when he plays like this. Rogers had two amazing games in a row and the partnership he's developing with Lletget looks very promising. The last goal was insane and it was great to see them hug after Keane scored. One of the few criticisms we can make on Rogers's game is despite constantly getting forward he has not scored a lot of goals or got a lot of assists during his time with us. He got an assist in two games in a row now and guess what? On this two assists Lletget made the final pass. (shelbo beat me to it ) It's amazing to say Omar was our worst defender yesterday because he simply did his job. With a defense like this we don't really need a top keeper. Ricketts has not been tested a lot so it's still hard to juge if he's past it or no. Zardes may have his best game for us. I predicted it : when the team will start to click he will be a lot better. He needs other players to make him shine and I'm OK with it. Way to go Gyasi!
So mad at Jaime right now. Ricketts didn’t do anything wrong yesterday, he didn’t have a lot to do, but honestly with a top-notch keeper between the sticks LA wins MLS Cup again. Well of course ignoring the fact we can sometime shit the bed in the playoffs despite a great season (v Dallas in 2010 and v RSL in 2013)
2013 the team just didn't have the experience to make it----too much reliance on young kids and issues reworking the team. 2010.....that is the year that the great keeper comes in to play. Hartman stoned us, and stoned us, and stoned us until the team got caught out for a goal and had to chase the game. He seriously turned that game all on his own. That's what can always happen in a playoff match, and why it's sure be nice to have a beast in goal who can win you a game when the chips are down....
Jaime is not a top notch keeper in MLS. He really isn't. I do prefer him to Ricketts but on a scale of 1-10, Jaime is a 7.5 (though his play was at a higher level in the weeks before he bailed) and Ricketts is a 6. Not the end of the world.
The 2013 season was not great... Terrible offseason with no real reinforcements during the summer (apart from Penedo), no real wingers, no depth (or too young depth), Donovan not at his best... BUT during this 2013 season we saw glimpses of the tiki-taco with some great performances at home, like a 4-0 win againt the Sounders with 4 goals in thr first half, a 4-2 win against RSL and a 2-0 win against KC. So basically I think the success of 2014 would have not happened without the failure of 2013.
Hartman was a total monster that day. Yallop gets a lot of flack, trading Hartman was probably the most harmful thing he ever did to LA. I don’t think 2007/2008 would have been nearly so awful with Kevin between the sticks instead of Wickes/Cannon/Cronin/wasn’t there someone else?
Personally, I'd prefer someone better than both. It seems like a long time since we really had a top keeper. Probably Hartman, to be honest.
One big improvement with this team is they are now passing the ball into space more rather than simply to the player. That tells me the chemistry is there and the players are learning each others tendencies.
Interesting article from the BBC educating their viewers about MLS ahead of the Galaxy/ NYCFC match. http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/football/33968390
If you go to the site you can click through the stats and at least see where the ratings come from. As fans invested in the game we tend to notice and remember the ooh and ahh moments because they stand out. And Leo had two of those - both picture perfect tackles in dangerous situations where a mistake would have been costly. But whoscored counts everything, including a events that most of us don't notice or keep track of during a game because they aren't memorable and are too numerous to keep up with. But when taken in aggregate those other events are relevant to the team's success. Here are some of the whoscored comparisons for our defenders, with leaders in each category bolded: Name - Tackles - Interceptions - Clearances - Blocked Shots-Aerials Won - Shots - Key Passes - Touches Rogers-------3-------------1----------------1--------------------1--------------1----------------1------------2------------45 Leo-----------2-------------4---------------2--------------------1--------------0---------------0------------0------------42 Omar--------1--------------4---------------8--------------------1--------------5---------------1------------0------------51 AJDLG-----2--------------3---------------2--------------------1--------------0---------------0-------------1------------45 They also have Pass Accuracy, Successful Dribbles, Dispossessed, Missed Tackles, Bad Control Touches, Through Balls, Accurate Through Balls, Long Balls, Accurate Long Balls, Crosses, Accurate Crosses, etc., all of which also go into the player rating but I didn't want to go to the trouble of adding. Of these Leo also had 2 missed tackles, and was dribbled 2 of 4 times. So the picture drawn by the stats is that Leo had a good but not outstanding game. But obviously stats don't show the whole picture. For example there is no stat showing how often Leo immediately got on a NYCFC players back as soon as he received the ball, pressuring the hell out of him, and not letting him turn. I think stats accumulators like whoscored are a valuable addition to the subjective impressions we get while watching the game. And vice-versa, our live game observations are a valuable addition to that should inform our interpretations of the statistics. I think both methods of evaluating players should be taken into account and neither just blithely dismissed as irrelevant. But that's just me.
Sure, not the end of the world. Complaining about Ricketts is the MLS equivalent of “first world problems”, but on paper I’d say Penedo is on par with the other teams in the running for the Supporters’ Shield, except perhaps Bill Hamid and maybe Frei.
I don’t think they’re quite accurate in who gets first class and who doesn’t. I think on non-chartered flights the Galaxy book X amount of first class tickets and allocate them. No doubt the DPs get dibs, but other players also get the opportunity. There was that now infamous blow up on a flight to Hawaii where Celestine Babyaro was miffed he wasn’t one of the chosen few. // edit: of course things may be different now.
Yup. The thing about fighting the Death Star is that the Death Star usually wins. That's @LAGalaxy https://t.co/lbnXuv6MlI— Matthew Doyle (@MattDoyle76) August 23, 2015