Re: Whoa... Horsey. Yeah, shame on Arena for not playing his injured players!! Put them out there whether they have medical clearance or not!!
Until you find the '.' and ',' buttons on yoru keyboard, please refrain from posting. Thank you for your consideration.
The funny thing is that this is very similar to what everyone complained about with Sigi. Right now, Columbus is one of the most entertaining teams to watch in the league. I guess Sigi just completly changed his coaching philosophy.
Great point, AEG brought in Arena at a time when there was nothing he could do to address our biggest problem, the current roster. So he's getting basically the same results as Gullit, what a surprise! You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Make all the changes you want to the FO and the coaching staff that doesn’t get around the fact that we don't currently have the right players to get the job done. IMHO they should have saved some money let Cobi finish the season as the "interim" coach while conducting a proper search for a new head coach. Our season was petty much over by the time they fired Lalas and Gullit anyway.
No, Sigi still plays the bucket style. The game in late June was one of the most entertaining futbol matches of the season for me, Gullit style of going for broke and Sigi's pack it in. The skill of LD and Beck was fun to watch against a packed in D. I believe the LAG were still in first and just starting the skid that still continues today. Coincedentaly, I think that was the first match McD did not play. Meanwhile Arena goes out and gets one of his homeys to join the sinking ship that is the mid-field of LAG. Arena is so easy to read, He plays favorites over results and been fortunate enough to be blessed with quality that he turns into mediocrity. I have no idea why he did not land in Europe after his "phenomenal" run at the helm of the USMNT, but that reality speaks volumes for his managing style. Now he is the LAG manager, ugh!
Dude shut up can you read what i say yes you can casue you read it. If you dont have a decent arguement how bout you refrain from posting,and if you wanna complain with my typing fine then learn how to spell just here to talk soccer
(reaches into his pocket for his two cents) Folks, while I don't agree with the concept of "Fire Arena" I will say this. Arena is not a good coach, when I heard that we were bringing him on board I felt a very painfull sigh rush through my body. Fact is durring his last WC he prooved to me that he had no idea how to change his gameplan on the fly. In this ... heck in any sport you need to be flexible. I just remember for some reason Beasley was playing the opposite side he was used to, all the corners and set pieces were very AYSO (mostly taken short). It was like he phoned it in. Even his attitude in general has always rubbed me the wrong way. Very uhmm like he's Sir Alex. So I hope he does well, but everytime I hear someone say that he has a track record of sucess it just makes me ill. </rant>
Speaking as an outsider (troll perhaps) I was blown away when I heard L.A. hired Arena. Bruce is a Dinosaur, who is outta touch with modern football. I can't see how, he can right the wrong, that kiss of death Lalas (man, can he screw up a franchise) or egomaniac Gullit did. I wish you guys well, but not this weekend. MLS needs The Galaxy in the playoffs. It doesn't seem right, without them. Outsiders love to hate them
I was not in favor of hiring Arena either, but now that we've got him, I have no choice but to give him a chance. Where are the hungry young coaches with new ideas? We're going to have Arena at least through next year. Hopefully it's not a total disaster.
Those of you calling for Arena's head and saying there are "No excuses" should watch this short video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tG3-JDQnjok You cannot blame Arena for the place we are right now. Whether or not you think he should be the Galaxy coach at this time has very little to do with the Gals performance over the last four games and a lot to do with your preconcieved notions of the guy. I've had mixed feelings about him as a coach as well, but I'll wait until he's had a chance before making a judgement.
I'm going to offer an unsolicited opinion on Arena's tenure in New York. 1) He took a team that was an absolute mess in the first half of 2006, turned them around and got us to the playoffs where we were one post away from beating DC in the first round. 2) In 2007 he made one great DP signing and one poor DP signing, yet still managed to build a team that played attractive, attacking soccer for 90 minutes more often than not. We also gave up a lot of goals, but here's the thing: The goals we gave up were almost exclusively the result of individual breakdowns, not team breakdowns. The Red Bulls, in 2007, almost never lost their shape in spite of pushing numbers into the attack. We were absolutely heading in the right direction in terms of fundamentally building a balanced, intelligent team, and fairly comprehensively outplayed the Revs in the playoffs. We'd have won that series convincingly if Angel and Altidore hadn't both choked numerous times in front of net. I'm still working through that with my therapist, by the way. Which brings me to Arena's flaws... 1) He has a penchant for sticking non d-mids at d-mid, which means we would pretty frequently get overrun in the center of the pitch. That's what accounted for our midseason slump, but to his credit he eventually corrected this and put Joe Vide in there in front of our defense, and that shored us up. 2) He has "his guys," which are usually veteran players, and they get way too much slack from him. For example, in spite of playing great as a defensive unit down the stretch last season we were still giving up goals left and right. Why is that? The answer is simple: Chris Leitch. He alone accounted for 9 of the final 13 goals we gave up over the last 7 games of the season, yet Arena kept trotting him out there every week. Anyone other than Leitch and Arena doesn't lose his job in New York. Que, sera sera. I would be shocked if Vanney doesn't become your Leitch. So all things being equal, I'm still pretty convinced that Arena knows what he's doing and will have you guys pointed in the right direction sooner than later. He's certainly a better coach than Gullit or Yallop, he drafted very well for us, and the world of hurt we were in at the midway point of 2006 was way, way worse than what you guys have staring at you. That said, you guys have quite a row to hoe in front of you with your remaining schedule, and I'm not certain I see enough points there for you guys to make the playoffs. But I'll bet my left nut - that's the bigger one, by the way - that Arena gets you there next season.
Great game, and a fun one - I really enjoyed it, but think - really concentrate back on that Kansas City game. It takes some luster off of this win. And Vanney and Jazic are still a defensive liability. But h*ll, if every time I call for Arena to get canned, we put up 5 goals then, let me reiterate. Bruce Arena is an overly-conservative arrogant coach who sticks by his over-the-hill favorites way too long. He should be fired immediately.
Ghosting, d*mn you for taking the fun out of my Arena-bashing. Of course the team's going to play better at home and with all of the stars. That doesn't change the miserable 45 minutes of my life I spent on the KC game. And yes, my observation of serious coaching flaws that showed during Arena's USMNT coaching WC 06, and his management of NYRB (bringing in Reyna, anyone?), has influenced my opinion of him. My assessment of his ability is not based on just the last 6 games - I do have some preconceived notion of his strengths and weaknesses - meaning they were conceived prior to his Galaxy tenure. Where is it written that I should forget everything about Arena and pretend like he is a brand new person? So again, I'm sure Arena's not going anywhere soon - and good management (which is unrelated to Galaxy management) should really give any capable new coach a minimum of 1-2 years to shape the team. But I'm not going to change my tune on Arena's flaws until he shows me he's not going to make those same mistakes again, or at least that his other strengths outweigh these flaws. So I say Fire Arena Now, and Fire Ghosting Now!
It was a great game. My one observation was that Becks should have been subbed for Jordan. He was dead tired and we need to manage his minutes. Jordan would have injected alot of energy and would have played some D in the waning minutes of the game. Jazic played well and wasn't sure why Franchino was subbed in other than getting him some minutes. I like the idea of a pit bull but am not impressed with Franchino when he's not in the middle of the park. I also realize taking out a player like Becks wont be easy so Il Bruce will have to talk to him, IMO.