I'm just baffled by this. We are missing key players but this is not a bad team. We put out 5 of our starting back 6. And not only are they playing badly as a team, they are playing badly individually. And if the rest of the team is so bad, then it's on Vanney to change the strategy. Maybe play more defensively and try to get at least a point.
I think Skydog's theory that the team is defending very badly because the offense is non-existent and the mid is sketchy is correct. Winning is infectious and so is the suck. Our backbone is either recovering or out on callups. On the good side is news from Greg that MRIs showed nothing major with Chicha's injury and he will now join practices to get the lead and rust out. The Gold cup by this time next week is over and we get Alvarez, Lletget and Jona (who scored last night btw.) Sega is still a mystery but we get alotta key guys back. MLS trade window closes August 5 but I hope they don't wait that long to get the O some decent secondary goal producer. The soccer gods smile upon us. Galaxy STILL! in third place as the Goats got tied by Vancouver and Colorado lost badly to RSL. One more week and Galaxy is out of this depressing bad place.
According to whoscored we had 14 key passes - that is a very high number and should lead to some goals. Would lead to goals if we had finishers. Our conversion rate was 0%, theirs 33% and we both had 1.3 exp goals per mlssoccer.com. I'm guessing most of these key passes were from the first 25 minutes. Whoscored also looks at possession by minute and we won the possession battle for 23 out of the first 25 minutes. After that we won 4 out of the next 65 minutes. I think Vanney's natural aggressiveness backfired on him. His strategy -which we saw on the field and he mentioned at halftime - was to go out and take it to them from the beginning. It was fun for 25 minutes but due to the heat and it being our 3rd successive road game with minimal player rotation we just wore ourselves out trying to press all over the field. This was the ideal game to play a sit-back-and-counter strategy, given our tired bodies and lack of depth. Btw whoscored gave Pepi a perfect 10.0 rating. Don't remember seeing many of those. I guess getting a hattrick at 18 yo will do that. Congrats to the youngster. Edit: Looks like I'm wrong about the per minute possession - overall we had 52% according to MLS site. I think I was misreading the bottom part of the whoscored graphics posted by @Bilgediver. Not sure what those little blue and red lines are if not possession.
We've had to play Dunbar and Saldana instead of Lledget and JDS. Two solid international caliber players out, two inexperienced USL level players in. The result is a sketchy midfield that, to skydog's point, leads to defensive lapses. Combine that with the third game in 8 days, add in a dash of Texas July heat, and top it off with the gang that couldn't shoot straight as our forward corps.
It's been a stressful year and the Galaxy have not made it much better. You're far from the only one.
Highlight Time Folks I knew this game was over after the first 10 minutes because that is when our midfield started to get beat for pace. At that point I was just hoping that we could hold up enough to get a point out of this game. Nope the midfield was no match and the back line got hammered to the point where everybody started to look like rookies. Our CB depth is the only real depth we got on this team. The midfield and forward bench is an utter joke. We are not going to be able to truly do anything about it until the off season. For now we need a 2nd striker before the transfer window closes and we need our missing starters (Javier, Jonathan, Sebastian, Efrain, Sega) to return in form. Speaking of which,... Don't lose heart folks. We still have a prayer.
All this begs the question why MLS does not take a break for Gold Cup so as to not affect its teams and the season from call-ups as not every team loses the same amount of players. At least a two week break... something
Based on the position he is playing Cabral will be hitting the bench and I am okay with that as this season is officially a bust for him as far I am now concerned. Best we can hope at this point is that he is a competent sub that will at the very least keep us in the games in the 2nd half when called in to play. Maybe next year Cabral. 2021 is not your time. Now let's hope the new guy does what Cabral should have done and that's put it in the back of the net when open.
------------Joveljic---------Chicharito Lletget---------Dos Santos--------Grandsir -------------------Raveloson Villafaña---Williams----Sega------Araujo -----------------------Bond With Vazquez, Efrain and Cabral as spot starters and offensive subs off the bench. Now that is really damn sexy.
I like it, with the exception that our most creative players (Sacha, Vasquez, Efrain and [at least on paper] Cabral) are not starters. I know I harp on this point and maybe it won't matter in the end -- our assists are pretty well distributed across the team -- but we have struggled to create clear chances at least as much as finish, perhaps more so. I didn't see the latter part of this match, but the stat report gives us an xG of 1.3 (which is literally only 0.1 less than Dallas, who were very efficient on the night. But xG isn't everything, also...), which is pretty consistent for the previous two matches (our xG in the Vancouver loss was 0.8). So while we remember Cabral and Zubak's big misses, really we are not creating many sterling chances at a good rate for the possession we have, IMO.
Based on the assumption this guy Dejan comes in here and does his job I would start thinking about loaning out Cabral. I don't know why we would have a DP player just sitting on the bench. Get this guy out of LA and into some team that will use him regularly so he can get some work in. It may be the pressure here was too much for him. He was just too green for Galaxy and he will find his footing elsewhere and then we can either bring him back or find a buyer for him once he starts putting up some good goals and stats. Good for him and for Galaxy. This is exactly what happened to Dejan.
I have nothing to add to your very good analysis. Just to add that there's actually another poster in the MLS forums with a pancake avatar that I sometimes confuse with you because...well...how often do you come across pancake avatars in a soccer forum.
I think the answer to the creativity issue is have Jona as a 2nd Half Super Sub. That way you can play Vasquez at the 10 position for the first half of the game and play the 2nd half with a more defensive mind frame. We can go 4-4-2 Diamond so Vasquez can play as either a false 9 or as a CAM behind dual strikers moving Llegett to the outside. --------------DeJan------Chicha --------------------Vasquez Llegett---------------------------Grandsir -----------------Raveloson Villafana---Williams----Sega---Araujo Or we can go 4-3-3 with DeJan on the wing and Llegett in number 8 spot ---------------------------------Chicha(striker) ---DeJan(Wing Forward)-------------------Grandsir(Right Winger) --------------------------------Vasquez(CAM) ----------------Llegett(CM)-------------------Raveloson(CDM) Villafana(LB/LWB)---Williams(CB)----Sega(Sweeper/CB)---Araujo(RB/RWB) Sasha can fill in for the Creative Side if you need to sub Vasquez and remain on attack in the 2nd Half leaving Jona as the replacement for Raveloson if he is winded or hurt God forbid.