Wow, Zlatan’s rep on this board has sure improved since his departure. When he was here his rep was overall positive but he far from universally liked. Their were complaints that he made us 1-dimensional and that he didn't alwats play well with others. A couple of posters blamed him for the disapperance of our traditional tiki-taka style and were counting the days until he left. Others thought he limited our performance ceiling because of the Zlatan-centic focus he brought with him. My own view was that he was clearly the best goal-scorer MLS has ever seen. His .95 goals per start was simply phenomenal. His oversized personslity was often entertaining and a great draw for both the Galaxy and the league. On the negative side, unlike Donovan and Keane, he didn't make his teammates better and in some cases relegated them to semi-ornamental roles. I also agree that while his own performances were exciting his presence made for a boring style of play - center the ball to Zlatan was pretty much the whole game plan while he was here. tl;dr vers - Zlatan was a truly world class hall of fame individual player but having him on our team wasn't all a bed of roses.
(insert Akira meme but with images of Zlatan in 2019) I have so many crazy, conflicting emotions about those Zlatan seasons. I literally met Zlatan at a STM event a few weeks after my daughter was born in 2018. My daughter herself was born almost a week exactly after France lifted the World Cup trophy in Russia. I remember listening to games in the hospital; trying to celebrate silently as my daughter slept on me as we got the goal to tie LAFC in their own stadium. I was blessed to be there for "The Goal" that started it all and I was there for Zlatan's last match at LAFC. What a whirlwind. It would be easy to focus on just the euphoric highs of those seasons, but there were also frustrating, disappointing lows. Feltscher, Bingham, Sckoobik. Many matches we played were just ponderous and awful. If you really want to feel bad, we didn't just waste Zlatan: that team had Alessandrini, Pavon and Jonathan dos Santos! When Ibra was here, it felt like anything was possible, despite how bad we are. The wild swings of hope and disappointment was a bittersweet rollercoaster of emotions. But that's football. Joy. Pain. Zlatan made us feel, and for that I'll always be greatful.
He's out of contract. So all we would have to do is get him to agree in principal to a deal and then wait for the transfer window to end and then we can buy out Costa and sign him. So....it's possible.
I was all in on di Maria a few months ago and I think he'd still be a good signing. But I think we can actually do better. I think it would've been great if we could've made it happen this last off-season. But I do hope we go for a prime-age player: someone who can be here for a 2-3 year dynasty.
I mean, I like where your head is at but we have several DP spots to fill and El Fideo could be one if for a couple seasons. We will need a good jump-start players like him can provide. We can also get long term main DP. We shed Di Maria after a while. You know?
Unless some out of contract, non-DP, big name int'l player seeking a short-term deal falls into our lap, I expect we'll keep our powder dry until the next transfer window and go for trades within the league over the summer. That's actually likely to be one of the smartest ways to plug some obvious holes with proven players we can use to build around next year's big DP stars.
No one. I don’t want a single signing until the front office gets their house in order. This season is done. Spend the next 8-9 months preparing and hit the ground running. Messi wouldn’t get us to the playoffs at this point so we’d just be compounding the problems.
Ideally you’d get an interim coach in place who would have a chance of sticking around as an assistant coach to help support new coach and new GM.
I'm fascinated by Keano, but at the same time, don't want his reputation to be tarnished. However, at the same time, it could be a win-win, or at the very least, a nothing to lose situation for him since us fans already feel this is a lost season and no longer have any expectations.
This is likely a pipe dream, but with the Messi signing, I want us to make a marquee signing especially with the rumors of Chicha being out for the rest of the season. We will have an open DP spot, so let's go for Neymar. LW is the glaring issue in this team. I know Neymar is more of a hybrid LW/LF/CAM which actually works well for us. Puig likes to roam so there is always space for a talented player to play off Puig. If we are actually serious as a club and want to build for the future, Neymar would be a good pickup. I mean look at the team. Defense still needs some work, but we would still have Memo, Costa, Edwards, Judd, and a few others as depth.
Neymar would be a great addition and plays a position of need. I only worry about injuries. Also, he will certainly want to make a legacy in Europe in the brief window he has to escape the shadows of CR7 and Messi. I mean, I wouldn't lose it if we ended up signing di Maria, either. I just hope we think long-term.
I think we need a forward - a gauranteed 12-15 goals a year guy. We need someone up top to keep the defense honest and create space. Neymar would be great, but he would have to dribble 5 defenders every goal.
We do. We did before Chich’s injury and we definitely need one now. Hate to admit it but even after a decent sample size Dejan as a starter just isn’t working. He is a fantastic finisher when he gets the ball in space but he seldom gets the ball. He simply doesn't know how to move horizontally/diagonally to attack space and make himself availabkr to receive the ball. He ckearly sees his job to be playing a static 9 but doesn't have the size or strength needed to dominate in the air or be great at holdup play, all traits needed for static #9’s to be effective. My theory now is that Dejan does so well as a sub because coming in late means he doesn't have to create space for himself; open opportunities naturally occur because of tired players making mistakes, getting spread out, defenders pushing up to score, etc. I do think good coaching would get Dejan moving more and smarter. Unfortunately we are short on tha commodity. With Chich out and Dejan struggling as a starter we definitely need to add a proven striker to our roster. Until we do we will just continue to depend on luck to score.
Good observations. Dejan's young, so he can add to his game and hopefully he gets the opportunity. I'd also experiment with starting him with Judd, who I think would compliment him well. Judd scored his first MLS goal the last time he played (against Colorado)...so of course he got rewarded with zero minutes in the 4 matches played since then.
COG tonight keeps hammering on the fact that the roster construction is bad because there is no outside speed, So, obviously, LAG should work a trade with NY Because Red Bull gives you wings.
The #LAGalaxy announced today that forward @CH14_ sustained a torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in his right knee.Wishing our captain a speedy recovery. 🙏 📰: https://t.co/SUAxaDtP5r pic.twitter.com/kmsQxYA1uV— LA Galaxy (@LAGalaxy) June 9, 2023 Probably the end of his Galaxy career and perhaps his career generally depending upon how hard he wants to work on rehab. We could put him on the season ending injury list and get a replacement https://www.mlssoccer.com/news/updates-to-the-2023-mls-roster-rules-regulations
That sux. I feel for him. Even though things weren't working this season it wasn't because of lack of effort. He gave us his all this season.
F%^$#@!!! I was hoping but the way he went down, I knew it. He can come back but it wont be for us and certainly not this season. That sucks balls. We should use the rest of this blown season intelligently. No more hoping and praying. Get an interim coach. Screwing around with Vanney and his rebuilds and coaching is just a waste of time and space. Who is Vanney going to sign for 5 years in the Summer window!? Give him his walking papers. What do we expect to happen that will say -oh my God look a that Vanney turn this shitshow around with less players to work with?- seriously. Get the interim going. Let's see which players respond so the new coach has something to play with as far as deciding whom he wants to keep and work with and which players are out. 2024 season is right around the corner. It's not a lifetime away. Let's get that process rolling.
Not surprising, but still a real bummer for Chich. Will be surprised if he just doesn't call it a career. He's had a heck of a good one.
Galaxy needs long term and short term plans. First we need to work on that rep that Galaxy is a place where players old and new, go to die. That is one of the reason we can't get good players to come here. We need to show we can get known players AND do something with them. Then we shed those in the first phase of a deep rebuild and having had the time to scout and approach younger more long-term players we move into the second phase which to get back to being competitive long term and WINNING stuff.
So. The question is— do we use the mechanisms available to us to get a Chich replacement now and maybe even buy out Costa and replace him as well? Or do we sit on both DP spots and wait for the off-season when there are less available players but we can go after foreign players under contract? For instance, we could probably get Josef Martinez from Miami for a box of donuts as they will be desperate to dump their DP contracts ahead of Messi’s arrival? But do we want him? Or any other DP forward currently in the league that would actually be available?