It hasn't just been the DP's. Since Klein became boss there have been bad personnel decisions all over the field. Paying a mil/yr for Skjoilk and 400k/yr or so for Kitchen, getting rid of AJ when we had no right back. The list goes on and on and Katai and Sasha may be new additions. Speaking of Skjkolk, Katai and Sasha - one rule of thumb that our FO might want to adopt is to be very careful about signing players who have fallen out of favor with their former clubs. Usually there is a reason they are no longer wanted.
I don't know where to stand on Schelotto. I don't think he's a bad coach based on what I've heard about him at Boca and what I've seen so far. He's had good coaching performances with the Galaxy; but also really, really poor ones. I do think he may be too rigid in trying to implement his ideas with the talent he has. OTOH, at least three coaches have now failed to implement some kind of gameplan consistently with this team. It's remarkable. I'm not letting GBS off the hook but...Christ we feel cursed. It's feeling like no one can fix this. I do think @Beirut is right: we haven't been good since we've started chasing big names. It's not that they were all bad, but not good fits for the team.
I don't agree that our problem is chasing big names -- it's chasing the wrong big names. Donovan, Keane and Beckham were all big names and they worked out pretty damn well. The problems started when Klein took the reins and we started bringing in the wrong big names. GDS crippled us for years. Gerrard made us worse. Zlatan wasn't a great fit but he probably would have worked out record wise if he wasn't backed up by a terrible defensive corp brought in under Klein's watch. Klein is at the top of this shit-show and he needs to go. We need a new leader.
i agree entirely. AEG’s interest is purely financial these days. Back in the golden era Anschutz and Leiweke seemed to have an emotional investment. They wanted the Galaxy to be the undisputed best team in the league in every capacity. Most successful, most ambitious, biggest sponsorship deal, biggest stadium, best TV deal, biggest names. And not to beat a dead horse they failed a lot, but when they got it right it was a thing to behold. I had my problems with the former management style, there were high highs and low lows. This sustained period of low lows without the corresponding highs is less pleasant. We are very much a post-Ferguson United.
Asking for new ownership is a scary proposition. Look we haven’t been good for a while but the owners have thrown a ton of money at the problems and also wasted a ton of money. it’s easy to feel down on our form for the last several years but imagine having ownership like Houston or Chicago. AEG is very engaged and willing to spend. It has just been in the wrong areas. And yes of course AEG cares most about ticket sales. And the best thing that sells tickets is a winning team. They are failing at what would be their best wind fall. Oh yeah and I looked back in this thread and Dom was 4-1-1 in his temp head coach spot. We would give anything for something like that now.
Los Dos won 5-1 on the road with DTK’s hires running the team. Los Dos was one of the worst teams in the USL last year until DTK replaces the coaching staff. We only 2 games into the season, and I haven’t given up on GBS yet. However if things don’t change and we still don’t have a fluid system, I trust DTK to make the right decision and bring in the right coach. I’m assuming GBS was a DTK hire, but I’m not sure how much time DTK has to evaluate or if he was giving a choice between these 3 options.
I guess that's more or less what I meant. It seems like we started going after names, with no thought of how they'd fit in to the team.
This is Columbus setting up goals for Zardes in Seattle. Why is this not something we can do to Vancouver at home? Gyasi Zardes goal vs. Seattle Sounders (SEA 0-1 CLB)-https://t.co/Z68EO43NIV— Jcrdy (@jordyxcollins) March 8, 2020
We're in trouble. This is sorta contrary to takes I've heard, but this one is in line with what we've seen. I, too, thought we were crossing because Zlatan. I guess...GBS just likes crossing? So, noted down a few thoughts on Barros Schelotto. What the hell do I know, he'll probably end up being a great success but Tata's sides have a clear identity & for me GBS' Boca lack a clear system pic.twitter.com/6k4rn5xWYu— GOLAZO (@golazoargentino) October 23, 2018
^^^This. We used to be a passionate and ambitious team striving for excellence and dominance. Now we seem to be a soul-less reactive team trying to not suck.
Something worth considering that occurred to me Saturday evening: outside of Bruce's tenure, the Galaxy have mostly struggled since 2003. I refrained from posting anything about that because Bruce's tenure covered a significant period of time. However, we won the 2005 MLS Cup despite a middling regular season, missed the playoffs from 2006 to 2008, Bruce's first full season was 2009. We made the playoffs every season from 2009 to his last season in 2016. 2017 onward has been terrible. Either side of his tenure, we made horrible roster decisions based around signing a big name. Don't forget: Beckham's first couple of years were an outright disaster on and off the field. Bruce reportedly pushed back when we wanted to sign Ronaldinho. Then I get to thinking about our Marketing thread... it's probably a misconception that the Galaxy has been truly leading the way in the league on all fronts. LAFC is proof positive that they could and should have been doing more to get people to games beyond just signing famous names. How any years of glaring typos and frankly laughable STH "gifts" have there been? How far behind were we in terms of digital marketing for years? Getting with the program on dedicated apps and electronic ticketing? Clumsy handling of supporters groups, atrocious concessions and lethargic security all hurt game-day experience. Then there's youth development: we are sitting on a hotbed of raw talent. We should have a comprehensive network, putting tabs on every kid from AYSO to high school with even a hint of talent. In fact, we should be the Ajax of California, if not the United States. We should be a production line of academy graduates with world class potential. Really, beyond signing big names and pushing MLS to modify rules around our willingness and ability to do so, it's been a while since the Galaxy as an organization have really excelled at much. Do I think it's all about selling tickets? No. As awful as the likes of Skjauksgfopasurf are, they still signal a willingness to spend on talent away from the marquee names. Someone mentioned post-Fergie United and thinking about it, there are parallels: as much as United fans rage against the Glazers, it's a myth that the LBO debt is an issue and they really have been willing to spend money. The bigger issue is that they're not soccer people and outside commercial avenues, they don't have a clue how to structure a football club. I see the same with AEG. They mostly don't know what they're doing and their strategy is always to throw money at players that get them short-term attention, in the belief that being perceived as the flagship of MLS, is the same as it being a reality. I'm coming to the belief that they got lucky with Bruce (who again, was probably as much about him being a big name that was available at the time), who not only coached well but by having the kind of personality to push back, probably curtailed the effects of this organizations more haphazard instincts. This should have been a blog entry.
Wow @barroldinho that was extremely persuasive. Really great points. Maybe @Lazy Assed Assassin is right and an ownership change would be a positive . I was bummed about the score on Saturday, but seeing all this analysis about how these team issues run deeper than the score line and game play having me feeling downright depressed.
I think the Galaxy hiring DTK was a big step in the right direction of having owners who don’t know how to run a club. Put someone who understands the ins and outs at every level in charge and let him run the show. I don’t believe Man Utd have hired a technical director, director of football or whatever you want to call it. Granted most of Ole’s signings have been a success so far and he’s getting good production/performance out of academy kids, but outside of that clearly they needed someone to run the show.
Agreed and Klein does seem to be learning. However, it says it all that we have a president that needs to do so. Man Utd haven't signed a DOF or TD and that's an ongoing issue. Just like with the Galaxy and AEG, it tends to effectively make each new manager a reboot. The change might be, though there's a degree of "better the devil you know". I'd hate to be in the situation that Columbus and Chicago have found themselves in. I'd rather AEG (or more importantly, Klein and Beckerman) to figure this out than sell. However, it's a worrying situation.
2005 being middling is a charitable description, it was dreadful and really only Landon’s being head and shoulders better than the rest of the league, Cobi effectively taking control of the team after Sampson had lost the locker room and the quality of MLS teams being more susceptible to individual brilliance. I do think the Galaxy was leading the way on all fronts, but in part because the rest of the league weren’t at all. We had the first real stadium, the first quasi-DPs, the first real DP, the first TV deal, the first academy, the first USL team, the first integrated education environment, the list really goes on and on, but we were in a league where AEG owned half the teams and the other half were owned by couldn’t-care-less owners like Kraft and Hunt. For all that ambition prior to running the Galaxy their sports operating experience was limited to a 2 years of owning the Kings. In hindsight I wonder if AEG was a big fish in a little pond and now as the league has grown, attracting more experienced sports franchise operators maybe we’re finding AEG was more like a medium fish, but MLS is now a big pond. I don’t know, I’m just sort of watching and grasping as straws as to what’s happened. Of course Man United and Arsenal’s recent turmoils show even incredibly wealthy and experienced clubs can find it difficult to correct a downward trajectory.
United's biggest mistakes were allowing both Fergie and David Gill to retire at the same time and letting David Moyes to have so much control. Though Ferguson tapped him to be his successor, reports have it that he specifically told Moyes to keep the existing support staff. Moyes basically ignored that completely, fired the majority of them and brought in his own team. Bam! years of institutional knowledge out the door in one fell swoop. I still recall the sinking feeling as Moyes sat at a press conference, looking like a deer caught in the headlines as he explained to the world that at Everton, his squad was far more limited so picking a first XI was simple. I don't remember the quote verbatim but it went something like "I haven't been used to trying different things".
Yeah, I was just going to say this. Looks like the Bruce / Landon era bucked a trend of bad decision-making.
Sometime around the moment we gave up the penalty I had a sinking feeling so strong it made briefly feel ill. Basically, that our problems weren't gone with Zlatan, they may be just beginning. And El Traffico is going to be rough.
If only someone had noted that Zlatan wasn't our main problem in almost every thread last season. Oh, wait... (Sorry MP9, couldn't resist.)
Hey, I have a lot of crow to eat and I cop to it. I had a lot of faith in Schelotto. Or maybe not faith at all.
I suppose the old saying, in the era of the Galaxy, should be recast as: "All Roads Lead to Mt. Doom"?
Wrote this in the Vancouver thread, but GBS's comments post game do NOT make me happy. Starting to wonder if he has any tactical nous.
I can save you some mental energy -- the answer is no, nein, negatory. Some Boca Junior fans and a couple of MLS pundits tried to warn us when we hired him. Then we saw an entire season where we made the same mistakes over and over. The lack of adjustments over 34 games while giving up soft counter attack goals repeatedly should tell us all we need to know about GBS's tactical abilities. I had some small hope that the fact he was a a popular "players coach" with connections and had DTK at his side that we would get enough talent and individual effort that we could overcome his lack of tactical chops. But our signings haven't been strong enough and a bit surprisingly he isn't that much of a motivator either. I hated seeing him and his bro just sitting sheepishly on the bench the last game when we were sucking on the field and simultaneously getting screwed by the refs. You think that would happen under Bruce? That 4th official's ears would be hurting and every player would have seen the Bruce face many, many times in that game fiasco.
If this team doesn't improve by June, GBS has to go. We have seen enough to make that judgement, and the Galaxy can't afford to write this season off. Almost all the goals we have scored this year are one off Pavon wonder goals, that's not going to happen enough to win many games.
Can you believe I miss Bruce Face? It was doing something. Not sure what GBS is doing during games. He just seems silent.