LEAGUES CUP 2024: San Jose Earthquakes - Los Angeles Galaxy (Wed., 7/31) pre/in/postgame thread [R]

We tired a different approach against Puig this game. Instead of man-marking him closely, which was impossible with Yueill (Puig outran Yueill easily without the ball in second half), Niko or Skahan, we tried to take care of the other runners and passing lanes closer to the box. We dared Puig to shoot from longer distance. He did and Yarbrough handled them well. Yes, Puig was still connecting all the passes and easily glided past challenges but this new approach minimized his impact some what. You can argue that Russell did have a plan that kind of worked...until it didn't.

LA tried that overlap run many times on our left, even with Pellegrino providing minimum defensive coverage. No real harm was done. Problem is when you let your guard down with tired mind and legs. Russell decided to keep Costa and Benji on the same side towards the end of the game and both of them ran their heart out in previous game and this already. The runner was not tracked down. You gave up a goal.

This also highlights how bad our bench is. You either test your luck with the tired legs and mind on the field or play subs that are huge drop offs. Either way it is not ideal.

I hope Russell learn from these missteps. Also, Leitch or whoever needs to build a team of better depth.

 

Was there really 12,554 in attendance last night?

 

Hey Jazzy, sorry to hear about this. Hope you recover well and soon!

 

It was Benji who lost the runner and I don't think it was tired legs. He was just ball watching. Yamane was just standing out there with his hand up (look, they're not even watching me!).

 

Seems the last couple of teams we played double/ triple teamed our most skilled player, which makes sense to me. The last couple of times we played the Scum, we let Puig do whatever the F he wanted. I don't understand that philosophy.

 

I think our biggest offensive threat in the game was Rodrigues, he broke through the first line of defense multiple times, and the next line a couple of times. Then he often had no one to pass to. When I saw Munie getting ready to be subbed in I was hoping they were going to put him on the back line and move the Brazilian into the midfield.

 

I am not sure you were at the game, but, seeing it live you get a clearer picture of what a player is doing.

 

Not sure, but there quite a few people for a Wednesday night. Saw more folks walking to Costco (where I park) after the game last night than I've seen most of the season.

 

you can get a pretty good idea watching on TV too.

 

You only see a few seconds of what they're doing during the game on TV. Players do more off the ball to contribute to the flow of the team offensively and defensively then they generally do with the ball the 3 seconds they have it. HLM does more then we see on television, but his efforts are for not when Jebo is playing so deep into the midfield, and he looks up and sees jackasses like Judd, Jebo and Pellegrino up top.

 

Getting Niko back will help, we have to figure out a way to get Pellegrino out of the 11, he’s a black hole

 

If he'd not blown his chances Pellegrino would have had 2 goals. But I think one option to replace him is that when Akapo comes back Benji goes back to playing left side attacker. Only other thing I can think of is to play Marie there in the meantime.

 

I went to a couple of games in July. He looked pretty good against Chicago, scored the game's only goal. But overall, I need to see a little more from Hernan...I agree we need to build a better team around him but also (so far at least) he hasn't had the impact I was hoping for. Not that he's been terrible, just not great.

 

Honestly , Lopez doesn’t have much help but he isn’t or hasn’t really been the impact DP yet.

He is the type of player who needs a better surrounding cast…

 

Ian is always so matter of fact in his postgames. There’s no BS, no artifice, no game-playing. And he’s pretty much the same whether win or lose. He’s surprisingly not grumpy after a frustrating loss like this one. He’s interim coach so pressure is lower but at the same time this is his chance to maybe keep the job and these kinds of losses don’t help him in that regard.

 

Yeah , I’ve always said a CR7 or a Messi on a crap team will never be enough.

The Quakes need improvement in almost every position and this group will not improve from now until February..

 

Exactly. And as great as Messi is, he’s always played on great teams. Miami had no interest whatsoever in trying the experiment - what happens if you drop Messi onto a crappy team. They’ve been working since day 1, and continue to work on making his supporting cast better and better.

 

So why did the Quakes narrow the field about 10 feet for this game?

 

If they did it for strategic purposes it would make sense. We can’t run with Puig, Paintsil, and Pec. So reduce the space they have to operate in. Ian played some number of years at Spartan where the Quakes would use the narrow field to press, win the ball, and counter. He knows how that works as well as anyone. We were also playing on 3 days rest vs. their 10 days.

 

Why not just fly a drone over the LAG practices? Or use the fake bird cameras that John Herdman said were in situ on top of PPP?

 

Unless you’re gonna drop a bomb on Puig the drone won’t work.

 

Well we know what they do, there's no mystery there. We just can't stop it very well.