Landon played for San Jose and yet he's a club legend. Didn't Sacha start out his Career with Chivas? Gordon also played for San Jose, as one of the infamous "Bash Brothers" yet is still a cult hero here.
That aside, considering how adrift we were at the end of last season, you have to be impressed by the depth of the squad all over the field. We could sustain an injury or two to key players anywhere on the pitch and still remain strong. That’s remarkable.
I'm still scarred by Rafa Garcia being our starting right back going into the (2017?) season because we had no depth. I love Rafa but that was just terrible roster management.
Some of our improved depth is good management (loaning out Gonzalez for the rest of the year likely opened up space for both our new signings), but some of it is a rising salary cap and new roster mechanisms such as the U22 initiative that allow for talented players to be signed for relatively low budget hits.
Creating mechanisms to to turn MLS into a Selling league is fascinating. That we can sign even foreign players using a "U22" initiative is really cool.
My recollection is that Gyassi had hit the wall as an attacker, maybe because of the players around him. I am not sure. But he was headed down the toilet unless something changed. I think Sigi was grasping at straws to save Gyassi career. And in fairness that approach had worked to Re energize Chris Albright years before. It didn’t help, but there was some precedent for a similar move.
Can play left back? Good pick up. We are about 2 weeks away from having impressive depth and a good mix of youth, in-their-prime, and veteran players. Which will be the first time in many years….
What amazes me, and I am almost afraid to say it for fear of jinxing it, is that every signing so far has been fair to good or better. Signings are always a crap shoot and you figure just as a matter of odds one or two would be stinkers, but not yet.
I hear you. Unfortunately I think it was Sigi who was out of ideas and just didn't have it anymore. Clearly Klein has provided no on the field leadership to this organization ever. So we need an Arena or a Vanney who know the players they want as well as have a system to coach them in to be successful. Really difficult for me to judge DTK's role in all of this...He started out great (but too many players on loan), and then looked bereft until Vanney came along.
DTK negotiated the deal that brought in VIllafana before Vanney was hired and that has worked out well. He knew him from his Chivas USA days, though, so it's not exactly thinking outside the box.
I don't see it that way. I see it as we kept paying top $$ for these attackers, and we weren't going to bench them to satisfy their egos, so we turned to the ultimate team player just to see where we could put him. I remember watching Gyasi and don't remember him hitting any "wall" per se, just that our FO kept trying to get a top $$ DP to make it work. and Gyasi was the one left out in the cold. I remember the season or two after the Championship, Robbie was declining, Gio was as inconsistent as Gio could ever be, Gerrard was next to useless (mostly).I distinctly remember Gyasi playing very well combining with Gio. I think Gyasi's problem was the international Callups kept interrupting his time with us, and he did have that injury. Kind of a problem lots of Premier League teams had for the longest time. Chelsea, for example. Can anyone honestly say Mason Mount, Tammy Abraham, Reece James would be starters if it weren't for the transfer ban? Chelsea had a habit of buying all kinds of high dollar players, so its not like they were going to play any Academy products. The transfer ban forced them to go in-house and lo and behold some of them turned out to be really good. Imagine Gyasi Zardes playing alongside Zlatan. The 1 for 1 trade with Columbus for Ola Kamara kinda left me scratching my head because he could have literally played in the same spot, but for some reason our Coaching staff never played him up top anymore.
No Chicharito again on Sunday. Worried about him. Vasquez is back. JDS is back. Someone want to start a thread for Sunday vs. Vancouver?
DEJAN JOVELJIĆ: Is here on a visitor VISA. He’s getting ready for possibly playing on Sunday. But will need P-1 Visa approval. Don’t know if he’ll get it. #LAGalaxy #MLS— Corner Of The Galaxy (@GalaxyPodcast) August 6, 2021 Hope they consult with an employment attorney on that one. Visitor visas usually preclude employment lol.
Some insight into the plans for Jovelic when Chicharito returns (which doesn't seem to be too soon the way things are going) #LAGalaxy Greg Vanney on Chicharito and Dejan Joveljic combo Says that sometimes they will play alongside each other and other times they will play with one striker.— Gio Garcia (@GioGarciaLA) August 6, 2021
I like that he's thinking about different combinations and options instead of pigeonholing. but then again he's probably also being cagey without giving away too much to our opposition.
lol I remember speculating who is our left back depth behind Villafana and next thing I know that's exactly who is brought in. This is as deep as we've been in a long time, love it.
Dejan Joveljić said he played chess with some LA locals yesterday and won. 😂 A Serbian reporter mentioned that he’s an avid chess player. #LAGalaxy— Galaxy Fan Talk (@LAGalaxyFanTalk) August 6, 2021 We told you on the podcast that Dejan Joveljić liked to play chess. Like he had a chess coach. Well he’s already visited some parks in LA to play chess. And he won all his games. Brought a chess board on the plane. #LAGalaxy #MLS— Corner Of The Galaxy (@GalaxyPodcast) August 6, 2021 galaxy chess nerds unite!
Does this remind anyone of the exact same type of loan Bruce arranged to bring in Sasha in 2015 or 16 and Gerbers denied it because the term was too short? I seem to remember Bruce going public with this until Gerbers made it painful to protest.
Calf strains are brutal and can linger for a long time. Plus, Vanney reported last week that he had a setback during his rehab that forced them to restart the process.
Remembering when we didn't even have a strong defensive starting lineup? Which went on for years and years. Now we have one and even strong reinforcements on the bench. Things improved very fast this year and are still improving. I just hope Chicharito's injury doesn't turn into a season-ending problem.