Let's see - four games now and a total of three goals. Now I know we're playing these games on the road and all, but it does not seem to me that the boys are scoring goals at a clip worthy of all the pre-season praise and everyone having practically already handed them MLS CUP 2003. Is it Ruiz? Well, no, since he's done his job and scored two of those three goals. Where are the midfielders is what I'm interested in. I know it's early in the season and all, but it's worrisome to see this lack of offensive production, even on the road. I must say that I've been a little disappointed in the effort from Simon Elliott and Pete Vagenas. Their shots just seem to be very flat and highly inaccurate. Why isn't Cien playing at all? Could this be a problem - Sigi's substitution decisions? I think that Cienfuegos is always going to provide a spark and I think that we may need to see him around the sixtieth or so minute when we're tied or down. I just don't understand why we haven't seen him at all. I've been very content with our defense and obviously with El Gato - he's playing out of his head. But the offense is giving me fits. We need better finishing. Rant over. Thoughts?
Our midfield is the weakest link. Elliot & EZ has gone downhill and needs to step it up. Cien's role is being a substitute, but I think age really may have caught up to him; of course he was out with flu-like symptoms. Victorine has his moments but is still subpar. Vagenas does his job fine. Cobi's got the speed, but his predictable crossing has been off. We need that playmaker. When do we get Memo back?
You simply cannot score goals in MLS when you are going 3 on 6 or 7. We cannot get our offense into a dangerous place fast enough. Our midfield transition pace is that of a snail. Defenses can get back in plenty of time to set up against us. We are the slowest "speed of play" team in MLS. That ain't good enough.
Has there been any thought to putting Mauricio Cienfuegos back into the lineup to help the midfield attack click. From the Galaxy games I've watched, it really seems like the problem has been that the alleged playmakers ain't making plays and the team isn't posessing the ball in MF enough, all things where Mo could help.
Wasn't Lalas your second leading scorer behind Ruiz last year? I could have sworn I saw a graphic on Soccer Saturday that showed that. Maybe you don't have ANY finishers outside of Ruiz? If Chacon can't score more then 6-8 goals, you could be looking at having to shut out all your opponents to win this year...... Twellman has Joe-Max Moore this year, is Chacon able to take the pressure off of Ruiz as well?
Problem is there is no attacking midfielder besides Cien, and, as brilliant as he is, he is past his prime unfortunately. Elliot has had a rough year so far, but he picked it up tremendously in 2nd half. But bothhim and Pete have been molded as defensive minded. For the Galaxy to repeat, they are going to need to trade for a new attacking mid, or don't expect to be in the Hope Depot Center in October.
We don't have an attacking mid - but neither does anyone else. Our defense isn't the problem, we just have to find a consistently reliable way of getting the ball from Califf to Ruiz without resorting to pure long ball, which is a certain way to get Fishy hospitalized by June. This two week rest comes at a fantastic time, especially with a fired-up New England next on the schedule. They could really use the rest. Sigi's job is to keep the team from imploding before June. I think he can keep them focused and not panicking. He's certainly capable of making adjustments - like, say, last year. Since 1999, LA has been a late-season team, anyway. Keep in mind, and I wish this weren't the case, but the difference between finishing first and finishing fourth is, uh, NOTHING. We'd have to pull a full-on DC United 2000 for us to be in serious, serious trouble.
Cien is sick - flu. He was not held out for tactical reasons. Glinton and Pineda Chaco were also not in SJ - left home because of injuries. So, Sigi's only options for a midfield change on Saturday were: 1. Throw in Retiz and see what he can do. 2. Move Hong to midfield and put Lalas at sweeper. None of us have seen Retiz in practice, so I do not know how attractive that option was. And Bo looked out of place in the Crew game when Sigi started him in the midfield. Hopefully Cien will get healthy and ACP and Glinton will rehab over the next coupole of weeks, and Sigi will have more flexibility in Dallas. BTW: I don't know about anybody else, but with all these road games I am having trouble getting "into" the game this year - its like the season hasn't "really" started yet. Anybody else feel that way? Its kind of weird.
Yes, we've had problems up front, but lets not forget that LA have only been allowing 1 goal per match and half of them were from dodgy penalty calls. We aren't do it yet, but as long as we score more than we allow....
Where's the Galaxy offense???? That seems to be the # 1 question surrounding our beloved team these days!!!! I wish I knew the answer, but I'm as PUZZLED as anybody about our ANEMIC & WOEFUL offensive displays through 4 games. We have the talent (Cobi, Ruiz, Ezra, Elliott, Vagenas, Bo, et al) to be a pretty strong offensive team. And I didn't even mention APC or Cien. But the midfield play, so far, has been reprehensible & the fact is that not only are we not scoring goals, but we're not even creating opportunities!! And that scares me more than anything. I just HOPE that things will work themselves out VERY soon. This team is TOOOO talented to be this BAD!! We better turn things around soon, though, because the longer this display continues, the worse our chances at repeating!!
I am not sure that our offense is any worse than last year, at least in this respect: Our much maligned mid-field has created one or two good scoring chances for Carlos in each of the last two games. The most obvious Saturday being the give-and-go with Simon late in the second half. Last year, Fish buries those. This year, he has the misfortune to be a bit wide. Against Howard he gets stoned by a great save. It happens. No question in my mind that Carlos will do his part this year, but don't forget we had a lot of close low scoring games last year where the only difference was that Pescadito scored on the one chance he had. Its not like our mid-field was ALL that better offensively last year.
What's wrong with Glinton; he showed some promise last year and during pre-season. Is he injured, out of form, or out of the picture.
I believe This offense is in critical condition. I wish we could get some exerpts of posts made in january on the Galaxy Board, and how everyone was talking about the plethera of talent on the Squad and that the Bench was loaded. Well now we are all struggling to find someone to get us some possesion, some good passing, some oppurtunities for ruiz. And the answer is we dont have that person. especially since i believe "Senor Fat" is holding cien to the opener at home and then we never see cien play for the Galaxy again. Agree?
Albright has to be to blame as well. This should be a dream situation for him since Ruiz gets a lot of attention, leaving Albright relatively open. He should be scoring some goals. You might be better off with Moreno in there.
I can't remember the last time the Galaxy were really in control of a game. it seems like last year, we took games to teams and this year we entered boringville. We need cien back, or we need to open up the game not only for the galaxy, but so i can stay awake through the 90 minutes. The "on the road" excuse is getting old! A tie should not be our ultimate goal, but something we settle for after trying to win!
Cadaver, you are absolutely right with this. And this points to a problem I have with Sigi and Doug Hamilton. You KNEW your midfield played pretty poorly last season as well, but an MLS Cup forgives alot of sins. However, they had to know the team needed some immediate (Memo, we can and will wait for) midfield help and we got none. I am down on this club because I expect more. I was in the stands in San Jose, and could not get outta my seat for many minutes after the final whistle. I was gutted and felt like I got punched in the face. It hurt, and I ain't ashamed to admit it. (As an aside-10 years ago, I never even thought about soccer, and now my two favorite teams on the planet are the Browns and Galaxy! Unreal, and I love it.)
Are you kidding me. What do you think Amada Guevara, Preki and Kyle Martino are, defensive specialists? Its simple, we don't have another goalscoring threat to go with Ruiz and Cobi, and Cobi is a flank playmaker ala Steve Ralston or Chris Klein. Who would you rather have on the left, Sasha or DiGiamarino, Martinez, or Lagos? We have Albright as a second forward. How about Edson Buddle or Jeff Cunningham or Joe-Max Moore as a partner for Carlos? I saw more good things out of Zizi Roberts in one day than I've seen out of Albright, ever! Sigi deserves credit for getting as much as he has out of these guys, but changes are needed. I'd like to see a 3-5-2 with either Cien or Chacon playing behind the forwards. Move Cobi up top with Ruiz, or move him out to the left. Let Sasha compete with EZ for time on the right flank. That allows for Vagenas and Elliot to hold the middle in front of the back three without leaving them exposed. Moreno is no better than Ching or Mullen and his time is short. After selling out the "Depot" for a season, hopefully management will then go get us another striker.
...and here I was thinking I was going to get a lot of crap for my original post here. I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one wondering why our offense has become so anemic. It seems to me that the general consensus is that Cien needs to get some PT. We all know he's not capable of ninety minutes, but he should definitely be able to provide a good thirty minute spark. Hopefully Sigi will be reading these boards and heed our advice...
Although having an attacking midfielder would certainly improve things, I think it certainly will not solve our problems. The problems being experienced right now are not a one person fix. For me, I think the biggest need is getting speed on the flanks, which is something that neither EZ nor Victorine possess. Having someone in these positions with the speed to get behind the defense forces the defense to adjust, giving more room to move around for Ruiz in the middle. Another point is, consider the type of goals that Ruiz has scored in the past. He a poacher of sorts... getting his goals fighting for the lose balls. Here again having someone on the flank with the speed to turn the corner causes problems for the defense. This where EZ used to be very dangerous, but he simply is not anymore. The only player capable of this at the moment is Cobi. Another problem I see is the lack of quality crosses. Both Victorine and EZ tend to send high looping crosses, that do not give Ruiz or anyone for that matter much of a chance to do anything with them. So for me, I think having Vaganas and Elliott in the central midfield is OK, although I would like to see more of Cienfuegos and Chacon. I think our most immediate need is to get speed on the flanks. This is where Glinton should be able to help when returns. I would also like to see if Retiz add anything to the attack, if nothing else, I would hope he can provide better crosses. No matter how you look at it. There really isn't another player on this team that scares opposing defenses (no offense to Cobi) and this allows teams to sit back and put bodies around Ruiz. We need players, that are going to force the opposing defense to make adjustments creating a greater potential of the defense making mistakes.
This is a great discussion. I agree that the Galaxy have the players on the bench to fortify the offense, but judging from Sigi's past behavior, it will be a cold day in hell before he sits Elliott or Sasha. Also, Sigi's moves are as predictable as Democrats bagging on Bush. Forward for forward, midfielder for midfielder. Oh yeah sorry, he did put Lalas in as a forward last week with five mintues to go. Sigi, please make adjustments to the formation when they are warrented!! Try to throw a different wrinkle at the defenses around the league once in a while. Something! This team is killing me!
I just realized something that should have been mentioned a long time ago. The big difference between last season and this season so far is that last season we scored a lot on set pieces. Consider who was knocking in goals (other than Ruiz)... Lalas, EZ, Califf. Our attacking moves in midfield were still almost exclusively Cobi and Cien, and occasionally EZ. The difference is that last year when we got a corner kick I'd expect at least a shot on goal, and this year I've been repeatedly seeing Cobi and Elliott step up and deliver hospital balls on free kicks and corners. Do we have ANYONE who can hit a dead ball consistently this season?