CARSON, Calif. -- LA Galaxy head coach Bruce Arena's postgame thoughts from the LA Galaxy's 2-1 victory over the Columbus Crew.
Arena's thoughts are below...
(Overall thoughts on the game...)
ARENA: “We fought hard to try and win the game. We were fortunate to capitalize on two penalty kicks. On the night, we played OK—the second half a little bit better than the first half. We can certainly be accused of not finishing our chances, and putting ourselves in a poor position, which certainly happened. Give Columbus credit, they certainly played hard, got a great goal. Not to take anything away from them, it was a great goal. We just had to battle and try to create some chances at the end and we were fortunate to get a couple of calls that made a difference. We’ve been on the other side of those games a couple of times this year. At this point in the season, we should have 11, 12 victories, but we’ve shot ourselves in the foot a couple of times. We got to battle and keep moving forward. We have to move up the ladder in a very competitive conference.”
(On Galaxy going forward...)
ARENA: “There’s an awful lot of work to be done. Finishing our chances is one of them. Defensively on the night, we were, for the most part, pretty good. Columbus really wasn’t that dangerous and 10 minutes to go we’re chasing the game, and that’s not good. So, we got to get better in all aspects and hopefully we can.”
(On Columbus’ goal...)
ARENA: “I don’t know how you look at that goal tonight, that’s one of those once in a lifetime-type of goals. I haven’t seen it on tape or anything, but it looked like he stuck that in the corner pretty well and he’s 16 yards out, so it’s one of those plays that happened.”
(On the penalties...)
ARENA: “The second one—we might have been fortunate on. I haven’t seen them on tape. The first one I think Jose was taken down, but I think there wasn’t any of them you could say 100 percent penalty. The Crew’s going to feel a little disappointed, for sure.”
(On the struggles of Gyasi Zardes...)
ARENA: "That's what separates the men from the boys generally. The players that finish off those chances make a pretty good living around the world. Goal scorers, you got to have a lot of respect for. Gyasi is still young in the trade. He's probably been healthy for three months this year and hopefully, he's going to get better in the penalty area. That's the goal. The positive part is that each and every game, he's getting a bunch of good chances, so hopefully he'll start putting some of those away."
(On the possibility of losing Omar Gonzalez during the transfer window...)
ARENA: "That's not likely to happen."
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