CARSON, Calif. – The LA Galaxy are hitting their stride.
Los Angeles put forth one of their most dominating performances in the last several years on Saturday with a 5-2 victory over previously undefeated Real Salt Lake. Five different players scored against Salt Lake, and there could have been many more goals had the team not missed several opportunities.
The Galaxy have now scored nine goals in their last two games. After yet another comprehensive victory, the question remains, where is all the offense coming from?
“I never knew it was not there,” Mike Magee said confidently after the match.
“I feel like we’re working extremely hard and working for each other. Once again, this is another game where we came out and were very aggressive,” Zardes said. “I always say this: when we go down a goal, the momentum of the team is always positive. It’s always going forward. I knew we were going to get back into the game and progress and score more goals.”
Ema Boateng stole the show with his first career MLS goal and two assists against Real Salt Lake, and Gyasi Zardes added his fourth of the season, but Saturday’s performance was owed to another impressive performance from the Galaxy’s big two of Steven Gerrard and Giovani dos Santos.
Building off their strong showing in Houston, Dos Santos and Gerrard once again carried the load for the Galaxy against RSL. Playing in his number 10 role, Dos Santos repeatedly pulled the strings in midfield, while Gerrard was able to win balls in midfield and then launch balls forward into the attack.
As good as they were against Salt Lake, Gerrard is confident that the Galaxy will only get better in the weeks to come.
“The scary thing about this team and their last two performances are that we still have Robbie Keane to come in,” Gerrard said. “The manager is going to have a headache in a few weeks’ time on who to pick, and we’re going to be even stronger when the captain comes back and Nigel as well.
“I’m standing here a very happy man and very confident for the future.”
Amid all their success, however, the Galaxy have conceded goals in the opening 20 minutes twice in their last two matches. Given the team’s recent success in front of goal, Galaxy head coach Bruce Arena admits that the issue isn’t too pressing at the moment.
“That’s what we try to do, give up an early goal,” Arena joked. “It works pretty well.”
All jokes aside, Arena is very pleased with the way his group is coming together.
“In a couple of months, we’re going to be a really good team,” Arena said. “We’ve still got some other players waiting to get back in, and we’re going to be playing together over the next few months and hopefully getting better each game. I think we have a good team with a good balance.”
Adam Serrano is the LA Galaxy Insider. Read his blog atwww.LAGalaxy.com/Insiderand contact him atLAGalaxyInsider@Gmail.com
