LA Galaxy Postgame Quote Sheet
LA Galaxy 1, Houston Dynamo 0
Friday, July 15, 2016
2016 MLS Regular Season
StubHub Center – Carson, California
LA GALAXY HEAD COACH AND GENERAL MANAGER BRUCE ARENA
On how the team played:
“We played well enough to get three points. Not our best game; I think we made things a little difficult on ourselves not converting the penalty early in the game and then a few other chances we could have been better with. I thought defensively we played well. Give Houston a lot of credit, they played real hard. But a little bit better, maybe we win this game by a couple goals and make it a little easier on ourselves. I think you see the tactics that we generally see playing a home game by our opponents. They did a good job getting numbers behind the ball and making it difficult for us.”
On Baggio Husidic’s performance:
“Solid game. In the second half, Baggio and our whole team played much better.”
On Gyasi Zardes’ performance:
“He did very well and he came close to pulling off a couple plays that could have been converted into goals. But he played real hard. He works real hard for our team.”
On Steven Gerrard’s performance:
“It was solid. He felt a little something at the end of the game; that’s why he came out. But obviously an important goal... I thought he started the game real well and they did a real good job keying on blocking off passing lanes to Gerrard and Keane and getting around Giovani dos Santos quickly. They were prepared for the game and did a good job.”
On the difference in home and road records for LA Galaxy:
“We have one of the best away records in the league, did you know that? We have one of the best away records in the league this year if you look. The league is very hard to play on the road because of the travel, the scheduling, and a lot of other things. It’s very difficult to travel and play away in this league…altitude, time zones, it’s very difficult. And often, teams, especially out of conference, will play on the road fairly exhausted. And you come back and it impacts you for the next game. If you look right now, I think there’s five teams in the league that haven’t won a game on the road this year. It’s difficult. Houston’s one of them. So as much as you want to make that a story, it is a story, but it’s the same for a lot of teams.”
On how important it is for Steven Gerrard and Gyasi Zardes to have good games when Robbie Keane struggles:
“Well Robbie didn’t get a goal, but he was in position to get a couple. But that’s all a part of it, you can’t depend on one player to score. I think Robbie was a threat all night despite the fact that he didn’t get a goal.”
On if Baggio Husidic’s play could earn him a starting spot over Nigel de Jong:
“De Jong has been a very good player for us this year. I expect him to be on the field.”
LA GALAXY MIDFIELDER STEVEN GERRARD
On winning ugly in recent games:
“It’s starting to gel. I think that’s because we’ve got everyone fit and healthy. The team is really strong at the moment. We’ve got Nigel [de Jong] to come back in, Ashley [Cole] to come back in, Robbie Rogers, so the future is bright. But I’ve been saying for a long, long time that success is built on a defensive platform and we’re defending really well. Brian [Rowe] is keeping clean sheets, Jelle [Van Damme] and Daniel [Steres] are really solid and the full backs are chipping in as well… If we keep that solid defensive base, we’ve got players on the team that can cause the opposition problems, who can assist goals and score goals. And that’s how you get success at the end of the season.”
On the difference of this year’s team:
“It feels different. It feels like we’ve got men in here. Men who are prepared to do the dirty work and go the extra mile for each other. Last year – without naming names, we were all responsible for it – we were too weak, we were too flaky, we were all over the pitch and we were conceding stupid goals. And that’s the reason why we all went home in October. If we want to stay for the duration in this fight for the MLS Cup, we need to keep trying to build on the recent form, which has been very, very solid.”
On his goal:
“There was a defender on the line. It was a guessing game, really. He chose to go right and I slotted it to my right, in the opposite direction. Sometimes they are difficult, because if he guesses the right way and I pass it the wrong way, he can stop the goal. But tonight was all about a gritty team performance. Houston came for a point, they had a lot of men behind the ball and there was no space out there. It was a game of patience and we knew we would get one good chance or maybe two good chances in the second half to score a goal and, thankfully, we took that. It’s not about me tonight. It’s about a gritty team performance, front to back.”
LA GALAXY FORWARD GYASI ZARDES
On the game:
“It was a tough game. To be honest we could have been better, but you got to win ugly sometimes. I thought it was an ugly game and we won.”
On his header in the first half:
“Yeah, he got a good hit on me before I made contact with the ball, but I should have been prepared for it.”
On the crosses and close calls:
“Yeah. If I’m playing out wide I’m trying to find the striker. I’m just trying to be as deadly as I possibly can be and I just have to keep working.”
On the team’s confidence:
“We’re just trying to get more chemistry. Now that we’re back together … we still haven’t had a full, healthy team … but we’re still working on it.”
LA GALAXY DEFENDER A.J. DELAGARZA
On the team’s home record:
“When you look around the league I think everyone has a better home record than road record. You are just more comfortable, your fans, there’s a bit of an edge to that.”
On closing out games with a win:
“We’ve given up a lot of late goals, lately we’ve been defending well. Thankfully, three shutouts in a row, one in Open Cup, so yea we are getting the shutouts and we are getting goals so now we just have to play better. We know that inside this locker room it has not been pretty, and when it has been pretty we’ve lost. So we’ll take the three points and continue to get better.”
HOUSTON DYNAMO HEAD COACH WADE BARRETT
On the team’s performance:
“Disappointed with how the game turned out. This is a team that you can’t really have a lack of concentration for any play over the course of the night. I thought there were a couple plays where we lacked a little concentration and we got punished for one of them. You look at the last number of years this is a one of the best teams in the league at finishing out a 1-0 game and you know, we got in the hole. I did think the team showed a lot of fight to try and get that goal back and a lot of teams have a hard time coming here and playing and I thought after the goal there was a good response from the group. I thought Christian Maidana came in and brought some energy. I thought we still looking dangerous at the end of the game so I was pleased with that.”
On Houston being unable to shut down LA’s passing lanes in the second half:
“I thought in the first 15 minutes or so we were not as solid as what I was hoping. I thought we sorted that out and the rest of the first half, I thought we did a real good job. We limited the amount of space they had on the inside, which when they have Giovani dos Santos checking inside and Robbie Keane coming off the front line and Steven Gerrard picks spots in there to find the ball…I thought we did a good job on that. We talked at halftime that one of the options they had was getting that ball in behind us and we needed to make sure that, number one, we either stepped and put pressure so that ball didn’t happen or, number two, we just always had to step and you have to pay attention to that line. You’ll have to look back for yourself and see if Keane was offside on that initial play. But regardless of that, I don’t think we responded well and we still got beat down the field for Gerrard’s goal. So we’ll have to talk about that and look at it. But like I said, kind of a lapse of concentration. You can’t let that happen against a team like this.”
On the team’s road game struggles:
“I don’t think we’re in a funk. I’ve been in charge since the Vancouver game. We’ve got some great results on the road. I don’t think there’s any kind of funk. I don’t think there’s any kind of results that happened at the beginning of the year that are affecting the group right now. This was a tough game. They’re one of the best teams at home. I thought we came in and went toe to toe. We were close to getting a goal. We fought till the end. I don’t think this team is in a funk. If that goal happened and you see us roll over and lose three or four nil, I think you could say that. But right now I don’t think it’s fair to say that. I thought the team fought. I’m really proud of the effort.
On the team’s upcoming U.S. Open Cup match with Dallas:
“We approach it with excitement and opportunity. It’s a quarterfinal in a big tournament. The guys have fought hard to get there. We’ve got a couple days to rest and recover and we’ll be ready to go. It’s a great opportunity for us.”
On the team’s offensive approach lately:
“We had a game in Orlando last week where we created 16 chances to their seven. So I’m not too disappointed with the stuff we’ve had going forward. Now we haven’t scored as many goals, but we’ve just been a little bit off. A lot of people talked about it in this last week, but I thought we did a pretty good job. Of course I want to score more goals and I thought in this particular game that Giles Barnes up top and his threat in behind would cause some problems and every time we look to find them in behind their two centerbacks, he was the first one to it. So that was a good look for us. It brought us up the field quite a few times. Then we’ve got creative players and when they join…Boniek Garcia is good when he gets into positions like that. Andrew Wenger has been good. Maidana is active when he gets in the game. So we were looking to trying to stretch the field in the game and I thought Giles did that. We couldn’t find the goal tonight, but like I said, this is a tough place to play on the road and the guys fought for the 90 minutes.”
HOUSTON DYNAMO MIDFIELDER BONIEK GARCIA
[Translated from Spanish]
On the Galaxy:
“They are a good team when they play at home and it makes it difficult for us. We had a couple of chances but we weren't able to put them away. They were able to put away their chance.”
On being in last place:
“The idea is to get out of last place but it's been difficult. We have to continue working hard and there are still plenty of games left for us to get points and move up the standings.”
HOUSTON DYNAMO FORWARD GILES BARNES
On the team's performance:
“We did well. I thought we were effective going forward and we should have taken a few more chances but I think overall it was an even game. We deserve more than what we got.”
On the team not being able to finish chances.
“We hit the post in the last minute in Orlando. The keepers made a couple of good saves today. It's just bad luck.”
HOUSTON DYNAMO DEFENDER SHEANON WILLIAMS
On the team's performance:
“I think we did a good job eliminating their time on the ball which was something that we knew we had to do to keep them from having good chance on goal. I thought we could have done a little bit better on their goal. It's definitely a tough one to give up especially something that we could prevent pretty easily. I thought we had some chances. I thought we were growing into the game. I thought overall we did a good job and definitely unfortunate not to come away with at least a point but have to move forward and we have to start picking up points, as many as we can and as best as we can.”
On the team's road problems:
“Obviously tonight I think we were tough to break down I think that was what they were looking for just a lapse in concentration from us and we gave them that and they scored a goal.”
On the team's offensive performance:
“I thought Giles [Barnes] did a really good job of working their center backs and I think we have to do a better job of creating more clear chances on goal but I thought that we were definitely having chances on their goal that we can definitely do a little bit better on.”
