CARSON, Calif. – LA Galaxy head coach Curt Onalfo spoke to reporters following the Galaxy’s scoreless draw with the Philadelphia Union.
His thoughts on the match:
“I thought we thoroughly outplayed the opponent. We possessed the ball well, moved the ball well, created plenty of goal scoring chances. If one of those goes in early, it’s a totally different game. Their tactic was to come in and defend and be dangerous on set pieces. I think that at times they looked dangerous on set pieces. But over the course of the game, I thought we performed and were the better team and fell short in terms of getting three points.”
On the impact of adding an extra midfielder to the lineup:
“We had just been bleeding goals. When you win the middle of the field and you’re able to press more efficiently – which if you saw our team I thought we pressed well tonight – you have a better chance to be better going forward and it just gives you better chances to win games. It was just something that we felt like we had to do and I thought it worked in the sense that we didn’t concede anything and we created enough chances where something’s got to go in and we lacked some quality.”
On getting the shutout and its impact on the team going forward:
“We have a group that, let’s be honest, we feel pressure. So when you feel pressure, sometimes you force things and you don’t have that extra pause and that extra amount of relaxation where you just put that play away. It’s been a very frustrating and difficult start for us. We’ve worked very hard, it’s not been for a lack of effort and results haven’t gone the way we’ve wanted them to go. So I feel like we saw a little bit of that tonight in the guys. They put in a great effort and they fought all the way through. And I thought defensively, we build on that for sure and then we just probably have to be a little looser and a little more confident in the final third because it’s coming.”
On what it will take to fix the team’s problems in the final third:
“I just think you bury one of the chances and the game shifts, the momentum shifts, the crowd was great tonight. It was disappointing not being able to reward the crowd for the energy and how much they were behind us and pushing for us. Because if one of those goes in, maybe a couple more go in. It’s just a matter of slowing down a bit and having a little bit less pressure and putting the ball in the back of the net.”
On how to get the team to loosen up:
“I think you just take away confidence from this game because that fight and concentration and how you defended is how you have to defend every game and then things start going your way. So we’ll keep pushing. There’s no magic answer for how to make that happen, it’s just a matter of making a play or two and things change.
