LA Galaxy 4-2 new England Revs
After a first-half completely dominated by the LA Galaxy scoring three goals, New England came bak at 3-2 before Steven Gerrard sealed the win for the Angelinos. Quotes after the game:
LA GALAXY HEAD COACH BRUCE ARENA
On having Robbie Keane and Steven Gerrard return:
“It’s good to get both of those players back. Obviously they give us quality and experience. We know what those two players offer and it would certainly be nice to get [Nigel] de Jong back at some point and start getting our team a little bit better assembled as we continue to move forward in the season.”
On if he had a planned amount of minutes he wanted to play Steven Gerrard and Robbie Keane:
“Yes. It was 60 and 30 [minutes].”
On the how dangerous the trio of Robbie Keane, Gyasi Zardes and Giovani dos Santos was to New England:
“It didn’t look like that to me around the 65th minute. They had a pretty good run at us for 20 minutes or so. We can play better. Surprising, but I thought New England hit the wall in the first half physically. After 30 minutes they looked dead with the heat and we looked dead in the last 20 or so minutes. Who knows with all of this, but we are capable of being a pretty good team. We need a lot more work together, a lot more coordination…the challenges in the league will continue. Obviously the game on Wednesday is going to be a real tough one to get our team ready to play. It’s never easy. We’ve got some points now and we’re happy about that, but this is not a cakewalk by any means.”
On what defensive issues exist for LA Galaxy:
“I’ll worry about that after I look at a little tape or whatever. I think fatigue set in here. I don’t think our midfield did a good job during that segment either.”
On what Robbie Keane brought to the squad in the win: I think he, Giovani [dos Santos] and Gyasi [Zardes]did a real good job. They were dangerous for the most part, some really good movement. Out of the two of them there were three goals produced. I thought Gyasi Zardes had one of his best games of the year. I thought he played very well. So it was encouraging to see our three highest players be pretty dangerous for most of the game.”
LA GALAXY MIDFIELDER STEVEN GERRARD
On the nice way to come back from injury:
“Yeah, it was not at the beginning. I was thinking, ‘Is this all my fault?’ It didn’t go well, the 30 minutes when I came on they came back into the game. They were showing an awful amount of more energy than us at the time. It was nice at the end to finish the game off and a good three points for us in the end.”
On how he feels after playing 30 minutes:
“Physically I am fine. I probably could have played a bit longer but Bruce [Arena] obviously thinking further down the line, we have a game coming up in 72 hours so I think it was sensible to just play 30 today and be available to more minutes come Wednesday.”
On how nice it was to have Robbie Keane back in the lineup:
“Yes, of course, he is our captain and he’s our leading goal scorer. You all know him better than me, what you’ve seen here over the years. To welcome that goal threat back into the team and the squad is great to see.”
On today being the second time all three Designated Players score in the same game:
“I hope it’s not a coincidence. I hope it continues. We enjoy playing together. Me and Giovani [dos Santos] haven’t been here too long and it’s always going to take time for us all to settle and get used to each other and for everyone else in the roster to get used to us as well. But we are all settling in and we are playing some really good stuff going forward. I think the learning thing for this team is when we get in front and we get that healthy lead we need to shut up shop and stop conceding goals.”
LA GALAXY FORWARD ROBBIE KEANE
On the match:
“It was a good result for us. The first half was obviously very, very good. We got three goals and we looked very comfortable. Naturally, in games, you’re going to get teams that are going to maybe push on a little bit and that was the case in the second half. We managed to hold on and with [Steven Gerrard’s] goal, obviously he eased the nerves of everyone in the stadium.”
On second half:
“You don’t want to concede goals, of course. To concede two goals in four minutes is obviously disappointing. We got the result, we got the three points, and that’s the most important thing of course. But we have to look at that, and as a group, certainly defend better, but at the end of the day, we got the three points.”
On the team’s formation:
“I said to the players before the game, I told them to not get caught up in systems and stuff like that. When you’re playing a game, you can set a system for the team, and you can write on the board and it’s obviously static there, but when you’re playing the game, everyone is running all over the place. If everybody works for each other and gets each other in decent positions, sometimes it could look like a 4-5-1, sometimes it could look like a 4-4-2… I think we rotated very, very well in terms of when we had to go in and drop in to help the midfield, sometimes pushing on the left and sometimes pushing on the right, we did well. I think [Emmanuel Boateng] and [Sebastian Lletget] certainly did well tucking in and helping Jeff [Larentowicz].”
