The Galaxy enters the sixth game of the season unbeaten and in second place in the Western Conference and second in the league in scoring with 12 goals.
After last season’s struggles, that should be cause for celebration.
One early area for concern has been defending set pieces, most notably corner kicks. Of the nine goals allowed this season, five have come on corner kicks, though one went into the record books as an own goal.
“We’ve talked about it and we think we need just a bit more urgency,” Galaxy goalkeeper John McCarthy said. “Just holding each other, including myself, more accountable. They’re tough ones to give up, especially late before half. How we give up the set pieces is more frustrating than giving up the goal. How we turn over the ball or don’t track back and stuff like that and then you have to defend a set piece.”
Against St. Louis City SC, the Galaxy allowed two goals – including the own goal – off corner kicks in a 3-3 draw. Last week against Sporting Kansas City, both goals came off corner kicks in a 12-minute span, sending the Galaxy into halftime trailing 2-0.
“If it’s the run of the play and they score a Golazo or a crazy goal, you take your hat off … that happens,” McCarthy said. “When it’s sometimes that’s preventable, which a lot of these things are, you have to hold yourself accountable and really dig deep and find a way together to get through it.”
The Galaxy (2-0-3) returns home Saturday to face the Seattle Sounders, a team near the bottom of the Western Conference, but one that could certainly take advantage of any defensive lapses.
“I think we’re not being aggressive enough to attack the ball. Three of the five set pieces have come off of scenarios where we lost the ball in our half of the field. We then have to crisis-defend the situation in kind of a passive state, where you’re defending under pressure, and then I feel like we’ve translated that into not very aggressive posture on the set pieces,” Galaxy coach Greg Vanney said.
“As we said to the guys, the zone guys have to attack the ball, the marking guys have to make sure their guys don’t touch the ball. We need to be aggressors and goalkeeper needs to attack the ball. If he’s going to come for it, he needs to go for it and it just seems like our zone guys are falling backward a little bit instead of going to the ball and we lost a guy or two on the marking side of things. We have to be aggressive … we have to fix it.”
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Vanney also added that he believes the team is conceding too many corners.
“If you’re going to give up 11 corners in a game, then you’re putting yourself in harm’s way,” he said. “That comes down to our collective defending inside of the run of the play and last week we were too spread out, too open, which then led to numerous moments where we’re having to defend set pieces. I think we should be defending anywhere from 2-4 (corner kicks) over the course of the game, I don’t think we should be defending 11.”
Seattle Sounders at LAFC
When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday
Where: Dignity Health Sports Park
TV: Apple TV (MLS Season Pass)