Match Preview Presented by O4 Water: LA Galaxy looking to find first away win at Houston Dynamo

Larry Morgan

CARSON, Calif. – The LA Galaxy’s Robbie Keane, named MLS Player of the Week after scoring his second consecutive hat trick in last Friday’s 5-2 victory over San Jose, had to go back to the second half of last season before he recalled the defending MLS Cup champions playing so well.

Across all competitions, the Galaxy have outscored their last seven opponents 28-7. They also have won their last six matches at StubHub Center.

But that’s at home, where they have lost just once this season, a 1-0 defeat to Vancouver on June 6, and only once since the 2014 season opener against Real Salt Lake.

The road, on the other hand, has been a struggle, to say the least. The Galaxy, aside from a U.S. Open victory at San Jose on July 1, have not won a league match since a 4-3 victory at Colorado last Aug. 20. The Galaxy (9-6-7) get another crack to reverse that disappointing run on Saturday in Houston against the Dynamo (6-8-6) at BBVA Compass Stadium (6 p.m., Time Warner Cable SportsNet, Time Warner Cable Deportes).

“Let’s not beat around the bush,” said Keane, who has seven goals and three assists in his last five games and pronounced himself fully recovered from a strained groin. “It hasn’t been good enough away from home. We know that. We need to start winning games away from home. If we want to be a top team we have to win away from home. That’s when you see a true champion.
“I’m fairly confident that we’re going to be. Certainly with the players we have now, the group we have at the moment, we’re not far off winning games away from home.”
The Galaxy’s road woes remain a painful subject to coaches and players.

They have been outscored 18-8 away from StubHub Center this season, including a 4-0 shellacking at the hands of expansion side Orlando City on May 17.

“We never even talk about it, so it’s not a big deal,” head coach Bruce Arena said of the team’s struggles away from home. “If it is (on players’ minds), they’re very fragile.
“They’ll be fine.”
Defender A.J. DeLaGarza acknowledged it’s getting to be an old story.
“And it’s going to be out there until we win a road game,” he said.

“We gotta get a win on the road, it’s as simple as that. We know what we can do at home, but we can bring that on the road and score goals?

“We’ve scored plenty of those our last two games here. We gotta do that on the road.”

Saturday’s game is this season’s third meeting between the teams, with the clubs drawein 1-1 on March 21 and the Galaxy winning 1-0 two months later. Both teams will be missing key players because of the Gold Cup. The absentees include the Galaxy’s Gyasi Zardes, Omar Gonzalez and Jaime Penedo and Houston’s Giles Barnes, who scored the game-winning goal in Jamaica’s 2-1 victory over the United States in Wednesday’s semifinals in Atlanta.

Arena grudgingly acknowledged his team has played better lately and is about to welcome Mexican international Giovani dos Santos to an already formidable lineup recently boosted by the addition of Steven Gerrard, but he cautioned there is a long way to go.

“Things have gotten better, but we have to be more consistent,” he said. “The next challenge is to grab three points on the road. There’s a lot of things that lie ahead that we have to work on and get better.”

Houston Dynamo vs. LA Galaxy
BBVA COMPASS STADIUM, Houston, Tex.
July 25, 2015 (MLS Game # 208)
6 pm PT (MLS Live, ROOT Sports SW, TWCSN-LA)

A pair of clubs in opposite positions in the Western Conference meet when the Houston Dynamo play host to the LA Galaxy in the third meeting of the season between the clubs. The Dynamo come into the match in ninth place in the division, eight points out of a playoff position, following their 2-0 loss at Real Salt Lake last weekend. The Galaxy are in second place, one point behind leaders FC Dallas, after yet another dominant home performance in a 5-2 victory against the San Jose Earthquakes at StubHub Center last Friday evening.

Robbie Keane scored a hat trick for a second consecutive match in league play – and his third in all competitions this season – and Steven Gerrard scored a goal and added an assist in his MLS debut, as the Galaxy rolled to a 5-2 win against the San Jose Earthquakes on Friday at StubHub Center.
Keane has seven goals and three assists in the last five games, which includes four wins at StubHub Center where the Galaxy have scored 19 goals. The back-to-back hat tricks were a second in MLS history (Eddie Johnson did it in the 2007 season).
The teams are meeting for the third time this season. The Galaxy’s Robbie Keane and the Dynamo’s Nate Sturgis traded goals in the opening 11 minutes as the clubs reached a 1-1 draw, March 21 at StubHub Center; Alan Gordon scored the game’s lone goal in second-half stoppage time for a Galaxy victory May 22 in Carson.
The win in the last meeting was the Galaxy’s first league victory against the Dynamo since May 25, 2011, a 1-0 win in Carson. The Dynamo had won four consecutive league meetings between the teams before the draw in the first encounter this year.

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REFEREE: Silviu Petrescu. AR1 (bench): Anthony Vasoli; AR2 (opposite): Kevin Klinger; 4th: Nima Saghafi MLS Career: 100 games; FC/gm: 27.6; Y/gm: 3.6; R: 14; pens: 18

SUSPENDED: HOU: Kofi Sarkodie (through July 26); Luis Garrido (caution accumulation; through July 26) … LA: Robbie Rogers (caution accumulation; through July 26)
WARNINGS:
SUSPENDED NEXT YELLOW CARD: HOU: Ricardo Clark, Kofi Sarkodie, Jermaine Taylor, Giles Barnes, Raul Rodriguez … LA: Baggio Husidic
SUSPENDED AFTER TWO YELLOW CARDS: LA: Juninho, Mika Vayrynen, Omar Gonzalez
DISABLED LIST: LA: Brian Perk (season-ending injury)
INTERNATIONAL ABSENCES: HOU: DaMarcus Beasley (USA, CONCACAF Gold Cup); Giles Barnes (Jamaica, CONCACAF Gold Cup) … LA: Alan Gordon, Omar Gonzalez, Gyasi Zardes (USA, CONCACAF Gold Cup); Jaime Penedo (Panama, CONCACAF Gold Cup)

HEAD-TO-HEAD
ALL-TIME (20 meetings): Dynamo 8 wins, 22 goals … Galaxy 7 wins, 20 goals … Ties 5
AT HOUSTON (10 meetings): Dynamo 5 wins, 12 goals … Galaxy 3 wins, 8 goals … Ties 2

Larry Morgan