CARSON, Calif. -- LA Galaxy head coach Bruce Arena spoke to reporters following the club's 2-1 victory over FC Shirak on Saturday.
Arena's comments are below.
On his thoughts about the game:
"I thought it was a very good exercise for our team tonight. Very good for our fitness, good to get back playing together, good for evaluating players. I thought the pace of the game in the first half was good for the first time out, so I think that was a real positive. We had a couple of chances perhaps we could have finished in the first half, the second half had the two good goals and might have been a little sloppy giving away a goal, but I think overall the 90 minutes was good for us, and I think we got a lot out of it."
On the play of Emmanuel Boateng:
"I think he did well. Our players are learning a little bit about him, and he has to figure out some of our players. He was dangerous at times with a good effort on both sides of the ball, and I think he had a good performance."
On the play of Jose Villarreal:
"Two good goals, no question about that. You could see his fitness has to get a little bit better, that is always a challenge for Jose, but he is a good player, he is a player that we think has a future with the Los Angeles Galaxy. We keep pushing him every year to get him a little better; last year was a difficult year for him. He started off well and just suffered a series of injuries throughout the year, so that kind of put him out last year. We are hopeful he can stay healthy and get some experience this year."
On the partnership between Baggio Husidic and Steven Gerrard:
"It was alright. First time out I thought it was okay, we will keep looking at that as we go through the pre-season. There are other options we will have there as well."
On the play of Robbie Rogers:
"Robbie is probably more of a right footed player than a left-footed player, so the transition to the other side should be pretty easy, and I think he had a solid night. He can easily make this transition, easier than most players; he really is a two footed player."
On whether he planned to remove Mike Magee early:
"Yes, that was the plan tonight."
On the level of play tonight from the Los Angeles Galaxy:
"I thought overall the night was good. Again, we saw a lot of good things out of the players, and as a group, they were attempting to do some of the things we have been working on so that is good. Hopefully a week from today, we have another game scrimmage, and hopefully, we can pick up some of the minutes for our players and keep getting better. We have to push pretty hard over the next couple of weeks to try and catch up to our Mexican friends [Santos Laguna] to be in a position to give them a good game."
