ORLANDO, FL— It’s time for the LA Galaxy to look in the mirror and ask themselves the hard questions.
That was the sentiment emanating out of the Galaxy locker room after the team suffered their worst defeat in nearly two years by dropping a 4-0 result to expansion club Orlando City SC. The loss was the Galaxy’s widest margin of defeat since their 5-0 rout to the New England Revolution back in June 2013.
Defensive miscues proved to be the Galaxy’s undoing as costly turnovers, unfortunate deflections and even a questionable penalty allowed Orlando City to thump the defending champions en route to their first home win in history.
“It was our mistakes that led to three of their goals… We’re definitely angry, no one likes losing especially when we are representing the Galaxy. It’s just not who we are. Look at ourselves in the mirror and move on,” said defender A.J. DeLaGarza. “[We] have to get better every week and try different things. Sometimes they don’t work; this is one of those times. We need to move on. It’s just a night where a lot of us didn’t do well. We need to look forward to Houston on Friday.”
Orlando’s completely outplayed the defending MLS Cup champions across the field. While the defense made numerous mistakes, the Galaxy’s attack was toothless.
Across 90 minutes, LA could not generate anything offensively due to their inability to string passes together.
With the midfield unable to link up with the strikers, the Galaxy did not register a shot on goal until Alan Gordon’s speculative effort in the 89th minute.
“We’re playing a lot of different guys in a lot of different spots, the flow is obviously not there, I thought we had something to do with it, but we got to look at ourselves in the mirror, and we got to have a better effort next weekend,” Gordon told reporters after the defeat. “When you take a big loss like this, it hurts deep, and you got to make a real assessment of what is going on out there and change things.
“We should be upset, we should be very upset. Take it personal and not let it happen again.”
With the loss, the Galaxy have dropped two consecutive games for the second time in 2015. Prior to the 2015 campaign, the last time that LA had dropped two-straight in league play was back in July 2013.
With injuries taking their toll on the Galaxy, could this defeat—and LA’s recent five game winless streak— be more aberration than trend?
Well, the Galaxy boss certainly hopes so.
“It better be an aberration,” Arena said. “If not, that’s not a good sign.”
Adam Serrano is the LA Galaxy Insider. Read his blog at LAGalaxy.com/Insider and contact him at LAGalaxyInsider@Gmail.com.
