LA Galaxy slipped to yet another low during the weekend after suffering a 5-2 thrashing at the hands of Portland Timbers.
The team has managed only one win since the 5-1 thrashing of New York City back in August. It has raised concerns about manager Bruce Arena, who may be on the verge of leaving the club if poor results persist. The poor results are surprising considering that LA Galaxy strengthened the team massively with the arrival of Steven Gerrard a few months ago. This coupled with several star names like Robbie Keane should see LA Galaxy comfortably dominating the table.
However, this latest round of poor result left the club at the danger of being overtaken by the likes of Vancouver Whitecaps or Portland Timbers in the upcoming games. The two teams are only one point behind LA Galaxy after having played the same number of matches. This defeat has also allowed FC Dallas to extend their advantage to 6 points. It remains to be seen if Arena will be able to recover from this massive slump in confidence. Arena had no complaints about the defeat because he felt that Portland Timbers were the best team through the 90 minutes, but he did promise more improvements in the next match.
“Soundly beaten, if I could tell you exactly it wouldn’t have happened but let’s give Portland credit. They dominated us in the second half and deserved to win the game. If you look at individual battles, their eleven against our eleven; they just thoroughly dominated us in a physical nature I’d say. It wasn’t tactical; it wasn’t anything more than I thought their desire to win that game and fight and work was much greater than ours. Whatever. Learning experience. These are adults. They should learn this stuff by now,” said Arena.