LA Galaxy 3, St Louis 3
Q. Start with the officiating, seemed a little frustrating, may be a safe word?
GREG VANNEY: Yeah, I was frustrated. I felt like the standard was of what's a foul, what's not a foul, was off and I felt like that was consistent for the night. So sometimes it happens and I felt like it happened tonight.
Q. Was there any discussions with a fourth official at least on some of those calls, maybe the early yellow card for Cáceres seems to be a normal foul, but then that leads up to the second card that sends him off.
Yeah, was there any discussion? Not really. It was more I think me saying my peace and being appeased but not really discussion about anything, and I think to be fair, some of my frustration probably didn't warrant sometimes a discussion but there were times when it certainly did. But there wasn't going to be an answer or a justification or anything in the situation. I just felt like -- and it wasn't -- I don't know if it was major calls, major moments, I didn't see the third goal on J-Mac there. I didn't see what happened. I felt like he was definitely in his space. The question was the contact before, I didn't see it.
I just felt like the flow of the game, they are a pressing team, and they get in your space and they get in your space. And I'll say this forever and I'll say it to everyone: If the standard of a foul is off when you play these teams that are in your face and up your back and grabbing you from behind and doing all that stuff, then it's going to be tough for the team that wants to have possession and wants to play. That's one of the reasons I think it's kind of hard to do what we do in our league sometimes is to want to have the ball and want to manipulate the opposition. Because you can have nights like tonight where if the opposition takes risks and no foul is called, you can be on the wrong side of something really quick. You know, I felt like the standard was just a little bit off tonight. But again, that can happen and I felt like it happened today. It's my opinion. Others can have their own opinion.
Having said that, we missed and/or Bürki made a bunch of great saves and we missed some chances that we shouldn't even have been in the game honestly in my opinion. We should have buried enough of our chances because they were really good chances. They weren't just kind of good chances. They were really good chances, and we didn't bury them. Dejan had multiple that he wasn't able to finish on the night. Again sometimes Bürki made great saves, and sometimes we headed against the crossbar from four yards away. Just a lot of really good chances.
They are a tough team to play. They make it difficult on you because they are super committed in the press and the defensive side, and they work hard. But as you saw that that can also open up some gaps that we took advantage of and some space in behind that Joseph took advantage of. But we didn't punish them when we got into those spots enough. And having said, that we still stored three goals, but we didn't punish them enough. I think there was six or more for us tonight if we are clinical.
Q. First off, maybe talk a little about what Martín did at the end, sacrificed himself for a result, and yeah, let's just start with that. And off of that, as you say, a game that you guys should have scored a few goals, it shouldn't have been a game to come back and get the winning goal or the decisive goal in stoppage time. Does it make it feel a little bit like a win?
First, let's talk about Martín. He's a warrior, first and foremost, and he is -- obviously he's been around the block a time or two, and he's dealing with a guy with a lot of speed and a lot of pace and a lot of power. He knew he could take no chance in the guy getting by him if we were going to end that play. So he had to sacrifice himself for it, and I felt like Maya should have grabbed him earlier and that would have saved Martín because Martín already had the yellow. But Martín did what he had to do and it was professional, and it probably saved us a bit there.
As far as the team coming back, look, I'm proud of them for fighting back and getting the equalizer and staying in it and keep putting things in dangerous positions and getting it. Did it feel like a win? No. It still doesn't feel like a win. I think it felt a little bit like kind of a draw, I guess.
But I felt like when you leave so many opportunities on the table, and again, they weren't for me. They are not half-opportunities. These are really good opportunities. You know, like again, there's three more of those that have to hit the back of the net. I know Bürki is a really good goalkeeper; he's one of the best in our league, but they were maybe a little too much in his wheelhouse for him to make those saves, and they need to be a little more tucked in the corner and a little bit better finished. But certainly, he had a good night, and we weren't clinical enough.
Q. And just to I guess confirm, Martín's was a straight red at the end, wasn't it?
It appeared to be. I thought he played the ball, though.
Q. We saw, and we've seen a little bit of this in all of the games so far, we are seeing some giveaways at times in areas where you don't want to be giving the ball away, and I know you guys are looking for possession and you want to play out of the back but in terms of balancing that risk factor and needing --
It can't happen. It's happening too much and it can't happen. And it makes us vulnerable. It's something we've talked about all through preseason that we can't force plays through the middle of field. Every team in the League knows that we want to try to combine in the middle of field and we have the tendency to over combine, especially these teams that press and are aggressive and are going to get in your space and they are going to take a risk to come through you and to get really tight. When you overplay these things, you can get tackled. You can get things rebounded off of you.
There's a lot of things that they just can't happen. The majority of our success tonight came when we built off of the outsides and we got them in their rotations and pulled them apart and ran through the channels and opened them up and squared the ball back across. That's where vast majority of it -- you still have to use the middle of the field, but the middle of the field is to connect you to each of the slides. You don't need to play straight through the middle of the field; they are asking for big problems. So it will be something that we continue to harp on and discuss and make sure that we are more mindful of.
Q. Is it fair to say the the defense overall in the game played okay? You gave up two set piece goals, and there's the giveaway in the middle with Edwin and Riqui. Is the defense coming along in the way that you have expected so far and especially in this game?
Yeah, to be fair, I've been pleased with our defending for most of the year. We haven't -- we've kept our expected goals pretty low except for last week, it was a ball with chest down in the box; and a penalty after a very good effort to recover and then turns into a penalty out of nothing.
Teams are going to get chances but I feel like we've limited the chances outside a few of those moments. The set pieces tonight certainly caused us a problem. We knew that coming in they are a big team, and they will put balls in on top of the goal. And you have to be able to defend set pieces against these guys. We didn't do that well enough tonight.
But I do, I do think the defending has been solid and has been better about you you've got to eliminate -- it's about all moments. It's not just about, you know, those moments.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports