LA Galaxy 3, Vancouver 1
Q. Outside of the set piece goal, maybe this one sort of played out the way that you wanted.
GREG VANNEY: Yeah, I thought our possession was good. I thought the ball moved faster today. It's a slow field to begin with but I thought we got the ball moving. I thought we were in good spots.
In the first half I felt like we were getting to those good sort of attacking positions but then we needed to find that next gear to really get behind them and turn those opportunities into chances because we were getting to where we wanted to get to. But then it became like the game just slowed down a little bit when we got there and we needed to speed it up. But we got the goals. The second half we came out, and all these games, they kind of tend to open up and goals change games, and that started to come. Down the stretch the game was getting a little bit stretched out, and nowadays when the games get stretched out, we do have speed that can kill as well.
I was pleased with the -- again, I was pleased with the play. I was pleased with the quality of the play. I was pleased with the effort and the commitment the guys made. Again, we don't like the set piece goal that we gave up. We have to continue to work at that. But a lot of good things came out of tonight, and including just the -- I thought the collective effort and the commitment and kind of sticking to the plan for a good stretch of the game. Then once it opens up, things open up and you have to go for them when they open up and that helped to give separation.
John made a couple big saves and one in particular that then led to the goal on the other side, almost like one minute later, and that was a huge save that then got the game going again. Like I said, going in the other direction that would then lead to Dejan's goal, and that was big. A lot of good performances out there tonight.
Q. Focusing on Riqui, and not criticism, but you guys were talking about how you wanted him to get the ball off his foot quicker and find some of that space. Seemed like he put in some nice passes; is that fair?
Definitely. I think when the ball moves fast, everybody has a little better space. The timing is better. Everything kind of loads. It's a little more predictable for each other, and everything looks better when the ball flows. It's when we dribble looking for solutions, where if we do that a lot and multiple guys are doing that then it just really becomes bogged down, and I feel like everybody really focused tonight on keeping the ball moving. The moments where we dribbled to find solutions were fewer and far between, and the ball movement was much more the key to the day; and if we can do that, as I said to these guys, I don't think there's many teams that can play as fast as we can and get the speed of the game going as fast as we can.
So we need to make sure we try to stay in that space as much as possible and try not to slow things down with too many touches or too many pauses in action. There's the right times to do that but we just want to keep the game moving quick if we can. Then we can separate people and utilize our speed.
I thought Riqui was great. I thought a lot of guys had good nights like I said. We looked a little bit different ways to create space and find space but obviously used Joseph in a little bit different role tonight which also gave us another number kind of higher up the field at times. So that was -- it was good. I think it worked out for the night. It's not necessarily something that's going to be every day but it worked out for the night. It was good spots for us.
Q. You guys are 3-1-1 on the road right now, the only team in Major League Soccer with three wins on the road, also you guys have played five road games, and that also goes into that. What does it mean for that and also looking now atop the Western Conference again?
Again, I said this last week. We've had a really tough schedule to start the season, when you look at the opponents we've had, we've it, like you said, five of eight on the road, we've played some teams that we haven't had great records against over the last three to five years, and we've gone to tough places, got results. We've played teams that have given us a hard time. We've got results. This place has not been friendly to us the last couple of years and we had a good performance tonight and got three points.
So I think the work that we're doing and focusing on the things that we need to focus on to keep making strides and focusing on our performances, as I said to the guys, if we can focus on that, the results will continue to show for us.
I'm happy for these guys because they put in the work and it's nice to be back on top, but we know it's a lot of season left from us. So we just have to keep going one game at a time.
Q. You mentioned you used Joseph a little bit different today. In general can you give me your thoughts on his performance and what worked and what didn't work on the pitch for Joseph?
Again, I thought a lot of things worked. Like I said, I think there's times when not necessarily on Joseph but there's times when we got to good spots and we had the advantage and we didn't really accelerate the game in that moment. We kind of paused the game in that moment. We should have then kept the foot on the accelerator and gone. A couple times we slowed it down. If we would have kept the speed going, I think Joseph and a couple of the guys would have had a little more action in the final -- in the box and in the final play a little bit more.
But I thought his movement was smart. It's not a position he's played a ton of but I thought his movement was smart. I thought his work rate was excellent. And then at the end of the game we switched it and put him back on the outside and moved Riqui to the middle and got him flying to the outside, which is where the goal came from again. We played a little bit of the long game in this one and tried to take up some good positions for good stretches of the game and then slide something and make a little bit of a change in the latter part of the game so that when it was opening up to see if we could get Joseph facing forward a little bit more and running from wide positions to the inside, and he was able to benefit. And it was a hell of a pass from Riqui, too, to get him going.
Q. I wanted to ask about John McCarthy, making some big saves, keeping you guys in games. How important has he been as a goalkeeper, and also being the voice in the back line for you guys during open play situations?
Yeah, I think John has been great. We've said that. Again, what he brings to the team is very important. I think any time you're on the road, there's going to be moments when you need your keeper to come up with a save or two or three. And certainly, for us, John has done a good job of doing that and a great job in the last couple weeks
And tonight he made a couple big saves that like, you know, one in particular then turns into the transition that leads to the goal which is it's massive.
And so yeah, I'm really happy with what I don't know has been able to do and what's on able to bring to our group. Leadership and presence behind the back line is so important and it's nice to have him back there.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports