Austin 2, LA Galaxy 0
Q. Can we start with the first, I guess, 20, 25 minutes there, what did you see there that let them get the jump on you guys?
GREG VANNEY: We didn't show up for the first 20 minutes. I mean, it was as simple as that. We weren't -- we weren't competitively there, whether it was defending, doing the work, getting close to guys. We just weren't to the speed that we needed to be at, and the game tilted on us really fast.
So for me, just an unacceptable start. We talked about these early games, it was imperative to get off to a good start because the difference can be in the first 15 minutes. And we came out and laid an egg for the first 15 minutes, 20 minutes, and we found ourselves chasing an uphill battle for the rest of the game.
You know, even at times through the game, even though we had our moments and stretches of controlling things, still, just things were a little bit too slow and a little bit too passive. We conceded ground on the defensive side a lot.
So yeah, we just -- we ended up putting in a lot of work but a lot of work that didn't come to much in terms of fruits for the labor. And makes for a frustrating day.
Again, as I said to the guys, having momentum in this league is ever so precious, and you want to make sure that you don't do anything to spoil that momentum, and come out and lay it all out on the line and really compete from the opening whistle and if a team beats us, they beat us. But we just can't even arrive in the first 20-plus minutes.
And then we tried to push for it thereafter, and we just couldn't get the -- you know, we couldn't get the final actions. They had a lot of numbers in front of the goal. We obviously shifted Miguel out and tried to slide Joe in and bring Diego on and see if we could just speed up some things, and there just wasn't a ton of space. And we weren't really moving it fast enough to create anything meaningful there even in the second half, even though there were a couple moments that looked like they could build and a couple moments that -- I didn't see anything with the handball shouts or anything. So I just don't know what any of that was.
So, anyways, that was a long-winded answer to your first 20 minutes.
Q. As you guys did get yourselves, trying to play -- connect with Berry, what is the status of Joveljic going forward here?
Yeah, with Miguel, again, just he has not played a ton of minutes with the group and I felt a little bit just timing and rhythm and certain things there weren't as precise as we would like them to be.
He always puts in a shift and he's always going to do some of the work. Again, it just comes down to how connected is the work to everybody else and what we are trying to get done for the day. There wasn't anything specifically I felt like he wasn't doing. I just was trying to shift some of our bodies around and see if we could speed up some things and you know try to use Joe's quickness between those center backs and tried something a little different on locks in situations. But they ended up so deep, there wasn't a ton of space to work with, and because we controlled so much of the second half, it just was, again, a lot of set possessions, controlled possessions, but there wasn't a lot of space to work with some of their speed or quicker guys.
Dejan, he's going to be week-to-week. He is -- he's been kind of playing with a bit of a hip injury that has been holding him back. I mean, he's honestly probably been at 75 percent the last few games and it's just get to go a point where you want to keep doing this at 75 percent or do we need to try to shut him down and get him on to the right side of things, knowing that we have a really busy may from us and I don't want to keep jamming him through this busy May.
So the sooner we can get him over the hump on this hip issue that he has, then we'll get him back to a hundred percent. So we are just kind of week-to-week and see how much we can push. We don't see it as anything long term, but we'll see how available he could even be next week.
Q. I think in the later stages of this game, you guys were pushing for it. We've seen when teams play against you, they tend to drop a lot of numbers back. Do you guys feel like you guys are close to breaking through when teams do that, and you know, there was some like half-chances in this game but do you feel like your squad is close to being able to capitalize on those moments when teams do retreat?
Yeah, I think there's a couple parts to that. One is, again, we don't -- we've got to do a better job of not starting slow and getting ourselves behind the game one and two goals because then it certainly incentivizes the opposition to sit a little bit lower and really kind of protect the face of the goal. That's one of the things.
The second is, just the speed of our final actions when we are in possessions and we do find those moments that we need to break, with the timing of things, needs to be sharper. I feel like we weren't so sharp on that side of things so that we can get to the necessary spots.
And the third is, if a team is sitting that deep, you don't necessarily want all of your guys to be kind of small guys in the box. You'd have to have some kind of presence in the box, and having shifted Miguel out, we lost the size, and obviously not having Dejan, and you lose the second option as a striker.
So that became a little bit of the challenge because now as you're putting crosses in, it's a little more difficult to win things in the air. You're playing off either perfect crosses that land on guys heads or second balls or quick actions where you're able to combine or get behind or get between the seams and get shots off, which becomes -- you have to be really precise in those moments.
I think we certainly have the capability to do it. I think we need to not put ourselves in a situation where we're having to do that a lot, and if an opposition chooses to sit low on us, we have to really be able to control games more or less like we did in the second half but be more fruitful on how we go about our attacks and finishing things.
Q. On the topic of Dejan, you mentioned the hip injury, but the MLS report had it as a thigh injury. I don't know if you can clarify what the issue is?
Yeah, I mean, I don't know, the hip bone is connected to the high bone. It all kind of in that same region. I have to give you or get medical to give a specific answer as to what's going on. I know somewhere between thigh and hip. It's not a specific strain but there's an issue in there that is limiting his ability to really sprint and strike balls and do stuff like that at a hundred percent, and that's something we've got to clean up early. Can't let it keep going.
Q. And Jalen made his return back to the pitch after seven months. So I mean, how good is it to see him out there? I know he had to get extra minutes coming in the second half.
Yeah, it was great to get Jalen going. MartÃn is managing an issue himself, and I felt like in the first half, he'll be the first one to tell you that he just didn't feel like could he step tight to people and get close. So he was dropping and trying to control the depth and the space.
When we do that, we concede a lot of territory from us. It became difficult for us to sustain attacks. And then we're playing a long field, and I think a lot of that is just he's trying to manage, it's more of a neuro injury that he's having, some pain, but it just was limiting him, which means that when we saw that going on, we wanted to get Jalen, it was a good opportunity. Jalen has got enough in his tank from his return to play and having a couple games with the second team that he was ready to get in this game.
And so it gave us an opportunity to start to get him going. It was good to see him out there. He's going to still continue to have to work towards getting his rhythm and getting a lot of his decisions and things like that, timing, stuff like that worked out just because he has not played in a while but I thought this was a good game because we had a lot of the ball in the second half and he was able to do a lot more just counter-pressing and finding passes and things like that. He didn't have to do a ton of defensive work which maybe is a good way to get yourself back and going after a long stint away.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports