St. Louis 2, L.A. Galaxy 1
Q. Jalen, just looking at the result today, obviously not the way that you guys wanted to play, from the defensive side of things, you know, giving up two goals both I think in transition or trying to play out of the back a little bit, what needs to improve in that?
JALEN NEAL: I think our mindfulness on the ball is definitely something that we can improve. You know, kind of deciding where we can take risks on the field and where we can't take risk sis an important thing. The coach reiterated that in the locker room. He said at this time of the season, you know, sorry, many I mind is pretty slow right now, I'm really tired.
But he said every decision we make at this part of the season ends up having a sequence, whether good or bad, so dealing with how we take our risks on the field is a really big thing for us.
Q. Do you feel like the defense is working its way into that playoff form you guys need?
I think we have been in the playoff form. Once again, I think it's just you know, obviously different games, you're going to have different intensities. You know, different things are going to happen. But I think we already have the chemistry to be into the playoffs right now. Obviously we are dealing with some injuries and people being sidelined or not.
So we don't have our full roster but I think we are already playoff ready to be honest. It just comes down to us putting in the work each and every game and securing that first place spot.
Q. You talk about you guys being able to lock up first place. How much of a forefront is that, having No. 1 and home-field advantage over the next six games?
It's huge, getting first place sets us up for many home games in the playoffs and that's what everybody team wants. They want home-field advantage and we play best at home. It's a no-brainer for us to go out and get first place.
Q. You mentioned also, about there being a lot of risks in the midfield. Is there like a lot of frustration between you guys in the back line, having to be put in these emergency defensive situations pretty often compared to last year?
I wouldn't necessarily say so. The whole team knows what we are getting into with our style of play. It's not something that I'm aiming at the midfield. We all know what happens with our style of play. We like to keep the ball and we like to break teams down with our play.
So there's going to be times where we lose the ball in the midfield and we have to set ourselves up to counterpress and win the ball back quickly or at least be in good positions so where we don't get counterattacks and they can't make a chance off of us losing the ball. That's just something that's going to come with our style of play and we all just kind of have to deal with it.
Q. No doubt a disappointing game today, one you wish could you take a mulligan but to keep it positive, what does it mean for a player like you, we know his quality on the pitch but to have a player of the quality of Marco Reus to be in the game this part of the season off the pitch and in the locker room what does that mean collectively, individually and as a team?
Individually it's always nice to have another high, experience player in the locker room. Someone you can to when you have issues on or off the field. Someone who is experienced in more facets of life than you, it's always nice to have a guy like that in the locker room. Especially coming from Europe, it's a whole different atmosphere and environment and somewhere eventually want to be.
Having guys like that on the team is a huge between at this time to young players like me as a collective, he benefits our team in a crucial way. I think bringing him kind of just adds more eyes on to another player on our team and just adds quality to the high quality we have already.
It's just, you know, elevates our squad even more, and a huge transfer for us to be honest. He's been a really cool guy on and off the field and we are all loving to getting to know him. FastScripts by ASAP Sports ...
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports