For the third time this season, the Galaxy walked off the field Wednesday at halftime at Dignity Health Sports Park facing a three-goal deficit.
The end result would be another 3-2 defeat, this time to the San Jose Earthquakes.
The Galaxy’s last three losses this season have been by scores of 3-2 — not exactly the best way to go into the second half of the season.
“There’s too many of these discussions, especially at home, when we are talking about getting ourselves behind and then we have a great response, but the response hasn’t been good enough,” Galaxy coach Greg Vanney said. “We’re seeking just that reliability from each guy as we step onto the field ... every game. Because that’s what professionalism is about and we need that.
“We can’t just make mistakes. It’s not acceptable anymore. Mistakes are putting the team in a hole, and making it very difficult to get ourselves out. If guys are consistently making mistakes, they won’t play. It’s now a situation where we’re in the second half of the season and it’s about reliability. I’m certainly frustrated about it and angry, and we’ll find a solution.”
What the current form has done for the Galaxy is take away any slack the club once had in the Western Conference standings.
The Galaxy (8-8-3, 27 points) are in seventh place, three points out of third place and just five points ahead of 12th place. The Galaxy will look to snap out of their slump today on the road against the Colorado Rapids.
“We are having a hard look at ourselves,” Galaxy defender Derrick Williams said. “The first 12 games or so, we were very good in the defense. And these last six or so games, we have really fallen off. It’s difficult to know exactly what’s going wrong. We just keep shooting ourselves on the foot in wrong times. And I don’t know if it’s mentally weak, as we concede (goals), like against LAFC we conceded two goals within two minutes.
“It’s just, we need to be able to have the right mindset, that these next 5-10 minutes they don’t score no matter what. We have to lock up shop and then ease our way back into the game, because we are going down these two goals so quickly, we are leaving a mountain to climb. And it’s difficult. But we watch film, we watch the goals back and it’s easy to finger-point, but it’s just about time we stop doing the talk and start acting and showing how good we can be. And being consistent.”
The Galaxy haven’t won consecutive games since April 3 and 9.
Since returning from the international break, the team has a 1-3-1 record.
“It’s not about the technical staff, it’s not about the fans,” Galaxy midfielder Victor Vazquez said. “It’s about the players that we are on the pitch and we have to show much more.”