No Home Depot Center Wi-Fi meant no blogging from the game tonight, but frankly that was a blessing.

This was another insipid, uninspired display from a Galaxy team numerically and qualitatively short on players committing the same old problems and saying the same old things.

There were fans with brown paper bags on their heads at the game.

Coach Frank Yallop is sick of it too.

“Just start the questions,” he said as he walked into the post-game press conference. “I’ve got no opening comments.”

If I hear someone from the organization use the word naive one more time I’ll have world champion boxer Ricky “The Hitman” Hatton (sitting next to David Beckham tonight in the AEG suite) give ’em a belt).

A sign one fan held in the stands tonight said it all: “Sampson never lost to Chivas.” Ouch.

Yallop pulled no punches of his own tonight.

“Our confidence level tonight was piss poor, especially at the back,” he said. “Anybody attacks us, we (soil) ourselves.”

It’s hardly worth discussing the game from a Galaxy perspective (although it should be noted the Dynamo clinched a playoff spot tonight).

Lets just say the tone was set when the Galaxy was forced to clear a ball off their goal line in the 10th minute. It went downhill from there.

It’s safe to say the “Peanuts” theme music used for the kids’ games at half time would have been appropriate for the main event.

Still, Alexi Lalas, president and general manager (for now) refused to guarantee Yallop his job as Toronto FC has done for Mo Johnston.

“We’re not going to discuss technical staffing at this point,” he said. “There’s a much bigger picture we have to assess when we look at the staffing of the organization.”

I’m not sure I even know what that means.

One possible translation: “I don’t have the authority to guarantee Frank his job. (Especially when mine is in jeopardy).”

Game story here.

Updated: The Houston Chronicle had a telling quote Monday from Dwayne De Rosario:

“The old Galaxy team was definitely a little more hungry,” he said adding that his team exploited the Galaxy’s lack of cohesion. “The team that doesn’t work together is basically destruction waiting to happen. They’re going to get down on each other and start yelling at each other. Then you start picking them apart. That’s what we did.

Both Chivas USA and the Galaxy play today, with the Goats on the road at noon in Denver and the Galaxy kicking off in Carson at 5 p.m. against the Houston Dynamo.

Because the Columbus Crew lost to the Wizards Saturday, Chivas USA can clinch a playoff berth with a win today.

Thumbnail previews of both games are here.

Here’s the view from Houston and why the Dynamo will root today for Galaxy rivals Chivas USA.

KROQ held the “LA Invasion” at the HDC Saturday and the state of the turf is always an issue after concerts.

AEG put together a guide to the conversion process for the concert and the subsequent return of the grass field. Here’s an edited version: There’s not much margin for error:

The four-day, 24-hour a day, 100+ person field crew process began immediately following the Thursday Chivas USA-Galaxy and ended by 3:30 p.m. today.

The turf protection system included 100,000-square-feet of Terrafloor (for 10,000 standing-room tickets on the field) and 10,000 square feet of Terrafloor2 and Enkamat Plus to better protect areas enduring the majority of field stress (the stage area/south endline).

Underneath the stage area, Enkamat is laid under the T-2 to allow the grass to breathe. The T-2 plastic surfaces are denser than the regular Terrafloor to endure more stress.

In preparation for conversion, the field was sprayed three times in the past week with biostimulant, calcium and potassium nutrients from Floratine Products Group to help combat the stress during the concert, and speed-up the recovery post-concert. This process is a pre-concert and post-concert program that The Home Depot Center does in preparation for every concert.

Other preventative measures included spraying the field with Fungicide to prevent disease from developing while the field was covered.

No resodding was done to field prior to Sundays Galaxys game, however, we spend hundreds of thousands of dollars resodding portions of the field throughout the year.

A quick summary of Saturday’s MLS and Women’s World Cup action is here.

Two goals in three minutes to end the game pretty much summed up Chivas USA’s superiority and the Galaxy’s season.

Galaxy reject Laurent Merlin got the final goal in stoppage time from a poor Troy Roberts clearance for his first-ever MLS goal.

Panchito Mendoza had scored the second from a Sacha Kljestan pass.

The result gives Chivas USA (13-6-4) sole possession of first place in the Western Conference and goalkeeper Brad Guzan his MLS-leading 11th shutout, a single season record for Chivas USA. Chivas USA are undefeated in 11 games at home.

They also won the four-game SuperClassico series with two wins to the Galaxy’s one (there was also a tie in there).

The Galaxy (4-12-5) slip further into the mire.

Updated:

The game was tight, with few chances, yet not surprisingly the opposing coaches had opposing views.

“I think the result flatters them, to be honest,” said Galaxy Coach Frank Yallop. “But a 3-0 loss is a 3-0 loss.”

Still, Chivas USA had 10 shots on goal to the Galaxy’s two.

“We created far more chances, we were more dangerous,” said Chivas USA Coach Preki. “These kinds of games around the world are always tense games, they’re not the prettiest games.”

Goalkeeper Brad Guzan was savoring the shutout record, especially given the sharp contrast with the team’s dire debut season.

“That first year was a tough season for us,” he said. “To be here for those tough times … it makes it so much sweeter.”

Merlin, whose mother and father are visting from France for a month and were in the stands to see him score, was positively bursting with pride to have scored against his old employer.

“It’s especially great to score against them,” he said. “I wanted to prove to them I could have done the same for them.”

Galaxy goalkeeper Joe Cannon is now tasting the humiliation Chivas USA formerly felt.

“The painful thing for us is to be part of an LA team that lost the classico for the first time,” he said. “That’s embarassing.”

Abel Xavier looked sharp after the game as usual, but he wasn’t in a good mood.

“I just don’t like losing the way we are,” he said. “To lose is for losers.”

But he wasn’t about to accept the blame for Razov’s goal.

“It was difficult to track him and he was clever to put the ball in the net,” Xavier said. “As a defender it’s very frustrating for me when we concede a lot of goals. It’s killing me inside.”

Yallop avoided talking about Vagenas’ payback to Jesse Marsch, saying he wanted his players to win the “first tackle” (hmmm).

Marsch, his usual animated self in the locker room, wasn’t as reticent.

“He got me pretty bad,” Marsch said. “He said it was just a clumsy tackle. Right away, I thought ‘was this for Beckham?'”

Yeah, Jesse, it was.

There were a couple of notable appearances tonight on and off the field.

Morrissey was on the sidelines in a Chivas USA shirt (that’s way cooler than Tom Cruise). And Izzy Sesay became the youngest player ever to don a Galaxy shirt in an MLS game when he came on for the last minute.

A final postscript: a comparison of the signs in the opposing locker rooms says a lot about these teams.

This is the Chivas USA sign: “It’s amazing what you can accomplish when no-one cares who gets the credit.”

The more anonymous Chivas USA players perform as a team; Xavier pointed out the Galaxy could do with a little more “team bonding,” a “buzz between players.”

This is the Galaxy sign: “The only thing we play for here are the jersey and championship.”

At this point they might want to try playing for pride — and each other.

Full game details here.

Pete Vagenas didn’t take long to get revenge on Jesse Marsch for his foul on Beck’s at the last derby on Aug. 23; in the third minute Vagenas kicked Marsch, who retaliated by throwing the ball at Vagenas.

End result: Marsch gets a yellow card and misses the next Chivas USA game Sunday in Colorado.

Chivas USA had the last laugh of the first half though with a lovely (and direct) move started by defender Lawson Vaughn. His 60-yard pass up the right wing found Ante Razov, who controlled the ball with his chest, rounded a slowly chugging Abel Xavier and sent a right-foot shot into the far corner past goalkeeper Joe Cannon.

That was Razov’s 107th MLS goal, which puts him one behind the second leading MLS goalscorer, Jason Kreis, and gives him four goals against the Galaxy. That’s more than any other player against their arch rivals.

Chivas USA had five shots on goal to the Galaxy’s one.

Meanwhile, the Legion 1908 sewing circle has been busy and they unveiled a new flag during the half with the national flag of every Chivas USA player on it.

Beck’s didn’t offer any piercing insights at half time, by the way. His injuries are getting better and MLS players “have been very nice to me.”

The Galaxy have made two changes from the team that beat Colorado 3-1 Saturday, with Landon Donovan returning from international duty in place of Kevin Harmse (who’s out injured anyway and did not play for Canada). Carlos Pavon will get another chance up front, replacing the injured Edson Buddle.

Chivas USA makes just one change from the team that beat New York 3-0 Sunday, captain Claudio Suarez coming in at the expense of Jason Hernandez, who is on the bench.

Also on the bench: dueling 17-year-olds, with the Galaxy having Izzy Sesay and Chivas USA replying with reality show winner Jorge Flores, who turns 18 in three days.

The Galaxy, by the way, list 13 walking wounded on the injury list, although some — such as Abel Xavier and Cobi Jones are starting — so you know they’re not 100 percent.

Don’t forget, David Beckham will be interviewed at half time on ESPN2. All the questions have been pre-approved by Beckham’s peeps, apparently. What is this guy, the pope?

Oh well, at least he won’t look as stunned as he did for long stretches of this interview (do you know how long I’ve been waiting for an excuse to post this hilarious clip?)

The stadium is not close to sold out, by the way. New Chivas USA CEO Shawn Hunter has his work cut out for him.