Galaxy-Crew Post-Game Quotes & Highlights

AP Photo

i-2798cc3055a827b59a3feaa32482da83-crasandburn.jpgCrash and burn: The Columbus Crew’s Danny O’Rourke earns a second yellow Sunday for tripping the Galaxy’s Landon Donovan shortly before the end of the 1-1 game.

This is getting old.

The Galaxy have now scored more than 60 percent of their goals this season – seven – in the final 15 minutes of a game and are 0-1-6 when conceding the first goal. Five of the six draws materialized with a goal in the last 15 minutes of a game. Oh, and their seven game unbeaten streak is the fourth longest in club history.

Here is the game story from today’s newspaper.

Galaxy Coach Bruce Arena described his players as “tentative’ going forward, the field as “slow” and slippery and Columbus as “awful good:

*”Given the circumstances we’re certainly happy with the point. I thought we really wasted 45 minutes today. Our first half was poor.

*”I don’t think we showed a whole lot of energy and we were out-competed in most positions on the field.

*”I thought in particular (Crew players Eddie) Gavin and (Brian) Carroll won the (midfield) battle against (Stefani) Miglioranzi and (Dema) Kovalenko (in the first half).”

Arena pretty much conceded at one point that this team has him stumped:

“Who can explain it sometimes? Sometimes you can’t quite figure things out in terms of why players react to certain conditions. We just didn’t react well to dealing with the heat in the early going. In the second half it was better. They needed to get screamed at a little bit at half time.”

Here’s Arena on Tony Sanneh’s IQ:

“I think if Tony has an IQ of over 40, I think he probably exactly understands the mistake he made. I didn’t want to dwell on it today. … Tony thanked the team for bailing him out. He knew he made a mistake. Schelotto made an excellent play, too. He’s a headsy player.”

Here’s Sanneh on his howler:

“I saw him coming that’s why I trapped it across my body ‘cos I didn’t want to go into him and then I probably should have just cleared it, but Omar (Gonzalez) was calling for it and I just over thought it. I saw the other guy coming in and I just tried to squeeze it in there, but I had a shitty ball.”

Arena on the team’s best player:

“(Mike) Magee was good today. He was our best player from start to finish. He wanted the ball in tough spots. He was confident with the ball at his feet.”

On Landon Donovan’s performance:

“Landon has to be more assertive in these games and I think he was in the last 45 minutes of this game. The first half he didn’t find himself. He was second on too many plays. And in the second half he turned it around, so give him some credit.”

Here’s the Crew’s Robbie Rogers on the Galaxy:

“They really are a team that just sits back and tries to counter attack with Landon so I think we could have kept the ball a little better in the second half. We maybe lost our legs a little bit and gave up one of those late goals.”

Arena’s scariest line of the press conference:

“We’ve gotten better in each and every game. We’ve gotten closer to where we want to be.”

Highlights:

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About Nick Green

South Bay-based Los Angeles News Group soccer columnist and blogger Nick Green writes at the 100 Percent Soccer blog at www.insidesocal.com/soccer and craft beer at the Beer Goggles blog at www.insidesocal.com/beer. Cheers!