Greg Vanney TALKS about Marco Reus FIRST GOAL and DEBUT with Los Angeles Galaxy

hey Greg um with Marco was the 60-minute mark what you were looking for going into this game and and also how did you see him impacting the game um play played a pretty big role in in in the win here tonight yeah yeah our Target was right around right around 60 uh 55 60 um yeah I thought he came in and he brought just class composure uh intelligence obviously quality um yeah a lot of things I mean in a way he made things look a little bit easy at times you know where it's just smooth and it's uh in the flow and in the rhythm of the game and just picking things out so I thought it was great I think you know in talking to him coming into this game he feels like he's 60 to 70% to where he wants to be fitness-wise so um because he hasn't gotten much in terms of team training time we have to be also Progressive in how many minutes we we give him uh hopefully getting a full week of team training under his belt going into next week he'll be further along for sure um but just again you see just his quality out on the field and his the pedigree is there it's pretty clear to see um so it's exciting you know you get Ricky who's buzzing around and Marco who's just calculating his spaces and what the next play is going to look like and it's an interesting combination um so and it it unlocked them at the end I mean I felt like they they did a lot of work for for 60 minutes cuz we had the ball so much and and the ball was moving a lot I felt like they had to do a lot of defensive work and spaces started to open up a little bit more and pockets and opportunity started to open up and then we were able to take advantage advantage of those with you know the quality and the decisions down the stretch so it was U it was nice it was nice to see them out there I wanted to see gastone uh out there as well in that pivot position so we kind of we kind of got there as the game progressed The Challenge you guys are facing now with Marco is every getting everybody on the field that you you know playing time um to you swapped out three of your Midfield there uh what were your what was the thinking process there yeah at I mean at the end of the day we're not going to be able to get everybody on the field who uh who has quality but that's what happens when you have a good team and a deep team is you know certain guys are at on certain days are going to have to come in and impact the game you see the guys that came in made the difference in the end the guys who set up the game they set it up for the guys who came in to win it and that's what you're going to need is if you're going to be a team that can compete for a championship you've got to be able to impact games for 90 minutes and you got to have guys who can come in and and can change the game uh so uh it creates some competition it it also creates you know different profiles Marco's a different profile than Mark and you know when when Joe goes to the outside and and Miggy comes on those that we got a true nine on and Joe came went to more of his natural position uh when gastone came on it was some fresh legs and and and you know Gaston's qualities which are a little different than Eddie so there it's uh it's it's nice because we have options and that's great and you know if these guys strive to compete to win a cup they they need each other we need every one of these guys and everybody's got to be ready when called upon to do to do the job so it was it was nice to see that happen tonight hey Greg um it seemed like with Marco out there it lifted everybody else as well like he makes the players around him better your thought yeah I think it was I think it was an exciting moment I mean obviously as I said when you when you have the quality the pedigree all those things guys are excited to to play you see his immediate impact but also the stadium starts to lift up again it had been a 60 Minutes of z0 little bit of we just missed a penalty you know a couple minutes before you there may be this feeling like is it going to happen or not happen tonight and now you bring on Marco Royce and the crowd gets going again and the energy level picks up and uh with gastone and migy and like just everything started to pick up in Tempo and and uh whatever you want to Hope in the stadium everything the energy started to pick up and guys started to go so I think all of those things contribute to uh to that uh your thoughts on the first 60 Minutes what you liked what you maybe didn't like and and just the defensive performance throughout well I I thought I thought in general we were we were we were good with the ball I think we ended up with 70% over just over 70% possessions so uh we were pretty good with the ball with 70% possession as we said in the first half we need to we need to create and finish more attacks in dangerous areas uh sometimes we were we were almost getting there and then turning back out and keeping possession and more numbers were behind and we were um I think you know trying to get you know Joe's not a natural nine so you know he's he's sliding over getting involved in plays and getting areas he's comfortable with and and so little bit of it was us being a little bit more for ourselves a little more predictable and a little bit more certain when we were going to look to finish attack so that we could get guys in front of the goal and get people in it becomes when you pass so much it becomes a little bit uncertain for the guys who are trying to get in front of the box when the play is actually going to end and when to get there so we needed to develop a and this what we talked about halftime being creating a little more certainty when we do good in good areas to whip balls in behind the back line or cut back crosses or set guys up for shots we need to do that we you can't turn out and put more passes together uh you can if you're up two or three nothing maybe you can consider that but not at z0 and you're trying to get on top of the game so I felt like but I I did feel like for the most part you know when you have 70% possession you can lose balls in bad areas that really can hurt you the other way and I felt like we minimized those we had a couple but we we didn't have a lot of them I think our Compass completion was over 90% which means that we're not just losing the balls carelessly and putting ourselves in bad situations I thought our counter pressing was better on on the day we were more aggressive to uh to disrupt their exit passes um I thought our reactions in that was better um you know we had a couple moments that we had to deal with but overall I thought it was um it was better and because you have 70% you're only defending 30% of the game then you um then you got to deal with those 30% moments I didn't think they created a ton of chances inside of their set possessions a couple where they maybe had little transitions um and a couple offside calls that I'm glad they were off sides so I think they were calculated by our team but I'm not sure uh I have to look back um so o overall I'm happy with the performance especially coming off of a a little bit of a longer break to have a reasonably sharp to very sharp performance uh after a couple weeks off is a good a good sign great uh I I know Scott asked about defensive on the defensive side myosa seemed like he had an excellent night tonight um the break seems to have maybe done him so really well what did you see from him tonight I thought he I also I agree I thought he had a very good night I think I think the break was important for a few guys especially Maya who played a ton of minutes in the first part of the season and just getting uh a little chance to to recover to cover catch his breath um but I thought he had a very solid night very clean night um yeah I thought he was he led from the back I thought it was it was all very uh very solid so a refreshed Maya is good for us for sure uh I thought Jaylen had a solid night uh through much of the night um some things that we've been working with him on I thought were better tonight um so good I thought John Nelson had a strong showing over on the left side I thought he he had a really great night in terms of um again solid in possession his defending was excellent I thought he had a great night hey Greg um with the Joseph panel's penalty miss you guys have missed four penalties this season um are we going to see another change up of who's going to take it what's the process going to look like you very much could uh so I'll leave that to to solve after tonight but yeah we we can't miss penalties it's it's too important especially when you're talking okay we got away with it tonight and maybe we can get away with it another night you're not going to get away with it in the playoffs you're not going to get away with it in big games we've got to we've got to bury those at a much higher percentage than we have uh so we will uh we will address that we got a new guy in town maybe he's a penalty kicker we'll see we'll see but we'll address it hey Greg um great night for you and the uh Squad do you feel that now you have with Marco coming in do you feel feel like as the manager who's helped piece this all together you you have the complete Squad yeah I think I think we have a very good very good team we have options we got to get healthy continue to get healthy so that we can get uh Julian back get a little more healthy on that left side so it's not John all the time every single time uh you know Martin is it's important that he gets a little bit healthy just so we have his experience down the stretch as well um day on obviously to get our nine that that's uh back into the mix so getting just but when you look at it on on paper I'm really happy with the group you know collectively we certainly you can see that we have some incredible attacking pieces so it's going to be our Collective defending that is going to determine it for us and that's the thing that we all while our group loves to attack and has some beautiful attacks we all have to really grind and lift up our roll up our sleeves and every one of us has to be ready to defend and compete on the defensive side um because that's going to be important as we you know again as we play some of these teams that uh that are also strong in the attack but defend well you know teams that are hard to score against and then have transitions that are powerful uh those are teams that we've we've got to be able to take care of business on the defending side Greg you touched on that combination between Ricky and and Marco how much is that a glimpse of what's to come in the sense of their Vision their understanding the type of players that they are and their quality and what and how that will impact the team yeah I hope I hope that's a glimpse of what's to come I again I think they can be very compatible because you see I mean what Ricky does Marco isn't going to do he's not going to dribble through people and get to the next line and eliminate the first Defender he's going to find gaps he's going to find Pockets he plays with efficiency he's going to uh he's going to link things up he's going to find incredible passes so Ricky who drops low Marco who kind of stays High there's a good combination there at times you know uh so the question is like in my head I have a vision tonight I saw some of that of what it can look like and and the key now is to continue to grow that relationship and those around them uh and the other key is making sure that we're solid on the defensive side with the group of players that are out there that we all are are you know real stable when it comes to the defensive piece because we know the attacking creativity and quality is is there for sure uh your thoughts on the center back pairing between with Maya and Jaylen Neil yeah I I thought again I thought they had a good night again we had a lot of the ball so I thought their decisions with the ball first and foremost starting our attacks uh being solid in their decisions so that nothing really transitioned in front of them as a starting point because that was 70% of the game 30 I think I think our counter pressing was pretty good so our ability to to step and press some of the exit passes I thought Jaylen was a little more aggressive tonight I think maybe he lost one duel here or there but I thought he had a pretty good night of getting tied and being physical something that we were were wanting from him um but I thought they had a a good solid night especially uh look we came off of a game where we gave up some silly goals in in Seattle and we wanted to bounce back and and I thought the guys bounc back and showed a certain level of aggressiveness and also managing some transition situations that could have gotten couldn't got a little fuzzy we we dealt with them pretty well thanks for your time Greg that's it okay thank you appreciate it