What a mess huh? Most of you know my position about Alexi Lalas. Solid player in his prime, terrible in suit in the front office.

I’ve been that way from the beginning with Lalas and to a lesser degree with Ruud Gullit.

Today as we all know both have left the Galaxy either on their own accord or by way of the ol’ pink slip. Again, most of you know I’ve been saying Lalas would be gone before long anyways regardless of what would happen this season unless that result was a MLS Cup win for the Galaxy. And now it looks as though that may have not been enough with his firing today.

Let me get Gullit out of the way here first. The Dutch coach put it out there for people to see with his recent sale of his LA home. Sure he said his wife didn’t like the place but that as we all know was a poor excuse for what really was going on here. While I never thought he would be a success in the league, I did think he would be a decent short term fix for the club seeing how he would know how to handle having a super star like David Beckham around. Continue Reading…

We’ve all talked about the writings on the wall for weeks…no make that months. Now it all appears to be final. LA Galaxy head coach Ruud Gullit and General Manager Alexi Lalas have both left the Galaxy. Gullit is leaving for personal reasons and Lalas is just out of a job.

“We are stepping up and doing what we need to do to straighten this thing out,” Galaxy investor/operator Tim Leiweke told The Associated Press on Monday as he announced the changes.

“There are two good people that for different reasons aren’t part of this organization today, and that’s a shame,” Leiweke said. “The fact is, the players have to look deep inside themselves and understand they have to be responsible for some of this.

“The Galaxy hasn’t made the playoffs for a couple years. Punting on this season is not acceptable. It starts Thursday.”

I am a little shocked to see Gullit out here but this will just open the floodgates for the Galaxy I believe. Don’t be shocked to see more moves in the coming hours here, that is unless someone wise enough steps in for Lalas who is probably just getting the boot all together.

Lalas we all knew would be out the door before long. His job will now be done by Paul Bravo and Tom Payne.

Once I get more details on this I will pass it along to you all.

What do you all make of this news?

Just how bad is it in the LA Galaxy organization right now? Bad enough that some heads could roll after yesterday’s surprising loss on the road to expansion side San Jose.

Yesterday, SI.com’s Jonah Freedman uncovered some very interesting things going on with the Galaxy, AEG president and CEO Tim Lieweke visited the Galaxy locker room last week and issued an ultimatum that if the team didn’t straighten things out that there would be “dire consequences.”

As we’ve seen before things are too peachy with General Manager Alexi Lalas and head coach Ruud Gullit. It seems as though now days Gullit and Lalas are not getting along too well. Big shocker huh?

I talked about it last week that Lalas’s job was probably entering it’s final hours. After yesterday’s loss the Galaxy are quickly playing themselves out of the playoff picture. Its not that the offense isn’t working, no its still the same issues in defense and in the defensive part of the midfield that are causing the most problems. Continue Reading…

Oh a 4-0 loss on the road for the league’s best offense is always a red flag to owners or anyone who writes the checks. Now those people who write the checks are speaking out. The Soccer Insider Steve Goff says that Galaxy owners Phil Anshutz and Tim Leweke are not happy.

“Rumblings out of L.A. (besides the earthquake that shook SoCal yesterday) are that MLS godfather Phil Anschutz is none too pleased with the Galaxy and that he and AEG boss Tim Leiweke have been discussing the club’s grim situation.”

Maybe that earthquake yesterday was caused by Anshutz and Leweke over at the HDC. Now Goff didn’t give any indication that Lalas is on the actually on the hot seat but as we all know, the writing has been on the wall for months and months.

To me the clock has been ticking for not just months but a year or so now. I’m sure some Galaxy fans would argue its been since the day he was hired.

Right now the Galaxy are in the playoff picture but with the way the club has played in their last five or six games, its nothing to brag about. The offense is good but the problems lie everywhere else on the field.

I think it is safe to say even in the playoffs Lalas is toast after this year. The only thing to save him is a trip to the MLS Cup for the Galaxy.

What do you all make of these “rumblings” as Goff put it from LA? Is it just Lalas or do you think that AEG could make some more changes other than Lalas?

Another famous watch list here on WVHooligan. I thought about spending time on the coaching hot seat (that will come next week for those who are interested) but instead I wanted to shift focus to a person’s job that actually is in danger. This time its solely focused on Alexi Lalas’s situation in Los Angeles.

I think it is safe to say that things aren’t going too well (again) in LA between Lalas and his coaching staff. Last week the Galaxy traded for troubled defensive midfielder Joe Franchino from New England. A move that appears to be alright with coach Rudd Gullit due to his playing of Franchino last Saturday.

But one has to wonder, exactly how much knowledge of trades and moves does Gullit have right now?

Case and point, Grahame Jones of the LA Times wrote in his daily soccer report yesterday that Gullit is not totally in the loop on the transaction front with Lalas.

“Last week he was asked about the acquisition of defenders Scott Bolkan and Vardan Adzemian and their subsequent loan to the Portland Timbers. Gullit looked blank. He had never heard of either player.”

It has to make you wonder that the more this carries on between the coach and the GM, the more the GM will be looking at a pink slip. Most of us know that this move is bound to happen sometime within the next year or so. The product on the field hasn’t improved and most can and will point fingers right at Lalas.

Its mostly due to moves that make little or no sense for the club. I’m no Galaxy fan but I am willing to bet that this club hasn’t gelled all that much as a team by what I’ve seen on the field. The more moves that happen and the crazier the acquisitions get, the more I think the clock is ticking for Lalas here.

I also wonder that if things continue to stay the same week in and week out here, the losing and the constant 2-2 draws if guys like David Beckham or Landon Donovan will begin to speak out on the roster moves that have been made by Lalas. Most us would probably agree that once Lalas leaves this club as it’s GM they will be fine for the most part once they get someone who actually knows what they are doing in the position.

I know a GM job in any sport isn’t easy but I would have to imagine that one of the main parts is having a good relationship with your coach. From my guessing Lalas has yet to have a good record with his coaches over the three clubs he has been with.

So right now I am going to say that by August we will see Lalas out of work and out of the Galaxy front office. What do you all think? Will he get canned sooner or later this year?

So while my website has had some server trouble today (sorry for any trouble it’s caused you today) I got to thinking of the situation out in LA with the Galaxy. Carlos Ruiz goes down with an injury over the weekend against the Rapids and will be out for a few weeks. So what does this all mean?

I can say this, watching the game against the Rapids last week Ruud Gullit has a lot of work. Okay, maybe those words should be in caps, but I think you get where I am going with this.

A lot of factors go into why the Galaxy looked so bad. Beckham looked uninterested in the game, Ruiz couldn’t connect or remember how to head a ball on goal, the midfield was a disaster, the defense is old and slow and we now know that Steve Cronin is not the best option at goal.

So what does Gullit and Alexi Lalas do? For one figuring out what to do with their midfield should be a start. Beckham needs to be on the wing and not in defense like he was on Saturday (though I think fatigue on his part was because of that). Maybe plugging Chris Klein back in the midfield instead of the defense could be a start. I noticed in the preseason Klein played in defense way more than I had ever seen him play before, which may be another reason why the Galaxy defense is looking so slow and old.

Gullit also needs to quickly teach his style of play to the young guys that were drafted this winter. Getting them ready in a hurry to fit his style of play is vital for this club in the long run this season. It may be a gamble to play them early right now but that may be for the best.

Gullit has a huge task in front of him and maybe redrawing what he originally started would be a good thing to do already at this point. This club should still score goals with Donovan and Beckham, so its not the offense that Galaxy fans should be worried about over the next few weeks with Ruiz out of the picture. Its all about the defense and the midfield that needs to take better shape.

Its either a formation switch or just replugging in players until something sticks and works.

When it comes to their defense, starting over may be tough but I think it’s time to put Abel Xavier on the bench for a few games and plug someone else in his place. I still think Greg Vanney is a vital leader in the back but Xavier may have to sit out and cool off a bit before he can go again. His actions against the Rapids should warrant a few games on the pine.

I know the excuses after last weekend’s match were that the Galaxy players were tired due to the wide field and altitude in Denver. Weak excuses but that’s what Gullit and the Galaxy were saying. So they should be better tomorrow night against the expansion side from North Cali.

We can’t write this club off all together for the season just yet after one game. But that one game was pretty damn convincing to make some of us want to do so. The playoff format in this league however does reward strong play late rather than early but the Galaxy cannot afford to get in a deep hole this early in the season.

What do you all think the Galaxy could do to get back to the Galaxy that we all know and (probably) hate?

I think in a way a countdown has been on for sometime here with Alexi Lalas and his time with the LA Galaxy. Lalas has trade teams more as a GM than as a player here in the last few years and honestly I see it as a matter of time before his time in LA ends as well.

This all comes from the talk from a podcast at World Soccer Daily. If you’ve never checked out World Soccer Daily you should start now. Great site and always an interesting listen.

Anyways, the rumor has it that new LA coach Rudd Gullit and Lalas aren’t seeing eye-to-eye. Lalas likes to hand pick players one way and Gullit has his own style (go figure right?). Apparently they have been at ends with one another for a few weeks now and Lalas may be on the chopping block from AEG and could see the pink slip this summer. Continue Reading…