Loons suffer complete collapse in 4-3 loss to L.A. Galaxy

Minnesota United did choreographed goal celebrations in the first half Wednesday and internally combusted in the second half.

After taking a 3-1 lead, the Loons allowed the L.A. Galaxy to score three second-half goals for a 4-3 loss at Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, Calif.

With a complete collapse against the 13th-place Galaxy (8-11-9, 33 points), MNUFC (9-10-10, 37 points) dropped from eighth place to 10th and out of the MLS Cup Playoffs field.

The Loons allowed Billy Sharp to log a hat trick, and manager Adrian Heath tagged the four goals allowed to downfalls in defending — from a lack of communication and positional lapses, often from the same players.

“We can’t keep doing the same (expletive) like we are doing at the minute and expect to get different results,” Heath said postgame.

Minutes after the 37-year-old Sharp reached his milestone, Loons left back Ethan Bristow was sent off for a second yellow card in the 74th minute. The 21-year-old in his first MLS season had tugged on Tyler Boyd’s shirt after Bristow kicked the ball away for his initial booking in the first half. When the red card was flashed, he appeared to not know why.

“Stupid decision, you know you’re booked,” Heath said. “You do that, you are going to get another yellow card.”

Instead of bring on a defender to solidify the back end in a tie game, Heath made two, like-for-like attacking substitutions in the 77th minute. Without a natural left back filling in, Boyd filled that space and crossed it to Diego Fagundez for the winning goal in the 82nd minute.

Heath explained those two subs this way: “We realized it was going to be a long time to defend with 10 men and then we needed some energy on. … It was, ‘Can we get some fresh legs in? Can we get some energy on?’ That is what we did.”

Who was supposed to be filling in at left back?

“When you are down to 10 men, it’s always a wee bit difficult because you can get dragged out of position and they were putting in runners in between our center backs and fullbacks so you have to get tucked in,” Heath said. “When it goes wide, obviously you’ve got to defend the cross better than you did. Ultimately, if you look, we’ve got as many men as them in the box. Mark your man, stop him getting to the ball first.”

Bristow had been benched Wednesday in favor of Joseph Rosales after Bristow allowed the deciding goal in a 1-0 defeat to Sporting Kansas City on Saturday, but Bristow came back in once Rosales appeared to injure his right hamstring in the sixth minute. Rosales appeared to be slowed by the knock in the build-up to Sharp’s first goal in the 16th minute, and Rosales exited in the 36th.

Star midfielder Emanuel Reynoso was subbed out in the first half with a thigh injury from the K.C. game, with Heath saying it stiffened up on Reynoso at halftime. The Loons go again on Saturday against first-place St. Louis City.

After Teemu Pukki answered Sharp’s first goal in the 19th minute, Hlongwane benefitted from a huge deflection of former Loons player Raheem Edwards and his 25-yard effort looped over Jonathan Bond in the 41st minute. That’s when he did his goal celebration along with Hassani Dotson and D.J. Taylor in lock-step.

Dayne St. Clair was needed for a double save late in the first half. After he nullified the Galaxy threat, he booted a long ball that was brought down and soon set up Hlongwane’s tap-in goal in the fifth minute of stoppage time. With that goal, Hlongwane set a MNUFC record with 17 goals in all competitions in one season since the club joined MLS in 2017.

“We’ve managed to throw away a game we should have won,” Heath said. “… We talked about it at halftime, do not take your foot off the pedal, do not just drop back, do not just let people get behind the ball and think you are doing a job, That’s pretty much what we did.”

Briefly

Michael Boxall made his 200th MLS appearance on Wednesday. … Out on loan with San Antonio FC, forward Tani Oluwaseyi notched an assist in the USL Championship on Saturday, but he has now gone eight games without goal. .. Cam Dunbar (Orange County) has played 56 minutes since mid-August and Patrick Weah (FC Tulsa) has recorded only 23 minutes since then. … Caden Clark was not in the team for Vendsyssel FF, a second tier Danish side, on Sunday.