Greg Vanney believes his LA Galaxy side are improving in front of goal despite their winless start to the season, with fellow early strugglers St. Louis City up next. 

The Galaxy have lost back-to-back matches to San Diego FC and the Vancouver Whitecaps in the MLS, while also losing in the CONCACAF Champions Cup to Herediano. 

Vanney's team have scored just one goal across those matches, but the head coach said it was only a matter of time before they hit the ground running in the final third. 

"I did. I thought some of our coordinated attacks, I would say, were much more in sync. We got to better areas. We got some looks from good distances," Vanney said. 

"I think we need to finish better. But yeah, I thought some of our coordinated actions were much better tonight, much more in sync, even though, in the grand scheme of things, it's not the easiest of places to play.

"There they were obviously highly competitive and combative, but at the same time, I thought we put together the chances that we needed, but we've got to bury them. We've got to be more clinical in the final action, but to your point. Yes, we saw we had more looks tonight than we've had in the previous couple of games."

St. Louis have also endured a difficult start to the campaign, picking up just two points from their opening two matches, both coming in goalless draws. 

They have faced only one shot on target in its first two matches of the season. Indeed, St. Louis are the third team since Opta began detailed data collection of MLS in 2010 to face just one shot on target in their first two games of a season, after Orlando City in 2015 and the New York Red Bulls in 2023. 

And despite their stalemate against San Diego last time out, head coach Olof Mellberg was happy with his sides display. 

"I thought we started a little bit slow in the first 10-15 [minutes]," said Mellberg. "They found a couple of balls in behind [City's defence] that were dangerous, but after that, we defended really well.

"It was really nice before the game, and especially in the beginning of the game. I think we managed to do well to sort of kill the party a little bit.

"They didn't really get as many chances as they were hoping. Also, it was very unfortunate for them to have their big star injured early on."

PLAYERS TO WATCH

LA Galaxy – Gabriel Pec

Pec scored the Galaxy's only goal in the defeat to Vancouver on Sunday, his 20th goal in MLS play (regular season and playoffs) to go along with 17 assists.

Only Lionel Messi (40 - 21 goals, 19 assists) has more goal contributions than the Brazilian's 37 since he made his MLS debut last season.

St. Louis City – Cedric Teuchert

St. Louis are in need of a goal and will need last season's top scorer, Teuchert, to find his shooting boots having netted 19 goals in 42 appearances across all competitions last season. 

This will be his second appearance against the Galaxy, with the German scoring against them as they emerged 2-1 victors in their last MLS encounter. 

MATCH PREDICTION: LA GALAXY WIN

Despite being favoured by Opta's data-led simulations, the LA Galaxy are the third defending champion to lose the first two regular-season matches of their title defence, along with D.C. United in 2000 and Toronto FC in 2018, who both missed the playoffs. No reigning champion has taken fewer than two points from their first three matches of a season.

St. Louis are unbeaten in four all-time meetings with LA Galaxy (W1 D3), drawing each of the first three matches before beating the eventual champions, 2-1, at home last September. They are also the only Western Conference team the Galaxy have not defeated in the last two years (minimum two meetings).

They are, however, the seventh team in MLS history to open a regular season with two straight scoreless draws. Only the Colorado Rapids, in their first three matches of the 2015 season, have played three consecutive goalless draws at any point in a season in MLS history.

OPTA WIN PROBABILITY

LA Galaxy – 58.3%

Draw – 21.7%

St. Louis City – 20%