LAFC lost 3-0 to Real Salt Lake on Wednesday evening to make it only one win and four losses in the club's last five games, with coach Bob Bradley admitting that the team has "lost its way" of late.
LAFC broke the MLS regular season points record in 2019 off the back of a MVP year for Carlos Vela, but with the Mexican currently recovering from a left knee injury, the club has slipped to eighth place in the Western Conference and has leaked 12 goals over its last five games.
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"It's easy to see that we are in a period where it's well below our standards," said Bradley following the defeat. "There's only one thing we can do...we have to play ourselves out of it."
The former USMNT coach added that the team has had some positive moments during the current rough patch, but that the quality has not been up to previous standards.
"We've had discussions and we've had moments when we felt that it was going in a good direction, but to a man right now we have to embrace that as good of team as we've been, and as much as we've had some really good games not that long ago, with everything going on right now, we've lost our way," said Bradley.
The coach stressed that he had to rotate his team against Real Salt Lake due to the heavy schedule of games and that defending set pieces has been an issue for LAFC, while midfielder Bryce Duke added that the team must put the losses behind them and move on.
"First of all, we have to get our mentality back on track," said 19-year-old Duke. "We can't dwellon these losses and we also just got to keep playing our game."
LAFC plays Portland Timbers at home on Sunday, with the rest of the MLS regular season schedule not announced as yet.