Greg Vanney insists new LA Galaxy strike partnership can 'flourish'

LA Galaxy boss Greg Vanney believes strikers Javier 'Chicharito' Hernandez and Dejan Joveljic could develop a "flourishing" partnership together.

Joveljic arrived from Eintracht Frankfurt on a $4m deal last month and has made a strong start to life in Los Angeles, scoring a brace in a 3-3 El Trafico draw with LAFC and grabbing another two assists.

His latest was to set up Chicharito's equaliser in a 1-1 draw with the Houston Dynamo in midweek, picking up the ball in the centre circle and driving it forward before finding the head of his strike partner inside the box.

Rather than Joveljic simply providing back-up to Chicharito or being used in rotation, Vanney believes this could be the start of a partnership between the two, with each having qualities that compliment the other.

“Yeah, I think it's a partnership that can certainly flourish," Vanney responded when asked by reporters about the potential double-act.

"They don't have many minutes together and [don’t] have many training sessions together either so it's early days, but anytime you also play with two forwards, you've got to build a nice structure and be able to protect yourself around it and be able to hold the ball and be able to do some different things and be able to get the ball wide into wide areas, deep to the end lines and get yourself in crossing positions.

"Things like that, if we're going to have two guys in front of the box or in front of the goal, like those two, so it's a little bit [of a] different setup than what we've had through the majority of the season, which the whole group has to get used to, which we need a little bit of training time to work through that it's not something you want to spend a lot of time working through on the on a matchday but yes, they're obviously two guys who can complement each other. Obviously, Dejan set Javier up a couple of times so they can also play that role as well with one another so it was nice to see them on."

Chicharito himself was full of praise for his fellow striker following Wednesday's draw, highlighting his 'hunger' and 'ambition'.

“He’s a very young player with a lot of ambition, a lot of hunger to learn and to improve as a player and as a person and you can see it," the Mexican striker told reporters. "He played in El Trafico in pretty good form, he scored two goals and then I came back, and he took it pretty well when I came on in his place. He came on [and looked] very good in Colorado. And then today with a fantastic assist, the impact that he [had], the effort, everything."

The Galaxy are currently fourth in the Western Conference and on track to reach the playoffs. Next up are consecutive away trips to Minnesota United and Austin FC.