LA Galaxy announce initial roster decisions for 2022 season

The LA Galaxy announced their initial roster decisions ahead of the 2022 season on Monday. 23 players are under contract heading into next season.

In addition to Jonathan dos Santos’ departure, announced earlier on Monday, Justin Vom Steeg is out of contract and will not return, while the club declined contract options on Kai Koreniuk, Augustine Williams, Danny Acosta and Oniel Fisher and those players won’t return.

Meanwhile, Sacha Kljestan is out of contract but in discussions about returning next season, while Victor Vazquez, Eric Lopez and Ethan Zubak had their contract options declined but they are currently in discussions to potentially return to LA.

Five players had contract options for 2022 picked up by the Galaxy: Longest-tenured player Daniel Steres, Nick DePuy, Jonathan Klinsmann, Daniel Aguirre and Adam Saldaña.

Niko Hämäläinen’s loan from Queen’s Park Rangers is over and he has returned to England.

Among the 23 players who are coming back, there aren’t too many positional needs glaring. They could certainly use fullback depth and clearly need some reinforcements in starting positions in midfield, the squad balance is pretty good at this stage. Clearly, the team needs some upgrades in order to get better overall, but this isn’t a swiss cheese roster at the moment, which is a decent sign. Obviously we could see trades, transfers and other changes, but I would not expect the wholesale turnover we saw in 2021.

With Dennis te Kloese departed as Galaxy GM and a Designated Player spot open, we’ll have to see what the offseason moves hold for LA. It should be very interesting!

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