LA Galaxy captain Maya Yoshida says the team are not satisfied with their position at the halfway stage of the MLS season, with Sporting Kansas City next up on Saturday.

The Galaxy's six-match unbeaten streak ended before the mid-season break, with the Chicago Fire coming from behind to beat them 2-1.

They sit fourth in the Western Conference, five points behind leaders Real Salt Lake, but Yoshida believes they should be challenging for the top spot.

"It's a big improvement on last season, but I'm still not satisfied. I'm still not happy enough," Yoshida said.

"Maybe, generally, people say the Galaxy are doing well, but I feel like we could play better and get more points. We should be top of the league. I'll always stay hungry and greedy, and I want to do more and more and more."

Head coach Greg Vanney echoed his thoughts, saying: "I'm pretty happy with the point total that we have from the first half of the season.

"We let a couple of opportunities to be a little higher go. I think we learned a lot about ourselves that we need to clean up or keep using as we understand ourselves better."

Sporting snapped a 10-match winless run last weekend with a 2-1 victory over the Seattle Sounders, leaving them in 12th.

Peter Vermes is confident his team can use that victory as a platform to push them forward for the second half of the season.

He said: "This is a good team. The issue last year, which was different, was for the longest time, I had to be the one to tell them that. Our win over [Colorado] should reinforce that message that they're good. When they want to play, they can play."

PLAYERS TO WATCH

LA Galaxy – Riqui Puig

Puig has found the net in three consecutive appearances for the Galaxy for the first time in his MLS career. The Spaniard has been involved in seven goals since the beginning of May with only four players in MLS involved in more in that time.

Sporting Kansas City – Johnny Russell

Russell scored his seventh career regular-season goal against Seattle Sounders in the win on Saturday, his most against any opponent, breaking a tie with three other teams against whom he has scored six times, including the Galaxy.

MATCH PREDICTION: LA GALAXY WIN

The Galaxy ended a six-match winless run against Kansas City (D3 L3) with a 3-2 road win on March 24. The win was just the Galaxy's third in their last 17 matches against Sporting dating back to October 2015 (D7 L7).

LA have lost only one of their last 17 regular-season home matches (W8 D8), including winning four of their last five in Carson (D1). The 17 matches in that run have seen a total of 67 goals for an average of 3.9 per match.

Meanwhile, Kansas City ended a seven-match losing streak with a 2-1 victory over Seattle on Saturday. Sporting came from 1-0 down in the match as they have gone behind in 10 straight league matches dating back to mid-April.

OPTA WIN PROBABILITY

LA Galaxy – 53.5%

Draw – 23.8%

Sporting Kansas City – 22.7%