David Moyes - The Tactician

The reaction on here has been ridiculous. Ultimately we have no idea what the game would have looked like had we not conceded a stupid goal which allowed Fulham to park the bus for 3/4s of the game. Them scoring allowed them to sit back and give no room in the middle. Saying we 'played into their hands' is daft given that we scored twice and should have had a penalty and a couple more goals if it weren't for poor finishing and great goalkeeping.

Do the people quoting Meulensteen's comments as proof of our tactical ineptitude also believe his claims that he and Phelan basically ran the club for the last few years rather than Fergie? He's a narcissist who's spun the facts into a narrative that makes him look good. They defended for their lives and were lucky to only concede twice. We drew the game because of poor finishing and dreadful defending, not because of crossing. I'm not sure we'd have done any better trying to pass the ball through the 4 men they had camped in the D for 70 minutes.
 
Rene's comments have been sensationalised though. What he said was that our game plan was easy to defend against, which it was. He didn't claim to be a tactical genius, he openly admitted that Fulham were set up to contain. The worrying aspect is that regardless of what Moyes said in his post-match comments, there was no plan b. It was obvious that our tactic of getting it wide and crossing it in wasn't working; so why wasn't it changed.

Moyes touched upon this after the game when he said that is how Manchester United play and it is in their "genes". Whilst he might be right it looked predictable, boring and easy to defend against yesterday - not adjectives you can use for teams of old.
 
This is Moyes' game plan, get used to it. He wants to play a high intensive game centering around crosses. The type of player's he'll look to bring in to play in this manner should make for an exciting summer... :rolleyes:
 
There was an obvious plan b. In the first half, you crossed mostly from the right.

In the second half, you crossed mostly from the left. #tactics.
 
Why are people moaning? Fulham parked the bus but we still managed to create 81 chances. Our players fully agree with Moyes tactics to keep getting to the byline and keep crossing. If Moyes' message wasn't getting through Mata or Rooney would have tried to play a few through balls.
 
mic.m said:
Why are people moaning? Fulham parked the bus but we still managed to create 81 chances. Our players fully agree with Moyes tactics to keep getting to the byline and keep crossing. If Moyes' message wasn't getting through Mata or Rooney would have tried to play a few through balls.
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81 crosses does not equate to 81 chances. It was prehistoric football.
 
Having players who are good at crossing the ball would also be in our genes then. We have several players who were once good crossers of the ball but none who can seem to do it well right now. Rafael before injury, Fletcher before injury, Valencia before Valencia, Young before United, etc.
 
When he was questioned about the incessant crossing his answer annoyed me. Something about Man United always cross the ball, it's in their DNA - feck that. We didn't hire you to imitate whats gone before, you're the manager and you should have your own ideas about how we should play. Does he even realise that most fans would welcome a fresh approach? Fergie's reign was incredible and we played some great football along the way (and yes that did include a lot of crossing but nothing like yesterday's debacle) but when Fergie retired, while disappointed, I was excited by the idea of a new manager coming in with some fresh ideas and seeing something different.

Moyes doesn't seem to have either the ability nor the balls to implement some progressive, exciting ideas at United. Ever since his interview discussing how Fergie called him round to the house it's been apparent Moyes is awestruck and now I think it's becoming clearer that this job is just too big for him. It's like he's trying to be Fergie mk.2 and we all know that's impossible.
 
jeff_goldblum said:
The reaction on here has been ridiculous. Ultimately we have no idea what the game would have looked like had we not conceded a stupid goal which allowed Fulham to park the bus for 3/4s of the game. Them scoring allowed them to sit back and give no room in the middle.
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No, even before they scored that was Fulham's plan, which led to these words from Neville "Manchester United are 1-0 down to a team who didn't come here to score." This is all irrelevant anyway, it doesn't matter what the score is or who we are against, our play should never be that one dimensional. Maybe the last five minutes when you're desperate, but not from the 20th minute onwards, we had absolutely no patience and took the cowardly approach. We didn't work the ball, we went wide far too quickly and that's why it was easy to defend against, because it was predictable and we never moved the back four/eight/ten, whatever Fulham were playing, around. We did score two goals though, one was a lucky deflection from a strike outside the box, but yeah, we did score two goals at home against the worst defence in the league having had 80% of the ball. I guess that's a positive.
 
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KiD CaNtO said:
81 crosses does not equate to 81 chances. It was prehistoric football.
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crosses/chances it's just semantics. Obviously the fact that we had the ball in the Fulham box so many times is proof that Moyes is doing something right tactically and will eventually come good. Patience is a virtue.
B20 said:
:lol::lol::lol:
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we made history. We created more chances in one match than any other team in the history of Opta.
 
mic.m said:
crosses/chances it's just semantics. Obviously the fact that we had the ball in the Fulham box so many times is proof that Moyes is doing something right tactically and will eventually come good. Patience is a virtue.

we made history. We created more chances in one match than any other team in the history of Opta.
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If you're willing to get behind one dimensional tactics consisting of rocketing the ball into the box at any chance then all the power to you.
 
mic.m said:
crosses/chances it's just semantics. Obviously the fact that we had the ball in the Fulham box so many times is proof that Moyes is doing something right tactically and will eventually come good. Patience is a virtue.

we made history. We created more chances in one match than any other team in the history of Opta.
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:lol: :lol: Surely a WUM?
 
lem8sh said:
Fulham defender Dan Burn on Man Utd's approach: "I've not headed that many balls since the Conference!"
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We're such a laughing stock now :lol: I guess it's payback for the number of times we've had the opportunity to laugh at the others.....
 
mic.m said:
crosses/chances it's just semantics. Obviously the fact that we had the ball in the Fulham box so many times is proof that Moyes is doing something right tactically and will eventually come good. Patience is a virtue.

we made history. We created more chances in one match than any other team in the history of Opta.
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We made history at being crap.
 
81 crosses does not equal 81 chances. If this isn't self-evident to every poster here then we've got a serious problem.

Crossing should be an option to keep a back line honest, not the sole attacking philosophy. A club with the quality we have should be able to vary it's attacking threat and not rely entirely on long balls.
 
Castia said:
'Manchester United’s tactics against us were like ‘Conference football’, says Fulham's Dan Burn'

:lol: when the Fulham backroom staff start taking the piss you know there's a problem.
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Moyes has taken the Champions into mid-table and we have players from the bottom of the league taking the piss out of us.

Every week that goes by, he's doing more and more damage to United. It'll be a great day when he's sacked.
 
Well the words from Rene and Burn can help or make things worse. Would make it worse is if Moyes sees it as a challenge to his style and continue to force it to show the world it will work.

Will help if he realizes what many have seen - that we truly are a very predictable team.
 
I'd like to think i could have taken over the side crowed the best in the league the year before and had a good shout of making them 21 points worse off on a like-for-like basis at the same time the following year.
 
Plugsy said:
I'd like to think i could have taken over the side crowed the best in the league the year before and had a good shout of making them 21 points worse off on a like-for-like basis at the same time the following year.
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Next season Moyes should take over this season's champions. Let's see what he can do with them.
 
Siorac said:
Next season Moyes should take over this season's champions. Let's see what he can do with them.
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Reading Bluemoon would be entertaining.

"Why do Barry and Milner keep being played in a 4-4-2 in centre mid?" would undoubtedly be hundreds of pages long.
 
Keenst said:
When he was questioned about the incessant crossing his answer annoyed me. Something about Man United always cross the ball, it's in their DNA - feck that. We didn't hire you to imitate whats gone before, you're the manager and you should have your own ideas about how we should play. Does he even realise that most fans would welcome a fresh approach? Fergie's reign was incredible and we played some great football along the way (and yes that did include a lot of crossing but nothing like yesterday's debacle) but when Fergie retired, while disappointed, I was excited by the idea of a new manager coming in with some fresh ideas and seeing something different.

Moyes doesn't seem to have either the ability nor the balls to implement some progressive, exciting ideas at United. Ever since his interview discussing how Fergie called him round to the house it's been apparent Moyes is awestruck and now I think it's becoming clearer that this job is just too big for him. It's like he's trying to be Fergie mk.2 and we all know that's impossible.
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Plus I really hate that "in our DNA" line, as if all our players had been genetically modified to be predisposed to playing the ball wide and crossing it. Wait a second...
 
Red Indian Chief Torn Rubber said:
They weren't. That is why the current version of Moyes as a tactician is so maddening!
At Everton he was NEVER this tactically clueless. I don't get what is wrong...
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Only thing I can think of it's stuck in his head that United have played with width and got crosses in and so will keep to that - that's what has worked for this club for so long with so much success.

The bigger problem to me is that he seems to have convinced the players as well - players that are capable of driving at defenders or playing through balls are now looking to put crosses in before anything else.
 
To
Red Indian Chief Torn Rubber said:
They weren't. That is why the current version of Moyes as a tactician is so maddening!
At Everton he was NEVER this tactically clueless. I don't get what is wrong...
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To be honest, barring last season, I've always found Moyes' Everton a really dull, workmanlike side to watch.
 
amolbhatia100 said:
To

To be honest, barring last season, I've always found Moyes' Everton a really dull, workmanlike side to watch.
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I also think they were dull, but at least they knew how to press high up the pitch when needed, and also knew how to defend and counterattack. Our current team seems to be incapable of playing the phases of the game, always just doing the same exact thing.
 
True, I don't remember Everton being overly reliant on crosses either. Of course Baines used to cross them in, but they used to have other play as well..

Which is why I was wondering if it's some instruction on our wingplay heritage he's got from somewhere, or just an idea he got fixated with when he started with us -"look, I'm going to play the United way, classic wingplay, that'll get the fans behind me"? Or is it with some players who are refusing to buy into his ideas ? (Or is it Neville and Giggs, two factors not on the coaching when he was at Everton? :nervous:)
We'll probably never know what the real issues behind the scenes are.
 
I would like to know what made him think our team, which has no player that's great at scoring with headers, would be able to win games by pinging lousy crosses into the penalty box at every chance available.
 
elmo said:
I would like to know what made him think our team, which has no player that's great at scoring with headers, would be able to win games by pinging lousy crosses into the penalty box at every chance available.
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He didn't think we would score headers exactly - he's a percentage manager. Ping enough crosses into the area and eventually one will bounce right -which is exactly what happened for RvP's goal and also the sitter he missed. Unfortunately it makes for fecking awful viewing and makes us look like Stoke.
 
@Ole's_toe_poke

I think that a big problem with what Moyes is doing is that he is trying to copy SAF too much. With us during his tenure he would be using the overlapping full-backs and he would allow wingers to drift inside and play with it through the middle rather than try to continuously pump balls out wide. He wouldn't decide to play Distin out at LB against people like Stoke instead of Baines because of height (Like he does with Smalling/Rafael). It's like the SAF aura is surrounding him and he doesn't have the balls to do something different. (I do realise that you have had Rafael/Evra as overlapping fullbacks previously under SAF!). I really thought he would use Kagawa like he used Pienaar but he's decided to just stick with boring cross-cross-cross wingers like Valencia on the right and Young on the left (who does occasionally cut in to shoot to be fair).

In the 2012/2013 season you could clearly see that we did have good tactics and team shape, but with United this year it's like Moyes has scrapped that because what SAF did worked but he's just a very poor mans version of it so far. Our pressing game last season was top notch, we would have two players closing down the ball at each time which meant we were pressurising them into mistakes and being able to have more possession and expose spaces and gaps due to this. Martinez has stepped it up a notch by making us more comfortable on the ball and swamping the opposition more so we are higher up the pitch rather than in our own half. We had clear intentions last year and this to have little triangles in our wing play and fluidity with the front three. Although Fellaini was a target man he would come out wide to play with the wingers and full-backs so they could expose the space and whip good balls in or have players running from the edge of the box to score. The addition of Barkley this year means that you see lovely play more often as he's technically brilliant (This is what Mata should be doing and why Moyes needs to play him as an AM, your wingers/fullbacks will thrive off it!). Yes, we did play with long balls to Fellaini at times but our general play when the ball was on the ground was good. We were playing quick football at times and looked like we had a purpose.

United look lethargic and i've not seen much of this from them. Not many little triangles, just spreading it wide and crossing. No thought. Just a single command.

Would someone like Mourinho/Klopp be afraid to do their own thing and not try and copy/take too much advice from SAF? No. They would be stamping their authority all over. Moyes just seems far too timid.
 
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Red Indian Chief Torn Rubber said:
They weren't. That is why the current version of Moyes as a tactician is so maddening!
At Everton he was NEVER this tactically clueless. I don't get what is wrong...
Click to expand...
Red Indian Chief Torn Rubber said:
They weren't. That is why the current version of Moyes as a tactician is so maddening!
At Everton he was NEVER this tactically clueless. I don't get what is wrong...
Click to expand...

I know.

But why have you made the same post 30 mins apart?
 
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