Moyes So Far!

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It is the poorest United team in quite a while and I think the majority of us genuinely do realise that though. Moyes needs time to make his own side but needs to spend better than he has already if that's to happen. Let's wait and see what happens.
 
lem8sh said:
It is the poorest United team in quite a while and I think the majority of us genuinely do realise that though. Moyes needs time to make his own side but needs to spend better than he has already if that's to happen. Let's wait and see what happens.
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This is true.
We all complain about our weak squad yet expect miracles from Moyes, yes he could have done better in the summer, but would it have been panic buying?
 
Mockney said:
I also worry that there's this idea that "United play with speedy wingers, we've always played with speedy wingers, we should play with speedy wingers" becoming a sort of detrimental adherence. Football has very obviously become a largely more central, technical game amongst the bigger teams of late. If that's the way it's going, there's no harm in going with it, and certainly a lot in resisting it for the sake of tradition. There's more than one way to skin a cat after all.
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Speedy wingers isn't an issue. But the lack of focus on the technical side of football, fluidity and passing through central areas is. Bayern last season has two wide players quicker than any two we have, but there wasn't this obsession with "getting it out wide and whipping crosses in" to the extent where the team stops passing it about opening teams up. They killed teams from out wide but they also played lovely football in general. We just look unable to form attacks any other way other than our usual robotic routine. Once in awhile we do lump it forwards which is a nice break from the norm.
 
Getsme said:
This is true.
We all complain about our weak squad yet expect miracles from Moyes, yes he could have done better in the summer, but would it have been panic buying?
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I think the fuzzy haired signing might have been a panic buy but Fergie made mistakes, every manager makes mistakes. Top 4 finish this season and kick on then. Hopefully.
 
lem8sh said:
I think the fuzzy haired signing might have been a panic buy but Fergie made mistakes, every manager makes mistakes. Top 4 finish this season and kick on then. Hopefully.
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I agree, he knew he had to get someone in and he went with someone he trusted. I think he's starting to regret it now.
He could turn out to be blessing in disguise or an expensive mistake, either way if he helps us pet in the top 4 then it might just be worth it.
 
alastair said:
There are clearly problems defensively. You've conceded 20 goals in your last 10 league away games. Arsenal have conceded about 4.
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That's a fraudulent way to look at it. There's no problem with the defence - Moyes' tactics & negativity is the problem. The defence has conceded less league goals than last season's team after 13 league games. For instance, City have scored 29 league goals at the Etihad while United have scored just 8 league goals from 6 home games....It's criminal to be that goal shy against teams like West Brom, Southampton, etc.

You can say you've got two of the best wingers because few sides are now archaic enough to play with out and out wingers. It doesn't really mean much. You'd never pick Nani and Valencia over Cazorla and Ozil, Hazard and Oscar, Nasri and Silva, etc.
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United have the best wingers in the league - what others do with theirs isn't United's problem. The true meaning of winger means a player that stays on the flank. Even Arsenal have Walcott & City borrowed a leaf and got Navas. The list oh wingers you named above have a total of 1 league title between them. Nani/Valencia have about 5.
 
Are we using league titles as a way of judging how good a player is now? Out and out wingers are dead in the modern game. You don't see the likes of Bayern using a Valencia type winger do you? And United have far from the best wingers in the league unless we are suddenly back in 2011.
 
Im not meaning to sound disparaging to United with my comments by the way, there's some players there I think are world class or genuinely top class ( RVP, Rooney, Hernandez, DDG) but I think SAF made some players appear better than they were in the same way that Jose has made some of our decent and or average players look a lot better. Because of this you have a false sense of the overall quality of the team, as the quality of players is often variable depending on the manager.

You can bleat on about having a good defence on paper still but there are 11 teams with a goals conceded rate better than United and you cant put all of that down to the midfield or the rest of the team, its all excuses if Smalling, Evra, Jones, Evans Vidic and Rio were still the players they were/are supposed to be that would not be the case. ( make no mistake I rated Vidic as the best defender in Europe in the past.)

Nani has looked ok in periods but he has not done anything great and is behind what City, Arsenal and Chelsea have to offer, Valencia has looked good in places too, but again nothing amazing. United major strength is in the striking department where RVP/Rooney.Hernandez are only slightly behind Citys offering, and way ahead of the rest, and the GK is top class too, best in the league is arguable, its very close between him Mignolet Sczeny and Cech imo, all have strengths and weaknesses.
 
ItsEssexRob said:
Im not meaning to sound disparaging to United with my comments by the way, there's some players there I think are world class or genuinely top class ( RVP, Rooney, Hernandez, DDG) but I think SAF made some players appear better than they were in the same way that Jose has made some of our decent and or average players look a lot better. Because of this you have a false sense of the overall quality of the team, as the quality of players is often variable depending on the manager.

You can bleat on about having a good defence on paper still but there are 11 teams with a goals conceded rate better than United and you cant put all of that down to the midfield or the rest of the team, its all excuses if Smalling, Evra, Jones, Evans Vidic and Rio were still the players they were/are supposed to be that would not be the case. ( make no mistake I rated Vidic as the best defender in Europe in the past.)

Nani has looked ok in periods but he has not done anything great and is behind what City, Arsenal and Chelsea have to offer, Valencia has looked good in places too, but again nothing amazing. United major strength is in the striking department where RVP/Rooney.Hernandez are only slightly behind Citys offering, and way ahead of the rest, and the GK is top class too, best in the league is arguable, its very close between him Mignolet Sczeny and Cech imo, all have strengths and weaknesses.
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That's overly harsh though, if you're taking the past into account (are you?). Both have long prolonged spells where they were amongst the finest wingers in Europe.
 
alastair said:
Nani was great in 2011. We're now moving into 2014. There comes a point where you can't call him a fine winger.
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I don't think many Utd supporters are.

He's still arguably the best we have at our disposal however which is why it's frustrating that he doesn't get games.
 
Cina said:
I don't think many Utd supporters are.

He's still arguably the best we have at our disposal however which is why it's frustrating that he doesn't get games.
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And that's absolutely fair enough.

I think Rob's post is fair enough though and makes a lot of good points about the perception of the overall quality of a team.
 
Yeah its a bit silly saying United have the best wingers if they are the only out and out wingers in the league. Its like saying we have the best 'right hooker full keeper' is Ryan Bertrand.

Imo the players that should be compared are Nani/Valencia/Young Silva/Jesus Hazard/Mata( I know he players primarily in attacking midfield but is sometimes deployed on the wing.) Cazorla/Rosicky
 
ItsEssexRob said:
Yeah its a bit silly saying United have the best wingers if they are the only out and out wingers in the league. Its like saying we have the best 'right hooker full keeper' is Ryan Bertrand.

Imo the players that should be compared are Nani/Valencia/Young Silva/Jesus Hazard/Mata( I know he players primarily in attacking midfield but is sometimes deployed on the wing.) Cazorla/Rosicky
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But nobody's said that for years.
 
Cina said:
That's overly harsh though, if you're taking the past into account (are you?). Both have long prolonged spells where they were amongst the finest wingers in Europe.
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There comes a time when you have to consider those great seasons the exception rather than the rule.

Malouda had a top class season, on par with Nanis great season at the same time I believe, but like Nani he regressed since. I once classed Valencia as the most likely top class United player to become world class, but that never happened and last season he was mostly dire, much to my surprise. Im not really taking the past into account no, if I was I would be classing Vidic and Rio as still world class.
 
Cina said:
But nobody's said that for years.
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No what I mean is claiming you have the best or are well stocked in something which is very sparse amongst others is a bit false, you have to compare them to similar players, not the players that play the exact same role.
 
ItsEssexRob said:
Yeah its a bit silly saying United have the best wingers if they are the only out and out wingers in the league. Its like saying we have the best 'right hooker full keeper' is Ryan Bertrand.

Imo the players that should be compared are Nani/Valencia/Young Silva/Jesus Hazard/Mata( I know he players primarily in attacking midfield but is sometimes deployed on the wing.) Cazorla/Rosicky
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Agree.
 
By ther way Cina I was responding to Hannibals actual claim that United have the best wingers in the league, based upon the fact that there are not many other true wingers.
 
Mel_F said:
Are we using league titles as a way of judging how good a player is now? Out and out wingers are dead in the modern game. You don't see the likes of Bayern using a Valencia type winger do you? And United have far from the best wingers in the league unless we are suddenly back in 2011.
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If we cannot use league titles to judge how a good player is then it's equally bizarre to use the number of goals conceded to judge the strength of the defence. United conceded more league goals in the top four last season & won the title with about 5 games to spare. I would take a scoreline of 20-19 in all the league games we have played this season over boring 0-0 & 1-0.
 
ItsEssexRob said:
By ther way Cina I was responding to Hannibals actual claim that United have the best wingers in the league, based upon the fact that there are not many other true wingers.
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Hannibal's a Ihni binni dimi diniwiny anitaime though, any Utd fan with a semblance of a brain would not agree with that.
 
So judging a defence by how they defend goals is bizarre?

As bizarre as saying that Damien Duff is better than Aguero because he has more titles?
 
Hannibal said:
If we cannot use league titles to judge how a good player is then it's equally bizarre to use the number of goals conceded to judge the strength of the defence. United conceded more league goals in the top four last season & won the title with about 5 games to spare. I would take a scoreline of 20-19 in all the league games we have played this season over boring 0-0 & 1-0.
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Steven Gerrard says hi.
 
ItsEssexRob said:
Yeah its a bit silly saying United have the best wingers if they are the only out and out wingers in the league. Its like saying we have the best 'right hooker full keeper' is Ryan Bertrand.

Imo the players that should be compared are Nani/Valencia/Young Silva/Jesus Hazard/Mata( I know he players primarily in attacking midfield but is sometimes deployed on the wing.) Cazorla/Rosicky
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You're better off comparing attackers to be honest, rather than strikers, wingers, inside forwards etc. I'd like to think our best 6 attacking players are the strongest in the League, or certainly very close to City:

Kagawa, Nani, Rooney, RVP, Valencia, Hernandez

Likewise our best 6 defenders (and obviously our Goalkeeper) would probably be up there:

Evra, Rafael, Smalling, Vidic, Jones, Ferdinand

Fergie got this squad performing above their abilities, but not as far above as some would have you believe. Plus as you mentioned previously, all top managers get their team playing better than the sum of all parts. As it stands Moyes has us playing far worse than the sum of all parts; with 8-9 teams playing more attractive Football, 7 of which are on more points.
 
ItsEssexRob said:
So judging a defence by how they defend goals is bizarre?
As bizarre as saying that Damien Duff is better than Aguero because he has more titles?
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Yes, because it's a team game....goals conceded say little about the strength of defence. Only quack pundits use those as a yardstick to measure the strength of the defence. You can keep more clean sheets & still concede more goals over a given set of matches - these things should not be taken too seriously without looking at the underlying factors.

Everton conceded less goals than United last season, would you trade Rio, Evra, Vidic, Evans, Smalling, etc for Distin, Jaglieka, Coleman, etc? Some teams play to win while some play to draw. The teams that play to win take more risks which often yields desired results than the ones happy to keep it 0-0 & survive in the league.
 
Hannibal said:
Yes, because it's a team game....goals conceded say little about the strength of defence. Only quack pundits use those as a yardstick to measure the strength of the defence. You can keep more clean sheets & still concede more goals over a given set of matches - these things should not be taken too seriously without looking at the underlying factors.

Everton conceded less goals than United last season, would you trade Rio, Evra, Vidic, Evans, Smalling, etc for Distin, Jaglieka, Coleman, etc? Some teams play to win while some play to draw. The teams that play to win take more risks which often yields desired results than the ones happy to keep it 0-0 & survive in the league.
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Were you the one claiming we have the best set of winger in the EPL?
 
Sky1981 said:
What's your view then?

The table doesn't lie
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Not after 38 games it doesn't, but it's lying a bit at the moment, as teams have played different strength opponents. We won't be finishing as low as 8th, so in light of that the table is actually lying at the moment.
 
Sky1981 said:
we shall see, I don't think we can climb further than 4th without any major turn of luck
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Even if we climb to fourth, it means the table right now would be lying. Your point is in fact a non-point. The league is played over 38 games. You can't really judge it until the end. It's a long and tough road and teams go through ups and downs at different points so you need to wait to see how it pans out.
 
rpitroda said:
Even if we climb to fourth, it means the table right now would be lying. Your point is in fact a non-point. The league is played over 38 games. You can't really judge it until the end. It's a long and tough road and teams go through ups and downs at different points so you need to wait to see how it pans out.
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So we can only judge Moyes when he played 38 games? By that rationale we can't even say young is shit because he hasn't played 38 games
 
Sky1981 said:
So we can only judge Moyes when he played 38 games? By that rationale we can't even say young is shit because he hasn't played 38 games
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No, don't twist my words.

I'm not saying you cannot pass judgement on Moyes full stop. I'm saying, you can't use the league position as a sole basis for comparison. It shows something; that we've been inconsistent, and we should have won more games. But to solely say we are in 8th now, therefore we will finish 8th because the table doesn't lie is utterly bullshit, and you know it.

Also, you highlight the only way we'll go higher is by luck. What do you mean by luck? We start winning a load of games? Other teams drop points? Why is that luck for us, whereas right now for Arsenal it's consistency. Or right now they are clear at the top because they are lucky that Utd/City/Chelsea have all dropped more points? Just because an event or run happens later in the season, doesn't suddenly make it luck.

And your point about Young is even worse than your original point. Young has been at this club for a number of years. Since when do we look at each season in isolation? Are you kidding me?
 
rpitroda said:
No, don't twist my words.

I'm not saying you cannot pass judgement on Moyes full stop. I'm saying, you can't use the league position as a sole basis for comparison. It shows something; that we've been inconsistent, and we should have won more games. But to solely say we are in 8th now, therefore we will finish 8th because the table doesn't lie is utterly bullshit, and you know it.

Also, you highlight the only way we'll go higher is by luck. What do you mean by luck? We start winning a load of games? Other teams drop points? Why is that luck for us, whereas right now for Arsenal it's consistency. Or right now they are clear at the top because they are lucky that Utd/City/Chelsea have all dropped more points? Just because an event or run happens later in the season, doesn't suddenly make it luck.

And your point about Young is even worse than your original point. Young has been at this club for a number of years. Since when do we look at each season in isolation? Are you kidding me?
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One thing i know is that we're consistently shit for our standard
 
rpitroda said:
That I certainly agree with. But, given all the change, maybe it's something we should have expected a little bit.
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To be honest the amount of people who didn't expect this baffles me, especially when they use the 'this team are the champions' argument. I think its something people may have said they expected but underneath actually thought they would still carry on as they were.
 
Personal views on Moyes aside, i dont see how anyone cannot be anything else other than worried at the performance levels so far this season. We are just poor and havent strung 2 decent performances together all season. All this talk of an unbeaten run from Moyes - we have drawn 5 of those games. He doesnt seem to genuinely understand that, to much of the media, that is a crisis for Utd. Its December and we are sitting in 8th position and 9 points off the pace. You can say its Arsenal all you like but to not treat them with respect and as genuine title contenders is just arrogant on our part. Can he turn it around? Of course its possible. Will he? I would seriously doubt it. He doesnt seem to have grasped what being a Utd manager is all about yet and i cant see that changing this season.

Yes he may need time but he has not delivered to the standards expected of Utd so far - that is unquestionable. Furthermore, he could have avoided some of this if he acted in the transfer market. (Those solely blaming Woodward are way off the mark).
 
I don't know if this is the right thread, but I think we've gotten a bit lost ddown the road in our latest 're-building' phase. I've been around for a few new teams and transition periods, and this one has been amongst the better ones because we have actually been successful. That said, I just get the feeling that somewhere along this road, we have lost our plan and are now just hoping certain random things stick. The midfield hopes were pinned on Cleverley and Anderson, while we lost Pogba and Morrison. The wingers have stagnated/regressed, Young has proven to be a pointless signing. Then somewhere along the way, we flirted with the idea of changing our style, and bought Kagawa - who in reality also looks a bit of a pointless purchase too at present (talented as he may be). Welbeck at 23, doesn't really look like he will be a major first XI contributor, and I now think we have also further complicated/confused things by blowing a load on Fellaini.

We have added De Gea, Smalling and Jones who look to have been great investments, but generally, I think the squad development over the last 3 or 4 seasons have lacked structure and frankly been a bit of a mess that in all honesty, probably needs to be re-started to an extent, firstly with a clear idea of formation and style that we plan to use, and then players of the right calibre/potential and more importantly - style, to make it work.

I know we don't have the money of Chelsea, but I think that I have seen their transitions of late and it at least all makes sense. They were known as a defensive, physical and perhaps route one team with Drogba and co. Roman clearly wanted a brand of attacking football, and in came Mata, Hazard and Oscar. They have added Luiz and Bertrand is coming through as a potential Cole replacement. They are still short a few players I think, but the vision has at least taken clear shape. Similar can be said of Rodgers at Liverpool. In fact, I'd say his transformation may be complete by the summer window.

We just look like we are trying a bit of everything at the moment, and that has shown in the quality of our football. We have done well to still win things, but I can't really see the journey yet. A lot of what we have added to the squad via purchase or promotion haven't added really, and it's all a bit random and hit and hope.
 
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