Moyes So Far!

[noodlehair]

We had the best spell last season when RVP didn't score, but yeah he won us some games in his own. As did Rooney a year before that. I'd like to think that we have a good enough squad to do good even if a player or two are injured.

Beside that, with the same squad we managed to get 89 points a year before we signed RVP.

Our squad's hopelessly weak in certain areas. For example, we have one competent midfielder, who's 30, and has been either injured or playing with an injury all season.

and it didn't. It had to be bailed out by Scholes to prevent our season collapsing on its arse in January...and even then we failed, were owned on our own ground by average European teams, and barely managed a convincing performance.

I think that it is the manager's job to make sure this doesn't happen. Be it motivate them, threaten them or show them his balls (aka Van Gaal). Someone said and might be spot on, Moyes seems to be a nice fella and maybe the players have big egos so this isn't working. If this is the case, maybe he should be less nice.

All fair enough to be honest, but it's early days and it's a new experience for Moyes. Some of the players egos seem too big for their own good, but also they're waiting for a manager to react to a situation they know more about than he does. I think if you asked Fergie, he'd be disappointed they haven't learnt enough to take some of the responsibility upon themselves.

Ultimately you're right and the responsibility falls on Moyes, but it's exactly the sort of thing where patience is needed. He has to figure it out for himself first, and this time last week it still looked like we were improving.

From the entire post, this point is as far from the reality as it can be. Our squad has a big enough winning mentality. I am pretty sure that our players have more EPL medals than the entire league combined. You can accuse them for everything, but you can't say that they aren't winners. The manager on the other hand...

I stood at OT today and watched a bunch of players cowering away from the ball and panicking when they had it. That's not a winning mentality, I'm afraid. It's the mentality of a bunch of bottling fannies. They've had it easy under Ferguson in that respect...and it's not like there weren't signs the last two years again. They completely bottled the league two years ago. Last season they panicked against Real and then sulked for the entire rest of the season afterwards. If that's with Fergie then it's not really that surprising they're falling on their own arses without him, to be honest.

No-one has asked that to be fair. I don't think that anyone is asking (or expecting) us to be Champions or get 89 points. However around 75 points and the fourth place should be an easy target. I mean, 15 points less than Fergie for a top manager should be managable, right?

There is an another thread for the wish list manager, but yeah from the available ones I think that Marcelo Bielsa is by far the best choice. He is a top manager, a winner, plays football on the right way and is good at building teams. There are many others who have shown much more than Moyes in their careers but there is an open thread for that

It's early days in terms of 4th place to be honest, and it's not that easy when the two players who carried Fergie through last season basically haven't turned up for this one yet. How do you manage a squad with only 1 midfielder through 2 games a week, when the midfielder is 30 years old, and injured? Ok, you can say Moyes signed Fellaini and he's been a bit crap so far, but he clearly wanted other players in addition, and Fergie should have sorted out the problem years ago...you can't placew all the burden on Moyes for problems that were existent before he walked through the door...not after less than half a fecking season anyway.

I fidn it odd and disrespectful to talk about a potential replacement to be honest. If Moyes was sacked I'd see it as a sign that we're fecked unless we start throwing stupid money around, which I doubt we'd do.

I don't think that Ferguson would have managed a bunch of average pussies to win the title year after year. We have a top squad with a few weaknesses. It is not perfect, but is good enough ti qualify for Champions with any top manager. Also, Moyes had a summer to fix these weaknesses, but his 27.5m signing doesn't look to have improve anything.

He's managed them to 1 title in 2 years, in a league no one else put in a half credible challenge for. They're a bunch of pussies until they stand up and prove otherwise. If they weren't, you wouldn't get performances like today where there were literally 2 out of 11 players who showed any kind of character at all. That is the reality I'm afraid. Even if the manager takes the responsibility, it's still the players who've put in the gutless performances they have this season. You can't really get away from that.

Not fair to criticize Mourinho, he didn't have the best squad, but then again Chelsea finished 14 points less than us last season. Now they are 8 points better, and don't look worse than last season.

Why exactly is it fair to criticise Moyes yet not fair to criticise Mourinho? Seems massively hypocritical and non objective.

Again agree. Rio has been our worst player this season (well at-least on mix with Cleverley, Young and Fellaini) and also is speaking some needless bullshit.

Rio would be gone if it was up to me. He's only worth keeping around for his attitude, and everything he says seems to indicate that's something we could do without even more than his dodgy performances.

Sorry for multiquoting.

No you're not

 

[pocco]

The writing has been on the wall for a while with this set of players, as noodle has pointed out. Just thinking back to the panic setting in before we brought Scholes back, the utter shite we served up in Europe two years ago before being knocked out into Europa, which we then got knocked out of.

Midfield is a massive weakness and should be addressed first. But I think the problems run a lot deeper than that.

Januzaj is looking comfortably better than all our other wingers. These are experienced players but they can't be relied on to perform. This can be applied to quite a few of the players throughout the squad and it's worrying. We're looking at years of investment and tinkering just to sort it out.

 

[noodlehair]

At first I thought that Raymond Verheijen is a stupid retard, but now I don't know what to think anymore.

Van Persie's had injury problems his whole career.

Now it's all David Moyes and his staff's fault, because someone on twitter said so.

I fecking hate twitter football "experts"

 

[Stack]

I have mentioned this before, earlier this year I attended a coaching clinic that Verheijen held and it was without any shadow of doubt for me the single worst coaching clinic I had ever attended. the stuff he was promoting was stuff that we stopped doing 10 years ago as they had been proven not to work.

He was slagging off Fergie at the clinic calling him a dinosaur and that Utd ran training systems from the dark ages. The same things he was saying on this coaching clinic about Fergie he is also using with respect to Moyes.

 

[Revan]

I stood at OT today and watched a bunch of players cowering away from the ball and panicking when they had it. That's not a winning mentality, I'm afraid. It's the mentality of a bunch of bottling fannies. They've had it easy under Ferguson in that respect...and it's not like there weren't signs the last two years again. They completely bottled the league two years ago. Last season they panicked against Real and then sulked for the entire rest of the season afterwards. If that's with Fergie then it's not really that surprising they're falling on their own arses without him, to be honest.

But considering how many matches we turned last few years (especially last year) I don't see how someone can say that they aren't winner.

About our defenders hoofing the ball, that is irritating to me. I don't know if it is because of tactics, our inexistent midfield or because they are pussies but this should get fixed ASAP. Newcastle came here, and made more passes and had more percentage than us. It isn't a good thing and mainly because we struggle to send the ball in opposition half of the pitch. Even De Gea now is only hoofing it.

It's early days in terms of 4th place to be honest, and it's not that easy when the two players who carried Fergie through last season basically haven't turned up for this one yet. How do you manage a squad with only 1 midfielder through 2 games a week, when the midfielder is 30 years old, and injured? Ok, you can say Moyes signed Fellaini and he's been a bit crap so far, but he clearly wanted other players in addition, and Fergie should have sorted out the problem years ago...you can't placew all the burden on Moyes for problems that were existent before he walked through the door...not after less than half a fecking season anyway.

We should have done better on summer. no question about that. Spending half of summer for Fellaini-Baines and the other half for the impossible target didn't help. There were also other midfielders there. We didn't pay 15m for De Rossi (when Roma asked for that) but payed double of that for Fellaini which is pretty depressing. Strootman was apparently a done deal. Thiago's dead said that we didn't want him enough (though I don't think that we could have won over Pep/Bayern anyway). There were tens of midfielders there, but Moyes went for the secure option, whicth to me was pretty clear was the wrong one.

He's managed them to 1 title in 2 years, in a league no one else put in a half credible challenge for. They're a bunch of pussies until they stand up and prove otherwise. If they weren't, you wouldn't get performances like today where there were literally 2 out of 11 players who showed any kind of character at all. That is the reality I'm afraid. Even if the manager takes the responsibility, it's still the players who've put in the gutless performances they have this season. You can't really get away from that.

This has been done to death, so I don't like to repeat myself but still. We got 89 points last season, which only in rare cases doesn't win you the league. Regardless of other teams, we did enough points last season. Likely if City/Chelsea would have been better, we would have won a few more points because after the league was secured we lost a few points (which is to be expected).

Why exactly is it fair to criticise Moyes yet not fair to criticise Mourinho? Seems massively hypocritical and non objective.

Because he took a team who finished 14 points less than us and now has 8 points more. They are still on fight for the title and comfortably on UCL zone. If they fall behind as much as us, then of course, it will be nice to see them struggle and to laugh with them.

Rio would be gone if it was up to me. He's only worth keeping around for his attitude, and everything he says seems to indicate that's something we could do without even more than his dodgy performances.

Yep, possibly our best ever CB but looks to be finished. And since he isn't playing he is talking even more.

 

[noodlehair]

Last season was a little wierd but 'crap' is far too big a word. Also, people always tend to say how players won us trophies when they score loads, but Van Persie didn't score 30 goals by taking the ball on halfway line, beating four men and scoring. The team did a good job to set him up as well. Cleverley struck a good partnership with Carrick for the first few months and when the goals dried up in the second half of the season our defence really stepped up. There were stars to the show, but it was still a team effort.

Ok. If you took Carrick and Van Persie out of our current squad, and had Fergie manage them this season, what do you think would be a realistic outcome?

I reckon I'd be happy with top four. No Van Persie would be difficult but managable. No Carrick would absolutely kill us given the ridiculous lack of alternatives...that's pretty much what Moyes has had to contend with, and he isn't Fergie.

As it stands this season...I'd be happy with top four.

 

[Revan]

Van Persie's had injury problems his whole career.

Now it's all David Moyes and his staff's fault, because someone on twitter said so.

I fecking hate twitter football "experts"

I am not blamming Moyes for his injuries, just giving my doubt. Van Persie was clearly unfit today (as was Welbeck last game) though. And in all my years supporting United, the only case I remember SAF playing an unfit player was Rooney against Bayern.

And yeah, there have been mentioned before that Moyes have extremely difficult training sections. Rooney said the same some weeks ago. But yeah, they must be tards if they do the same training regime for all players, so likely it's bullshit.

 

[Rood]

Said this 2 months ago, still feel exactly the same way - no consistency and too many unnecessary changes.

I feel that Moyes is still chopping and changing too much, he needs to decide on his best matchday squad and stick with it. Rotating a few players within that squad is fine and obviously changes are needed due to injuries, but I still dont like the way that players go from starting line up to sitting in the stands from week to week.

Hopefully we will start to see more of a settled line up and then the consistency will come.

 

[Nick 0208 Ldn]

At first I thought that Raymond Verheijen is a stupid retard, but now I don't know what to think anymore.

RVP playing 90 minutes when he clearly was unfit wasn't nice to see. Same about Welbeck last game.

The only time I remember SAF doing so was Rooney against Bayern. Like in these two cases, it didn't end well (though Rooney was subbed after an hour or so).

Considering how adept Fergie had become at pacing a team's route through a season when battling on multiple fronts, you have to wonder why such a stark shift in approach was required.

We've also seen the near vanishing of United's trait of attacking games to the death, indeed picking off the lesser sides at such a time, can this in part be attributed to the players simply lacking the capacity to move into that higher gear?

I want Moyes to make this work, most importantly for United long term stability but also the credibility of British managers, however at this point i have to question his ability to adapt to the demands of the job in time to salvage what remains of 13/14.

Either against Shakhtar or next weekend we need to be seeing an effort to alter the patter of events, if this doesn't happen i would expect Sir Alex to at least have a word with Moyes. There are times to be stubborn and then there is...well the present time.

 

[sullydnl]

The writing has been on the wall for a while with this set of players, as noodle has pointed out. Just thinking back to the panic setting in before we brought Scholes back, the utter shite we served up in Europe two years ago before being knocked out into Europa, which we then got knocked out of.

Midfield is a massive weakness and should be addressed first. But I think the problems run a lot deeper than that.

Januzaj is looking comfortably better than all our other wingers. These are experienced players but they can't be relied on to perform. This can be applied to quite a few of the players throughout the squad and it's worrying. We're looking at years of investment and tinkering just to sort it out.

I hate to be one of the fans who blame the Glazers for everything, but in this case...

It seems to me that years of being underfunded when compared to the other top clubs has slowly sapped our strength and undermined the core strength of our team. The brilliance of SAF was such that we were able to maintain our status (though the quality of our football slowly eroded). For years people suggested we weren't spending enough, weren't being ambitious enough in the transfer market and weren't as strong as we used to be, but it was too easy to dismiss that point of view when we were still getting results.

Now the flaws that were building under SAF's final years are being exposed. What could have been a simple case of maintaining our quality team has turned into a major rebuilding job, one that will probably cost more than the Glazers probably ever anticipated pouring into the squad. Will they be willing to commit those resources? I wonder.

 

[Amir]

Ok. If you took Carrick and Van Persie out of our current squad, and had Fergie manage them this season, what do you think would be a realistic outcome?

I reckon I'd be happy with top four. No Van Persie would be difficult but managable. No Carrick would absolutely kill us given the ridiculous lack of alternatives...that's pretty much what Moyes has had to contend with, and he isn't Fergie.

As it stands this season...I'd be happy with top four.

I think we'd do very well even without Van Persie, with Rooney, Kagawa and Hernandez (maybe Welbeck) doing their bit. No Carrick WOULD be a killer. But... It's hardly as if niether has been playing this season. And even with both we haven't looked good.

I'd be happy with top four. Let's start with, ahem, top eight.

 

[Rood]

Ok. If you took Carrick and Van Persie out of our current squad, and had Fergie manage them this season, what do you think would be a realistic outcome?

I reckon I'd be happy with top four. No Van Persie would be difficult but managable. No Carrick would absolutely kill us given the ridiculous lack of alternatives...that's pretty much what Moyes has had to contend with, and he isn't Fergie.

As it stands this season...I'd be happy with top four.

At this point Id also be happy with top 4, but even that is looking like hard work.

This squad is easily good enough to be in CL places and it can only be the manager to blame if that is not acheived - even without Carrick and RvP there are no excuses for some of the recent results. Late goals conceeded have turned wins into draws - that shows the team was good enough to win but something is wrong in fitness or tactics that we didnt see the game out.

 

[noodlehair]

But considering how many matches we turned last few years (especially last year) I don't see how someone can say that they aren't winner.

About our defenders hoofing the ball, that is irritating to me. I don't know if it is because of tactics, our inexistent midfield or because they are pussies but this should get fixed ASAP. Newcastle came here, and made more passes and had more percentage than us. It isn't a good thing and mainly because we struggle to send the ball in opposition half of the pitch. Even De Gea now is only hoofing it.

Our performances this season have shown they're not winners. If they were all winners, it wouldn't matter who the manager was when we go a goal down or have a bad result or two, because they'd pick themselves up, roll up their sleeves and go at it. Not go hiding or sit there waiting for someone else to tell them to or do it for them, like they have done this season and at times last and the season before.

I'm afraid you can't really get away from that. It's there and it's happened. There's no point trying to blame it all on Moyes, because unless he's picking ridiculous teams, or standing on the sidelines shouting "panic!", "stop trying to win the game" etc. he's not doing anything to prevent them being winners.

Today we had 8 outfield players hiding, and two (Hernandez and Janujaz) trying to take it upon themselves to win the game.

We should have done better on summer. no question about that. Spending half of summer for Fellaini-Baines and the other half for the impossible target didn't help. There were also other midfielders there. We didn't pay 15m for De Rossi (when Roma asked for that) but payed double of that for Fellaini which is pretty depressing. Strootman was apparently a done deal. Thiago's dead said that we didn't want him enough (though I don't think that we could have won over Pep/Bayern anyway). There were tens of midfielders there, but Moyes went for the secure option, whicth to me was pretty clear was the wrong one.

Well, supposedly we tried to sign Fabregas, Thiago, and Herrera. It's impossible to know exactly what went on, but fairly safe to assume Moyes saw midfield as a big problem and didn't see Fellaini as being a satisfactory solution on his own.

This has been done to death, so I don't like to repeat myself but still. We got 89 points last season, which only in rare cases doesn't win you the league. Regardless of other teams, we did enough points last season. Likely if City/Chelsea would have been better, we would have won a few more points because after the league was secured we lost a few points (which is to be expected).

We deserved to win it no doubt, but it was the poorest United side I've seen win the league. Possibly the poorest side full stop. The number of points isn't realy that relevant to me. Stronger challengers means it's harder to pick up points, because that's tougher opponents and more pressure.

Because he took a team who finished 14 points less than us and now has 8 points more. They are still on fight for the title and comfortably on UCL zone. If they fall behind as much as us, then of course, it will be nice to see them struggle and to laugh with them.

They don't look better than last season to me. They're losing track of Arsenal in the same way they did us last season. In the CL they've been awful (they made Basle look like Barcelona, twice.). He's marginalised their best player, bought in an average striker who can barely score, and reduced te quality of their football noticable. He took over from a manager who was at times almost doing a bad job on purpose, yet is doing no better in any noticable way. I definitely wouldn't say he's above criticism considering the Chelsea fan I spoke to most recently remarked that he was concerned Mourinho had "gone mad"

 

[Ash_G]

A lot of people have just decided to suddenly conveniently ignore the fact that this team was actually rather shit for pretty much all of last season, and most of the season before that. Bailed out almost invariably by Carrick and Van Persie, both of who have spent a majority of this season either injuired or playing despite being nowhere near their best.

That makes a big difference, and the only other difference I can see is that the belief of the players has gone. None of them seem to want the ball, and none have the confidence to do the right thing when they have it.

You can put that down to Moyes as it's his job to address it, but Ferguson has in reality left him a mess of a squad, tainted by average quality, non-winning mentality and spoilt by success. There are so many players there who it seems liked to hide their frailties behind Fergie, and now want to carry on hiding.

You're basically asking Moyes to be as good as Fergie at everything Fergie is good at, and then want to sack him off when it turns out he isn't. Ferguson might be the best manager there's ever been, but when you take his strengths away from this squad, what's becoming apparent is that it's not actually nearly as good as he claimed it was.

Who do you replace Moyes with that suddenly makes this issue go away? I know Mourinho was the big favourite on here and people were spitting their dummies when he went to Chelsea, but he's gone to Chelsea, brought in some average players and generally made them worse. He'd be faced with the same issues here as Moyes has had.

I think what's happened is a dose of reality, though what Moyes does need to do is get the players grafting like hell and forcing themselves to want the ball until they get a few results and the belief starts to come back. At the moment it's like they're all waiting for someone else to do it for them. It's clear they're not going to do what Fergie seemed to think they would in terms of being big enough characters to do it themselves.

To be honest the likes of Rio seemed to take Fergie's "don't let the new manager down" speech as some kind of reverse psychology challenge. They'll be the same whoever the manager is so I don't see the point in yielding the axe before the manager has even had a chance to yield his own.

Agree totally. We've had some issues that simply haven't been addressed for some time and a combination of good fortune in key players staying fit, Fergie's brilliance and our rivals ineptitude really masked some issues. RVP and Carrick being injured/out of form has had a massive impact, one that a lot have said would be likely if it happened with or without Fergie. I mean Moyes has made some mistakes but we're missing clear quality in the most important position and are carrying some players who are simply not performing. It'd be a struggle regardless of who came in. I guess the main criticism you could say would be getting the business down in the summer, but it's hard to know how much of that was Moyes or not.

 

[RoadTrip]

I am not blamming Moyes for his injuries, just giving my doubt. Van Persie was clearly unfit today (as was Welbeck last game) though. And in all my years supporting United, the only case I remember SAF playing an unfit player was Rooney against Bayern.

And yeah, there have been mentioned before that Moyes have extremely difficult training sections. Rooney said the same some weeks ago. But yeah, they must be tards if they do the same training regime for all players, so likely it's bullshit.

Revan, with all due respect, it's just getting irritating now. Like, I know you dislike Moyes and I know you aren't afraid to mention it. That is your opinion, and I can understand your logic. I'm losing faith in Moyes too slowly, but I'd like to give him a chance; I respect your opinion.

But, just because you REALLY dislike Moyes doesn't mean you have to jump on anything and everything you can get your hands on to criticize him. It's just very irritating. Moyes has made mistakes, big ones, but there are some things he has done right. Your silent on those, and very vocal on everything else. That is a characteristic that frustrates people. So just want to let you know, people may dislike you but it's not because of your opinion. It is just your lack of objectivity in anything Moyes related that just pisses me and other posters off.

As I said, I respect your opinion and understand it too. I just very much dislike your way of communicating your message, and your completely lack of any objectivity on many issues. You just look to jump on anything.

 

[7even]

Being a manager for United isn't a trainee job where you should learn and improve after time. This is a job for the elite, a manger should be ready and prepared directly from the first day. I don't like this situation at all but I care for my club more then anything, right now we don't performed at all and only one man can be accountable for this situation.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Revan]

Revan, with all due respect, it's just getting irritating now. Like, I know you dislike Moyes and I know you aren't afraid to mention it. That is your opinion, and I can understand your logic. I'm losing faith in Moyes too slowly, but I'd like to give him a chance; I respect your opinion.

But, just because you REALLY dislike Moyes doesn't mean you have to jump on anything and everything you can get your hands on to criticize him. It's just very irritating. Moyes has made mistakes, big ones, but there are some things he has done right. Your silent on those, and very vocal on everything else. That is a characteristic that frustrates people. So just want to let you know, people may dislike you but it's not because of your opinion. It is just your lack of objectivity in anything Moyes related that just pisses me and other posters off.

As I said, I respect your opinion and understand it too. I just very much dislike your way of communicating your message, and your completely lack of any objectivity on many issues. You just look to jump on anything.

Maybe your right, but I don't think that was the right post to quote.

I agreed in the end that I don't think that they (coaching staff lead by Moyes) make the same training regime for all players, so likely it's all bullshit. I am not accusing Moyes for injuries, Robin had a history of them before, and so did United. Yesterday I said that looking to our injuries this year, and comparing the results to other years, there isn't any significant difference.

PS: I don't dislike him, always though that he did a very good job at Everton and he seems a nice guy. I don't rate him, though but that is different to disliking. I think that he has been the second best British manager for the last 10 years or so, but don't think that it's enough to make it here.

 

[RoadTrip]

Being a manager for United isn't a trainee job where you should learn and improve after time. This is a job for the elite, a manger should be ready and prepared directly from the first day. I don't like this situation at all but I care for my club more then anything, right now we don't performed at all and only one man can be accountable for this situation.


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Can he though? Don't get me wrong, he is the majority party who is responsible. But to me, everyone has to take a bit of the responsibility. Woodward, the coaching staff, the players performances. Moyes has made big big mistakes, which may turn out to be unforgivable in the future. But to lay the entire fault at his feet is a problem.

The other thing is as a club we have to be very, very careful. It is very easy for us to say this is Moyes' fault and leave it at that. Sack and replace him. But there are other things which need addressing. If we get into the mentality that Moyes is the fault and replacing him will fix it, we'll get left behind because the key issues needing fixing will be ignored.

 

[Chesterlestreet]

Sir Alex is watching every game from the stands. This clearly does not make life any easier for Moyes. Sir Alex should know better. Or...?

https://twitter.com/raymondverheije/statuses/409430463791378432

fecking garrulous halfwit. What's his obsession with us anyway?

 

[RoadTrip]

Maybe your right, but I don't think that was the right post to quote.

I agreed in the end that I don't think that they (coaching staff lead by Moyes) make the same training regime for all players, so likely it's all bullshit. I am not accusing Moyes for injuries, Robin had a history of them before, and so did United. Yesterday I said that looking to our injuries this year, and comparing the results to other years, there isn't any significant difference.

PS: I don't dislike him, always though that he did a very good job at Everton and he seems a nice guy. I don't rate him, though but that is different to disliking. I think that he has been the second British manager for the last 10 years or so, but don't think that it's enough to make it here.

I wasn't quoting the post for the content, more to address you - apologies. Also, I agree that disliking and not rating is different - apologies again.

I just, I'm worried. Moyes has made mistakes, I've said that before, and his mistakes are the largest contributing factor to this problem; the biggest of which was changing the coaching set up. But there are other significant issues with the team and other aspects of the club that need addressing. I'm worried because I don't want us fans, and the club, to lay the blame at Moyes and get into the mentality that by sacking and replacing him, our problems will be fixed. It's very easy to do that because he is a very easy target. Whether we sack him or not, we need to be clear that is NOT the fix to the entire problem. We have more things to address.

I'm losing faith in Moyes - United probably shouldn't have appointed him because we needed someone to hit the ground running. But I can't see him going anywhere. Top 4 or not, honestly I can't, just because we have SAF and SBC in the directors office. Both know the importance of sticking by someone and how quickly things can change if you do. So to me, I'd much rather we focus on how we can make things better, short and long term.

 

[Commadus]

Glazers got complacent and relied on fergie and indulged him in everything bar a big transfer fund - sure United had money to spend but it wasn't in the same league as clubs like City or Chelsea and in the final decision they indulged him when he picked a fellow Scot.

Fergie most admiring skill was his man management and motivational skills - he picked as many bad signings as good ones and his blind support of Scottish Managers may have blinded him to the truth that Moyes is just not good enough.

As to a replacement - Solksjaer and Neville would do far better - both intelligent, both know the club, both shown to be winners. I am not expecting miracles from Solksjar and Neveille but you would get from them a clear idea of what is going on.

Anyone supporting Moyes is doing so through blind faith.

 

[Commadus]

What are the positive things /Improvements Moyes has done?


The excuse we don't fire people quickly because its not the United way well - going public as a PLC was not the United way, getting bought out by American Investors was not the United Way - its a nonsensical justification. The quicker we get rid of Moyes the more of this season we can save.

 

[Chesterlestreet]

Glazers got complacent and relied on fergie and indulged him in everything bar a big transfer fund - sure United had money to spend but it wasn't in the same league as clubs like City or Chelsea and in the final decision they indulged him when he picked a fellow Scot.

Why don't you indulge me - and explain what you mean by this? I don't understand it. I'm not having a go - I'm genuinely unsure what you're on about.

 

[Alex99]

What are the positive things /Improvements Moyes has done?


The excuse we don't fire people quickly because its not the United way well - going public as a PLC was not the United way, getting bought out by American Investors was not the United Way - its a nonsensical justification. The quicker we get rid of Moyes the more of this season we can save.

Does he have to make improvements? Did anyone really expect it to get better than the Fergie era? It's absurd to expect the guy to do better than Fergie, it's even more absurd to expect him to have done it before we've even hit the halfway mark of his first season.

We knew there was one area of the team that was in particular need of strengthening. He has attempted to do that, but obviously it hasn't gone to plan. Maybe if we give him more than one shot at solving the problem then we can judge him properly. It should be obvious to everyone that the failings in the transfer window do not lie fully at Moyes' door, and that any comments he made about the way we wanted to do our business should be taken with a pinch of salt. He was hardly going to come out and say "Woody really fecked up here, didn't he?", when he'd only just started working with the guy.

Given the complete lack of managers available, and the short period of time Moyes has had, I don't really see what is to be gained by firing him at this stage. It's fair game to talk about why you think another manager would be more suited to the role, because I don't think it's any secret that many of us on here didn't have Moyes as their first choice of successor for Fergie. As it stands though, he's the man we've got, and we really should be getting behind him, and the team.

If you want to debate why you don't think he should be in the job anymore, you need to come up with something better than "what improvements has he made?", because it should have been crystal clear to anyone who knows anything about football that after losing Fergie, we were going to suffer, at least in the immediate aftermath.

 

[sullydnl]

What are the positive things /Improvements Moyes has done?

Keeping Rooney and getting him motivated? Handled the CL group stage pretty well too.

 

[Amir]

The excuse we don't fire people quickly because its not the United way well - going public as a PLC was not the United way, getting bought out by American Investors was not the United Way - its a nonsensical justification. The quicker we get rid of Moyes the more of this season we can save.

Yeah, I agree with that. Seems like a lot of people want us to keep Moyes because we're different to other clubs and as some sort of principal. But I'm sorry, at the end of the day, we are still a football club. We do plenty of things just like other football clubs. And part of it is being able to make judgement of a new manager and realise whether he's good enough or we've made a mistake in appointing him - and if so, quickly fix the situation.

Now, if some people are able to identify something in Moyes I and others have failed to - like Edwards and Charlton saying they knew in 1990 what work Fergie was doing from the ground up - then fair enough. But saying we shouldn't seriously reconsider whether he's the right man just because 'we're not Chelsea' is plain wrong. Sometimes not being able to make the quick and hard decision is worse.

The funny thing is I still don't consider getting rid of the old coaching set up as a problem. Looking at our football in recent years, I felt it became stale and thought new people and new ideas would do it the world of good. Didn't think new stuff would make it worse. But with all due respect to Round, Neville, etc - the manager is the man responsible.

 

[Theon]

A lot of people have just decided to suddenly conveniently ignore the fact that this team was actually rather shit for pretty much all of last season, and most of the season before that. Bailed out almost invariably by Carrick and Van Persie, both of who have spent a majority of this season either injuired or playing despite being nowhere near their best.

That makes a big difference, and the only other difference I can see is that the belief of the players has gone. None of them seem to want the ball, and none have the confidence to do the right thing when they have it.

You can put that down to Moyes as it's his job to address it, but Ferguson has in reality left him a mess of a squad, tainted by average quality, non-winning mentality and spoilt by success. There are so many players there who it seems liked to hide their frailties behind Fergie, and now want to carry on hiding.

You're basically asking Moyes to be as good as Fergie at everything Fergie is good at, and then want to sack him off when it turns out he isn't. Ferguson might be the best manager there's ever been, but when you take his strengths away from this squad, what's becoming apparent is that it's not actually nearly as good as he claimed it was.

Who do you replace Moyes with that suddenly makes this issue go away? I know Mourinho was the big favourite on here and people were spitting their dummies when he went to Chelsea, but he's gone to Chelsea, brought in some average players and generally made them worse. He'd be faced with the same issues here as Moyes has had.

I think what's happened is a dose of reality, though what Moyes does need to do is get the players grafting like hell and forcing themselves to want the ball until they get a few results and the belief starts to come back. At the moment it's like they're all waiting for someone else to do it for them. It's clear they're not going to do what Fergie seemed to think they would in terms of being big enough characters to do it themselves.

To be honest the likes of Rio seemed to take Fergie's "don't let the new manager down" speech as some kind of reverse psychology challenge. They'll be the same whoever the manager is so I don't see the point in yielding the axe before the manager has even had a chance to yield his own.

Aye spot on man, agree with virtually all of this.

 

[bosnian_red]

I understand why the club went after someone who is known for his longevity at one club, but I genuinely think that the club would have been better off had we brought in someone short term like Mourinho. You know with him that you'd stay at the very top, and even though he's short term, it would leave the next person with a much easier task then taking over directly after Sir Alex. I feel you need that stop-gap type manager who will be there for 2-3 years to steady the ship after losing a long term manager like Sir Alex, before another long term manager comes in. There would still be a bit of a transition period but not as big whatever way you look at it.

 

[Chesterlestreet]

Yeah, I agree with that. Seems like a lot of people want us to keep Moyes because we're different to other clubs and as some sort of principal. But I'm sorry, at the end of the day, we are still a football club. We do plenty of things just like other football clubs. And part of it is being able to make judgement of a new manager and realise whether he's good enough or we've made a mistake in appointing him - and if so, quickly fix the situation.

Now, if some people are able to identify something in Moyes I and others have failed to - like Edwards and Charlton saying they knew in 1990 what work Fergie was doing from the ground up - then fair enough. But saying we shouldn't seriously reconsider whether he's the right man just because 'we're not Chelsea' is plain wrong. Sometimes not being able to make the quick and hard decision is worse.

The funny thing is I still don't consider getting rid of the old coaching set up as a problem. Looking at our football in recent years, I felt it became stale and thought new people and new ideas would do it the world of good. Didn't think new stuff would make it worse. But with all due respect to Round, Neville, etc - the manager is the man responsible.

You or I know nothing of what work Moyes is doing from the ground up, that's one thing. It's for the board to identify that - we can't do anything but judge him by his results. And doing that after less than half a season isn't fair. It's bound to be a premature judgment.

 

[Sultan]

The strength of the United squad inherited by Moyes further illustrates the genius of Sir Alex. I personally think one of the biggest losses besides Sir Alex has been David Gill. Woodward was shown up to be a novice and that has hit United hard, and possibly this contributed to United spending 27 Million buying Fellaini who so far seems to have taken United's already weak midfield a further notch. It's a very expensive noose around Moyes neck, and he will have to live with that for a very long time.

The 3 outstanding players from last year (Carrick, RvP, and Rafael) have missed large parts of the season. If these 3, together with the new Rooney and the emergence of Adnan we have to hope they can still reignite the season, and at a minimum get us into Europe.

I personally still think he needs time to create a squad to how he wants United to play, and that it's only then we can determine if Moyes has what it takes to make it as United’s manager.

 

[Spoony]

Yeah, I'd like to think he'll get two full seasons.

 

[marjen]

I too hope he salvages the season, so he'll be allowed another season.

I'd love him to prove me wrong but I don't think he's got it.

 

[MikeUpNorth]

Yeah, I'd like to think he'll get two full seasons.

We're going to have to have a very good second half of the season for him to still be here next year. There's a lot of points to make up.

 

[Amir]

You or I know nothing of what work Moyes is doing from the ground up, that's one thing. It's for the board to identify that - we can't do anything but judge him by his results. And doing that after less than half a season isn't fair. It's bound to be a premature judgment.

It's not just the results, though. That could be the result of crappy luck. It's the style I'm looking for. I like today's team, I figured that it isn't perfect, but with the two wingers, two attacking full backs and two strikers it will cause some trouble. But we were so stale and clueless. By this time I'd expect to be able to identify some sort of style. But I see nothing apart from getting it to the wing and cross it, and the odd set piece. Hated it when we got a free kick some 40 yards away from goal, near the touch line, and rather than take it quickly waited for players to come up and belted it to the box.

That's the issue. I see nothing in our football to suggest an improvement. Carrick will return and Rooney will be back and we may sign a player or two. That will help, but in a very limited way. We have no power as a team. We'll go as far as our quality players carry us.

 

[Spoony]

We're going to have to have a very good second half of the season for him to still be here next year. There's a lot of points to make up.

I think the owners have to back him in the transfer market...otherwise why appoint him in the first place?

 

[MikeUpNorth]

I think the owners have to back him in the transfer market...otherwise why appoint him in the first place?

Would you trust David Moyes to spend your money? Why appoint him in the first place? Very good question.

 

[#07]

Andy Dunn: David Moyes must shoulder blame for Manchester United's fragile confidence and poor results

 

[sullydnl]

He'll get at least one full season. If he spends money strengthening the team over the next two windows and results don't improve by much next season, then he'll be in danger. It's all well and good saying he should be given two or three seasons but we need to see real signs of improvement within that time, otherwise we're just kidding ourselves.

A lot will depend on how much the Glazers back him financially though, and whether Woodward is up to the job. If Moyes doesn't get the money needed and is forced to deal with an inept transfer department, then he's operating with his hands tied. No manager around could do the job in that position.

 

[Nick 0208 Ldn]

Woodward's jurisdiction will have been financing and some but not all of the negotiation, what will most likely not have been hsi call is player selection. The farce that was our pursuit of Fabregas must predominantly have its origins with Moyes, we wasted weeks of the summer on that and in the knowledge that the intricacies of any Herrera deal.

I would hope that if we have targeted Herrera for January, that most of the preliminaries have already been settled.

 

[Spoony]

Would you trust David Moyes to spend your money? Why appoint him in the first place? Very good question.

If he's not good enough now, he wasn't good enough before he was appointed. I've said before I think the club acted shambolically this summer, and I don't just mean Woodward. Why on earth we let Gill, all the back room staff and of course Fergie go in one summer was well...very intelligent.