Ah, apologies, missed the midfield word. The midfield is shit, but I am not sure it is that much worse than the midfield we had after Keane left the team. It was basically Scholes and someone shit, as it is now Carrick and someone shit. Anyway, yeah, I think that even Twigginator agrees now that our midfield is horrendous.
Moyes So Far!
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Ah, apologies, missed the midfield word. The midfield is shit, but I am not sure it is that much worse than the midfield we had after Keane left the team. It was basically Scholes and someone shit, as it is now Carrick and someone shit. Anyway, yeah, I think that even Twigginator agrees now that our midfield is horrendous.
It cant be defended. Neither central midfielder showed for ball from the centre half's on Saturday. Time and time again Evans and vidic went long cause our central midfield didn't provide any movement to get on the ball. Im not going to blame Jones cause hes just not a central midfielder but cleverley should know better.
Unless we pick up a gem, it will cost a fortune to fix. Ive never been a huge advocate of overhauling squads but he needs 2 central midfielders now - as close to "first eleven" picks if you know what i mean
Definitely agree. I would go even far and say that we need two top midfielders and a backup like McCarthy * (not neccesarily him). It is so bad that it needs a big investment to get fixed. And without heavily investing there, no manager would make us play exciting football (of course we may play better than this with the same player, but I am talking to be able to compete with the very best).
* That player might be Powell, or who knows, I doubt that Pearson/Pereira can do worse than what our midfielders are doing at the moment. Though without improving the midfield, it won't do good to put on team the last two cause they will get lost anyway even if they are Xavi reincarnated.
I rate Powell highly but looks like he may play further up the pitch. Hes a top talent though.
Im just not sure who Moyes will get - plenty out there. Club will need to stump up some serious cash
This is my exact view. As far as transfer are concerned to me his re-owned for being a bit crap, i just hoped he never brought it with him to us. We keep getting told Everton had a tight budget so I believed the media. I just never understood how he went a whole summer at Everton and brought one player in the summer.. said him and Kenwright were working hard... Everton have a crap start and emergence signings at January saved them. Sounds abit familar but I really have to think is he really up for this job.
Gonna be pedantic. It was never Scholes and someone shit. It was Giggs and O'Shea as Scholes had an eye injury then we signed Carrick that summer. We ground out an entire half season with Giggs and O'Shea as our midfielders. And Giggs was still a winger at this point
Giggs and O'shea were actually pretty decent all things considered, that was the period that really suggested Giggs could make the move to cm, and we also had Fletcher who whilst he was still getting settled in the team was a better player or at least putting in better performances than any of the others today are and at the minimum what the likes of clev is putting in. Plus back then the league wasn't quite as strong with Chelsea being well ahead of everyone else. That was a low point but the performance levels from the midfielders was better than what the current lot are doing, I mean at least Smith was always up for the fight. It was still a massive issue but I think the midfield of the last few games is even worse.
That said our current lot are under performing or rather Clev and Fellaini, I don't think we should really have gone for fellaini but he's better than what he's showing, and Clev can do more. Giggs has been inconsistent in the middle for years whilst Jones has slowly refined his game in the middle but still at times particularly when passing looks very much a defender playing in midfield so there's no surprises there, you wouldn't say those last two are under performing, but the former two certainly are.
That said our current lot are under performing or rather Clev and Fellaini, I don't think we should really have gone for fellaini but he's better than what he's showing, and Clev can do more. Giggs has been inconsistent in the middle for years whilst Jones has slowly refined his game in the middle but still at times particularly when passing looks very much a defender playing in midfield so there's no surprises there, you wouldn't say those last two are under performing, but the former two certainly are.
Tbf, wasn't it Madrid that pulled the plug due to their failure to obtain a replacement, rather then us not being able to complete the deal?
I agree moses. That's beyond poor. I'm not sure why we really care about such things.
Before Carrick. We tried something with Smith which had only a single good performance on midfield. O'Shea wasn't that good there and Fletcher was still learninig. I don't think that it was such a big difference with a fit Carrick and someone else.
Are people really moaning about the press?
I think they been more than fair on Moyes. Look at AVB. He signed so many players from abroad and they taking time to settle in. Lost their best player too. Where as Moyes had a title winning team. Yet AVB was getting stick. To be fair we could have easily lost by 6 at Man City.
Any other club and Moyes would be crucified. That is the thing that worries me that people will be happy with a dip in standards.
Arsenal fans made it known after the Villa defeat and Wenger goes out and signs a big player. If Moyes does manage to get through to January he needs to sign a big player. Not somebody from Everton.
I think they been more than fair on Moyes. Look at AVB. He signed so many players from abroad and they taking time to settle in. Lost their best player too. Where as Moyes had a title winning team. Yet AVB was getting stick. To be fair we could have easily lost by 6 at Man City.
Any other club and Moyes would be crucified. That is the thing that worries me that people will be happy with a dip in standards.
Arsenal fans made it known after the Villa defeat and Wenger goes out and signs a big player. If Moyes does manage to get through to January he needs to sign a big player. Not somebody from Everton.
Ignore the headline (and the 2nd half of the article about Jose Mourinho) if you want, but this is interesting: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/tim-bradley/manchester-united-mourinho-not-moyes_b_4394693.html
Didn't the Smith experiment coincide with our 4-3-3 period? Scholes, Fletcher, Smith/Keane along with the RVN, Rooney and Ronaldo up top?
Shocking but this scouser talks more sense than many on here..
Shocking but this scouser talks more sense than many on here..
They should have gave Hodgson time.....
Rodgers took over a much worse team.
I don't think many would've expected a seamless transition and a lot accepted that there are flaws with the team. Even so, there's no question Moyes is underperforming massively with the group he has available.
I don't think many would've expected a seamless transition and a lot accepted that there are flaws with the team. Even so, there's no question Moyes is underperforming massively with the group he has available.
Totally agreed. What's even more frustrating is Moyes appears so cool about the whole situation.....
or Dalglish.
Its not the worst midfield in 40 years, seriously. I can remember some truely useless midfields we had in the 70's and really boring midfields we had under Sexton.
We have a better squad than Liverpool and Everton who are above us. Moyes doesn't have the skill to succeed.
This is definitely the worst we've been since the Djemba-Djemba years. We were finishing around 3rd then, weren't we? That's roughly where I'd have expected us to finish this year too.
Yes, we finished third then. But the Orem is obviously very different now. The competition for a top 4 spot is a thousand times more difficult
I remember the Djemba years, this is worse so far.
Yet Arsenal (who have a poorer squad/team than us imo) have eased to the top fairly comfortably so far. I don't think the premiership is so much more competitive that we shouldn't be in top four at least.
We haven't finished below 3rd place since 1990-91 season, where we finisher 6th in the old Division 1. Further shows how good and consistent we were under Sir Alex. Transition years should be no worse then fighting for a champions league spot rather then the title really. Its just unacceptable to be in 9th right now.
Those days were bad but we had SAF then. There was a calming sense that SAF would know how to fix our problems.
In many ways a generation of United fans are in entirely new territory. We have never been in a situation where the manager has had a question mark over him. SAF was always there and most of us always knew that SAF knew best.
In many ways a generation of United fans are in entirely new territory. We have never been in a situation where the manager has had a question mark over him. SAF was always there and most of us always knew that SAF knew best.
There's been plenty of times in the past where we were unsure of Ferguson too, the Djemba years especially.
Again, not true. Do you remember that period?
Then I guess City were as formidable opponents to win the league back then as they are now.
No, but there was still a very definite top four wasn't there? Liverpool were certainly much stronger, didn't they finish ahead of us one season? Arsenal and Chelsea were arguably better teams then too. Yet we were never going to finish outside the top four. The premier league isn't so strong currently that we should be finishing outside the top four now either.
There are more teams who are now of top 4 quality now then there were then. Hence, it's more difficult.
Not a stick I want to beat Moyes with because I tried to just accept it but bringing every single player back for set-pieces is a disgrace. So many things wrong with it. For a start it means we can never play the ball out because there is no one to pass the ball to. It says, 'hey we're under pressure, we need to defend' and that is not Manchester United.
Last season there were five teams who had a realistic chance of finishing top four, with nine points ultimately separating 5th and 6th. Hardly super competitive, especially seeing as we were 12 points clear of the other four and Tottenham (5th) were basically a one man team for large parts of the season.
Now, obviously there was going to be some slippage once we lost SAF and our screw up in the transfer window didn't exactly help either. However, if we finish outside the top four it means that we've somehow surrendered a 17 point advantage in terms of quality since last season. If we finish outside the top five, a 26 point advantage.
Is that a reasonable amount to decline in one season? I don't think so, particularly as our team is (on paper) the strongest in the league bar those of City and Chelsea.
Finishing outside the top four would be a massive under-performance. Finishing outside the top five would be a horrendous meltdown.
No, it's not unreasonable.
It is, however, a very unreasonable argument to make in December.
I'm just speaking hypothetically, I still think we'll finish the season in the top four.
If it did happen though, it would be an indefensibly poor performance imo.
Right, at least wait until Christmas to give a half season assessment.
Mind you we have been beaten by the likes of Newcastle, Cardiff, Everton, Southampton
They're not exactly Europe's top team.
How the mighty have fallen in the space of 6 mths
They're not exactly Europe's top team.
How the mighty have fallen in the space of 6 mths
God, it's weird that we're not doing as well so far this season. It's like we've lost the best manager ever, isn't it?
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