We really are scraping the end of the barrel with regards positives, aren't we? 
He was in Madrid to look at some players, fecking ace lads.
He was in Madrid to look at some players, fecking ace lads.
Moyes So Far!
- Thread starter RedTillI'mDead
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feck you cuntyo he was clearly on a scouting mission to bring stability to our central midfield, the barrel is half full.We really are scraping the end of the barrel with regards positives, aren't we?
He was in Madrid to look at some players, fecking ace lads.
Moyes should always get at least 3 years to prove he can get United to challenge for the title...
I probably blame the players more than Moyes for this start . The same group of players has, so far dropped as many points as all last season
I probably blame the players more than Moyes for this start . The same group of players has, so far dropped as many points as all last season
I disagree. What if in one year our style is still crap and we could be looking at a second season without CL football? You shouldn't set things like 'three years at least' in stone. Sometimes you dont need that much time to realise it's just isn't heading to where we expect.
I'd give him two seasons. This one is already a write off... So what he does in the coming summer, transfer wise, will hold big significance.
He's hardly Roy Hodgsons offspring Amir
Both did great with mid-table sides, both have done terribly with top sides, so far...
There was talk in some of the papers back in October that if Porto didn't make the knock-out stages of the Champions League they were going to try and cash in on Fernando because he's rumoured to be out of contact in the summer. If that really is the case I'd be happy with that - A mobile midfielder who will throw himself at anything rather than retreat until there's enough space for whoever has the ball to pick a pass behind the defense or get a shot off.
Isn't he a defensive midfielder? We need someone who can pass the ball forward, a creative force in the middle of the park. For all the abuse I give him, Fellaini would be okay doing the donkey work alongside a real creative midfielder.
So far ....
Have to say I trust him to get it right just through sheer will and determination and added to that he has the clubs best ever asset to call on. SAF as your wingman and the desire to beat the haters, the skills to produce successful sides, the backing of one of Europe's behemoth clubs.
Nothing could be further from Roy Hodgsons scenario.
Have to say I trust him to get it right just through sheer will and determination and added to that he has the clubs best ever asset to call on. SAF as your wingman and the desire to beat the haters, the skills to produce successful sides, the backing of one of Europe's behemoth clubs.
Nothing could be further from Roy Hodgsons scenario.
Well we could easily play Jones as DM and throw Fellaini further up where his immobility can cause less damage. Personally I feel we need one of each DM and CM play maker and then we are set with depth in that area too.
Michael Carrick says feck you
I think Everton had scouted him even before Moyes left and they were linked in the Summer before they got McCarthy.
Yea he is a defensive midfielder and I don't disagree with needing someone creative but I think that's more of an issue that needs to be looked at in the summer (things have looked a lot worse over the last few games on the creative side because Carrick hasn't been there). I can't see any players of that ilk and the quality required moving in January - anyone we could get would probably just be a stop gap (although that may be necessary the way things are going).
I'm not sure about Fellaini being okay to do the donkey work though. He just seems to plod around the pitch without any great conviction in anything he's doing at the moment - particularly towards the defensive side of the game. He's not exactly blessed with Carrick's positional sense that makes up for his lack of pace either.
We can't be looking at Everton targets, surely?
Agreed. This is the type of midfilder we need.
This is why the signing of Fellaini was pointless. Carrick, who sits deeper and takes on a more defensive role a la Busquets, was the one constant we had in midfield and we could've easily used Jones there as well and to provide depth. We needed someone who offered creativity more so than defensive prowess and we signed another midfielder whose main strengths are defensive.
I'll forever think Moyes got this terribly wrong and is made worse by the fact that Fellaini was one of the players he wanted from the get go. It's more understandable if he actually was a panic buy and Moyes knew he desperately needed a midfielder and went for one because he was Premier League proven and had worked with him previously. But he wasn't even a panic buy as some have suggested, and the joint bid for him and Baines earlier in the window proves that.
It's actually too similar like Hodgsons scenario for my liking. Haven't seen anything from Moyes so far to suggest he is not our version of Hodgson either, subjectives musings over sheer will aside,
TBF, we need all kinds of midfielders right now.
I'm not as anti-Moyes as some people but I do think he's made some fairly big mistakes which have ended up costing us. The worst, in my opinion, was rotating the squad after the Leverkusen game when the team was just starting to find its confidence. We only got 1 point in the next three games, when really we should have taken the opportunity to bed in a little bit. Rio's comments about DM waiting till the last minute to inform the squad about starting line-ups was also a bit worrying on that front. The players don't seem to know what to expect from game to game and we're suffering as a result.
Tactics, player purchases, etc. are all secondary to laying down your mark as a new manager, and Moyes has only himself to blame for not getting that right so far.
Let's not forget that he got Everton to within 10 points of 4th last season with a significantly inferior squad. He's certainly a good enough manager to bridge that gap now that he has RVP and Rooney at his disposal, he's just got to show it.
Tactics, player purchases, etc. are all secondary to laying down your mark as a new manager, and Moyes has only himself to blame for not getting that right so far.
Let's not forget that he got Everton to within 10 points of 4th last season with a significantly inferior squad. He's certainly a good enough manager to bridge that gap now that he has RVP and Rooney at his disposal, he's just got to show it.
That's a completely ridiculous viewpoint. How many of our better players will we have left if we languish midtable for even 2 seasons without CL football?
He wont get more than a year if we don't make the CL. There's really no excuse to win the league by 11 points then suddenly drop to mid table side in the span of months. Its shocking and no United fan who knows what our players are capable of should tolerate it.
The only difference between this and last year is that we had Fergie and we now have Moyes. Some things were outside Moyes' control - such as our murderous schedule at the start, Carrick's injury etc - but I do attribute our lack of killer instinct and squad solidarity as a fundamental failure of Moyes' management. He needs to learn, adapt, and make it right.
Considering most of them have won multiple trophies for United I'd argue that some would definitely deserve to stay. Not that they would mind, at least not if our new manager weren't capable of guiding them towards a top 4 finish.
This
And this.
Nobody wants Moyes to fail, because Moyes failing means Man Utd failing but people cannot be expected to ignore the evidence of their eyes.
From the outside, it does not look like Moyes has been making all the right calls and has been let down by a drop in effort by the players. From the outside, it looks like the players have had the confidence sucked out of them and that many of Moyes' decisions and comments have actually made that confidence issue even worse.
Moyes has at last started to take the pressure off his players and on to himself, and he is showing some signs of improvement when it comes to lineups and subs. So we have some hope. Still, we felt that way after the Leverkussen and Arsenal matches didn't we? Touch wood Moyes can keep the momentum going this time.
I agree Raoul, and I've been saying the same since the start, although I didn't think it was a remotely plausible scenario at first. I still don't think we're going to miss out on it, but I am getting a little bit worried.
The problem is that some people have decided that our squad, you know, the one that got 89 points and won it by 11, isn't actually that good. Some of those (but not most) almost act as if getting top 4 would be an achievement this season. It's rubbish. No one can deny that our squad has problems, most notably in midfield, but it's by no means a poor squad. You simply don't go from 89 points to "average".
I think we're going to finish fourth, but anything lower than that and I think Moyes simply has to go.
We may well finish 4th, which would be a decent recovery given how the others have strengthened. If he can get us to 4th (or close to it) by winning four on the trot, we will actually have a good chance of pressing the top three the rest of the way - all of whom have less than easy schedules this month. Getting Carrick, RvP, and Rooney on the pitch at the same time will be critical.
I think we needed a creative type and a defensive type. We needed someone who could cover well for carrick being both a defensive screen and someone who used the small smartly, as well as that creative player, I agree the creative player was the priority but as we've seen with carricks absence a good alternative to him was also needed. Jones has done well there at times but equally at times he does look like a defender playin in midfield, particularly with his use of the ball. Plus ideally we could use him in defence.
In fairness by all accounts moyes recognised this. Fellaini wasn't a player I was keen on but he had suggested at Everton that he could be a defensive player so whilst its gone pretty badly so far you can understand moyes thinking. Then with the more creative player we know he tried for fabregas and Herrera plus potentially thiago. Clearly a fair bit went wrong during the summer hard to know who was primarily responsible for it, moyes or Woodward. May be both d them, but moyes has stated that he wanted a different type to fellaini as well.
We tolerate it because it is too early to judge accurately and as you yourself said
Come on, that's cataclysmic, and has been discussed as such for about 15 years now. It's a huge deal, perhaps the most difficult changing of the guard in the history of football.
When Busby left the squad that won the European cup got relegated. A dip is inevitable, how long it lasts is the only thing in question in my opinion. Like I said before, when Fergie announced his retirement in 2001 the team went to shit with him at the helm.
Also we don't have Scholes. Yes Moyes takes a portion of the blame but he should have been replaced years ago.
Calamatous start and he is rightly under fire for it. That's all we are saying.
Yeah, he hasn't been great, but I do think circumstance is playing a part. The flat footedness of our players and the space they are giving other teams is defo up to him to change but is there because Fergie left, not because Moyes came in. There is an argument to be had that he should be able to snap them out of that, but I'm not sure it's that easy given the circumstances. It's surreal for the fans that Fergie is gone, but there must be a tangible vacuum inside the club.
Things shouldn't be set in stone IMO. What if he is a total disaster, three years in that case would be terrible. I hope we are active in judging him, be it for good or for bad. I still stand that if we don't get the top 4 (bar the extreme of winning UCL, or perhaps a brilliant second half of the season) he should go IMO. And I think that the club thinks the same, while is true that we are on a big transition, simply shouldn't be a reason to not get UCL. 89 points in the first season is impossible, but around 75 should be easily managable. I don't think that Fergie was worth more than 15 points.
Anyway, as long as we get into UCL every year, I would be happy with him getting 3 or even 4 years without winning a big trophy as long as there are signs of improvement.
I'm not sure its even possible for any coach, in such a short space of time, to single-handedly make us as bad as we have been in some games this season.
The players have to take some accountability for this, as although Ferguson has gone, the system that we are playing is not at all unfamiliar to this squad. Some of them have let their standards drop and this is something that they themselves need to address as well as the manager.
I agree, the whole thing is an anomaly in many ways, and really not enough time has passed. The immediacy of modern football just exacerbates this.
I think that Moyes himself knows that he has to get a top four finish to earn himself a second season. Its way, way too early to judge him in this job, but if things do not improve sufficiently that we end up finishing below four other clubs at the end of it, then he should leave.
At this moment though I am almost 100% confident that we will finish in the top four. With the way that teams are getting beat this season, a run of even 5 wins in this league will have a massive effect.
5 wins in a row is a stretch, even last year we struggled to do that. The squad (mainly the midfield) is too thin to put out a strong enough team for 5 games on the trot I think.
But I agree, even 3 wins, 2 draws would probably see us go back up again.
No two managers are alike, but the similarities are there. If Moyes had taken one of our rivals and they looked like we've been, we'd be laughing our heads off and opening a 'Keep Moyes at X' campaign.
True. Getting one midfielder is not going to be enough if we're always one or two injuries away from what we've seen this season. We need to restructure the whole middle of the park. For all the positives Jones has shown and the money spent on Fellaini, we're not really better off and still totally dependent on Carrick.
But I still feel something has to change about the way we play or even the best midfielders won't look as good as they can be.
My worry is that he has a lot to learn. And while it wasn't supposed to be so terrible as he at least inherited a good team and that was supposed to buy him time, suddenly that team looks terrible and he doesn't even have that to lean on. It's a big hole to climb out of.
His one saving grace now is Fergie and Charlton. At another club, he would have been on the brink.
Aye, but as you pointed out, logic would still be part of it...
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