Agreed. At the same time I'd say a visible improvement through coaching being done or what people call "philosophy" also has some weightage. But I've not seen any such signs yet.
Moyes So Far!
- Thread starter RedTillI'mDead
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It's 2014. Not many teams depend on wings anymore. Maybe we should move away from the style. It's not like out wingers are playing well either. All the other top teams play much more expansive and varied styles and we rely on playing Valencia down the right to muck up every cross. It's nauseating.
I'm in the 'Give Moyes time' camp, but I agree with this. It's progress we need to see, and though it took Fergie time the squad is in a much better position now. I said top 4 minimum before the season started and I stand by it, we should be making the CL.
I think if we finish outside the top four, there has to be a huge improvement in the way we play at least. Otherwise it's pointless keeping him. It's too good a squad to finish outside the top 4 and it doesn't say a lot about his coaching abilities if we keep playing the way we do right now. Were the most useless team around in being able to control the ball in tight spaces. I don't think there's another top team that's so scared of holding on to the ball under pressure and in tight spaces. It's laughable how bad we've gotten at it. Things like this shouldn't be that hard to coach to such high quality players if it can be coached into players of Everton and Southampton.
Agree.
I also think a lot of his and the clubs future is going to rest on the summer window. We've seen nothing from him yet to assume that he knows what he's doing with transfers with one of the biggest clubs in the world. Bidding for unattainable players, not going for very attainable ones, overpaying for a player who has struggled so far, making weird and frankly silly comments throughout the window in press conferences. You could argue some of that was down to our CEO but largely I think it's because he came in at the start of July and did not know what the hell he was doing.
I'm hoping he'll learn from those mistakes and we buy exactly what we need this summer to fix the issues in this squad. I think, aside from that, he's actually a good manager, he's shown he's a good manager. He's (for the most part) picked the teams everyone wanted him to, he's benched the players everyone wanted him to, he's revitalized Rooney, he's helped Januzaj break through, he's helped players like Jones and Young up their game, he's gotten a lot of substitutions right (and quite a few wrong). He's also inherited a deeply flawed and aging squad with certain players (Rio) who seem like they don't particularly give a feck now that SAF is gone, and had very unfortunate injuries to key players. So these are definitely things that I factor in with him.
Basically I think we're only a big transfer window away from seeing whether he is or is not right for the job. Some may think that's an overly simplistic view on the matter but for me, it's by far the main area he's been ... 'inept' in so far.
I'm hoping he'll learn from those mistakes and we buy exactly what we need this summer to fix the issues in this squad. I think, aside from that, he's actually a good manager, he's shown he's a good manager. He's (for the most part) picked the teams everyone wanted him to, he's benched the players everyone wanted him to, he's revitalized Rooney, he's helped Januzaj break through, he's helped players like Jones and Young up their game, he's gotten a lot of substitutions right (and quite a few wrong). He's also inherited a deeply flawed and aging squad with certain players (Rio) who seem like they don't particularly give a feck now that SAF is gone, and had very unfortunate injuries to key players. So these are definitely things that I factor in with him.
Basically I think we're only a big transfer window away from seeing whether he is or is not right for the job. Some may think that's an overly simplistic view on the matter but for me, it's by far the main area he's been ... 'inept' in so far.
Great post. You surely will be called deluded by Always Redwood for saying that our squad is better than Liverpool, Spurs and Everton and as good as Chelsea/Arsenal though.
There's nothing wrong with the approach as a primary tactic, it's just that in Valencia we have someone who is completely failing to deal with the space created for him. Imagine if that were Beckham or Ronaldo. That space would open up so much for them. Beckham would have all the time to pick out someone and put it in, Ronaldo would be in a positon to go one on one with his man. But Valencia is so slow and hesitant to do anything with it and when he does it's an aimless low cross at no one in particular. When Januzaj went there against Spurs he was causing a lot of damage.
I don't think we should look at what other teams are doing really, our style can work if the players do it well. It's no different to Arsneal in previous years suffering because teams got players behind the ball and they couldn't cope. Now they have some better/more confident players and it's working fine.
Where we do suffer though is a lack of a plan B. Moyes has been resolute in playing this way and doesn't seem to make allowances for Valencia failing to actually do anything once we come up against a decent team. In fairness injuries have likely hindered him mixing things up, I think had Kagawa been playing better or Nani not injured they may have come in.
But the primary tactic itself isn't the issue it just needs someone better to be executing it and we need to have other options. Personally I think Nani when fit can give us that or if not him we need to find someone of his type, a player who can cross it in well but also can run at people.
You seem to think I've accused you of saying these things, when I've done nothing of the sort. Go back into the thread this started with you and read my bloody post properly. It's not all about you, Revan. Every comment I make on this point isn't aimed at you. I said you had been awful on here this last while, and that was purely on your negativity, because almost every post you've made of late has had a negative slant on it. That's all. You misread something I wrote and presumed I'd said you were looking rid of Moyes, I never said that. Go and bloody read it again.
Better than arsenal's.
Close between ours and Chelsea's. Ours is better than theirs too IMO.
Close between ours and Chelsea's. Ours is better than theirs too IMO.
If we don't make top four he should be out on his arse, no excuses.
So we have to do what everyone else is doing?
No, but it would be nice to see something different. The team has had superb wingers and wide players in the past but right now we are not so lucky to be blessed with the quality needed to make the style work. I thought with moyes coming in we would see something a bit different, some fresh ideas but it's not happening yet. Just because we played with quality wide players in the past it doesn't mean we have to keep doing it, but with poorer players.
They're still our best avenue of attack though, however shit they are. We certainly don't have the personnel for some fancy though the middle stuff. There's an area in front of the penalty box roughly the size of another penalty box that our players routinely forget exists. No one moves into it and god forbid anyone plays the ball into it.
But we've bought these players to play that way. You can't just turn Carrick and Cleverley into Xavi and Iniesta. You need to buy the players to play that way, which takes time.
With everyone fit then it is but we haven't had that this season.When all our weaknesses strike in one season as it has done with Rafael and Carrick out alongside not having RvP bailing us out then we're actually not close to any of them. Evra is generally a massive weakness a top team cant support.
We all knew these weaknesses would come to haunt us if we didn't get the transfers right. If we really don't sign anyone in January then we'll be dependent on everyone staying fit to even compete for fourth.
Oh and Fergie tried the wingerless system last season and it was shit. We need to play this way with these players really.
Hate to say it, but I think you are wrong. You only have to look at he Chelsea side today against Derby and the quality hey have on the bench to see our squad is no where near them. We have a few key players (Rooney and RVP) who make our squad seem quality. The names we relied on in the past to say our squad was so good have not performed this season, maybe due to decline (Ferdinand, Evra, Vidic).
I think we all have an opinion on is, and rightly so, but I don't think our current squad is as good as Chelsea's or Arsenals this season.....and it shows.
I'm all for making excuses, it's how I live, but Arsenal and Tottenham have had more injuries to their squads than United this season, so it makes little sense as to why Arsenal are levels above us at the moment.
The fact is that the team lacks attacking flair and seemingly an attacking plan other than give to Valencia who will outrun his fullback, pause for a second, let the fullback into the tackle and get a corner. It's a great tactic, but we've stopped scoring from corners and it's shite really. That is down to Moyes, not the players. They need to be told to do this and that, not just give it to Valencia who has to take on two and three defenders at the time whilst there's an ocean of space in the middle of the park.
Arsenal had as much injuries as us and both Tottenham and Everton have to incorporate many players at the same time, have to deal with the loss of their best player and changed their manager (in Everton's case a manager who was central to their success on the last 10 years. Liverpool had their best player (and the best player in the league) suspended for 6-7 games while their other two important players (Gerrard and Sturridge) were injured for a few games. Injuries are part of the game and to be fair I don't think that we have had more injuries than usual. I think that our squad is better than at-least Everton, Liverpool and Spurs and is at-least on the level of Arsenal. I think that we are at-least as good as Chelsea too, though here we can use the injuries excuse simply because they didn't have many injuries.
It's not just numbers of injuries though, it's who. RvP and Carrick have been missing. All of last season under SAF we were constantly shitting ourselves because Carrick was our entire mid field and RvP was carrying the team for periods. Those two out basically removes our entire sodding team, we're just Rooney. It happened this season and lo and behold it fecked us right up. Thankfully Januzaj has been a breath of fresh air and even "Welbz" stepped up a bit but we had crucial injuries. It basically high lights the fact that for sodding years now we haven't had a mid field, which everyone seemed to know about other than Fergie.
Still persisting with Valencia and Smalling down the right today I see.
He really is quite clueless isn't he?
He really is quite clueless isn't he?
As manager? Sounds like a plan.Bugger David Moyes, let's go after The Neviller.
It's getting that way for me with these incessantly shite lineups. He makes a feck load of changes yet doesn't give Fabio a game. He's a better RB than Smalling and a better LB than Buttner. Valencia is bulletproof, we know that.
Exactly, everyone seems to have forgot how much they held the team together at times. None of the teams above us have such glaring weaknesses in midfield and that only makes our poor fullbacks worse.
Its not all excuse making for the manager id dare say Moyes not trying Fabio has cost us a lit of points this season. He neds to correct the mistakes from the summer in the window.
Giggs, Jones, Fletcher and Cleverley is not a top 4 capable midfield
nah...you'd be too much like Keano...
feck me, Fletcher looks like the answer to our midfield problems today. Great game so far.
Moyes is just not the right manager for United. Not playing wise, not personality wise. This season, he proved that he's a typical Everton manager, but not a top club manager.
He looks very downbeat doesnt he, old moyesy.
We're already half way through the season and I have no idea what kind of football Moyes is trying to get this team to play. Its like a worse version of Arsenal a few years back, all that possession but literally nothing with it. We look so blunt its untrue and im not just talking about this game we've looked like this all season bar the odd game
He's just got Fabio sent off by substituting him on. What an idiot.
Moyes is a joke
Can he go now.
...Maybe SAF picked Moyes to make us realise how good we had it. I mean im not even mad anymore when we lose...
It's all right lads we're in transition..
Far too many home defeats. It's worrying.
Our home record really is getting a complete joke, now.
great job Moyesie
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