Moyes So Far!

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I'm with Mockney here.

Beating the likes of Cardiff should be the bare minimum. If he's going to convince anyone he's got something going for him, at least trying to play attacking football against minnows should be the bare minimum too, but it seems you lot are content with letting Cardiff run rings around us and rely on Ashley Young for three points - at home.
 
Most of you are being complete idiots.

We won the game. We missed about 4 chances by a whisker. The "big 4" all played and looked good, still yet to see them play together. Very encouraging passages of play.

As this team starts to settle more (and we may even get 1 more in) we will start to look much better
 
OneUnited24 said:
I would but if the system was there for a while and the players are used to it I refuse to believe that it can be torn down as quickly as we would like. Lets face it, our football is boring - tonight I had the game on one screen while I surfed the net on another, but I cant stress that its been like this for a while.

Blame Moyes for a host of other things like poor subs but blaming him for a style of football that has been this way before he arrived is not fair. And it seems like i'm in the minority here but I think there are signs we are starting to change the way we play, namely our pressing.
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We're in January and so far there hasn't been a single hint of a change.
 
Mockney said:
Not picking two out and out wingers and directing all our play through them wouldn't suddenly render everyone incapable of functioning. Footballers are dumb but they aren't retarded. This is what training's for. Other managers have managed it with much worse squads.
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But hes working with what hes got. We have a host of midfielders (bar Carrick) who cant pass the ball forward, whenever in good central positions they opt to play it out wide (this was typical with SAF too). In that case, and through lack of other options, we have to rely on the little bit of creativity we have in the squad and that's out wide.

I think adding some real creativity in the middle of the park will bring a lot more balance to the team because it wont make us overly reliant on wing-play... or at least I hope and pray
 
Martinez's Everton just got absolutely stomped 4-0, and all I hear from the commentators is how brave they've been, how they're a joy to watch...and how difficult they are to beat away from home. FFS.
 
Mockney said:
By this logic, every manager has succeeded at every club.
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It's amazing how often I've seen that argument presented. Imagine if politicians would be defended with the same argumentation..oh wait, they are. No one can criticize anything they are not an expert on, because experts are a different species and as such, infallible.
 
Midfield remains the biggest weakness in our squad. He's going to have to play Jones and Fletch until Carrick is back. He needs to drop Valencia.
 
OneUnited24 said:
But hes working with what hes got. We have a host of midfielders (bar Carrick) who cant pass the ball forward, whenever in good central positions they opt to play it out wide (this was typical with SAF too). In that case, and through lack of other options, we have to rely on the little bit of creativity we have in the squad and that's out wide.

I think adding some real creativity in the middle of the park will bring a lot more balance to the team because it wont make us overly reliant on wing-play... or at least I hope and pray
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If you don't have any movement from Central midfield, the ball will inevitably end up going wide. He has to let the shackles off the middle of the park otherwise we will continue to play wide cause whoever is playing No.10 will get crowded out
 
OneUnited24 said:
But hes working with what hes got. We have a host of midfielders (bar Carrick) who cant pass the ball forward whenever in good central positions they opt to play it out wide (this was typical with SAF too). In that case, and through lack of other options, we have to rely on the little bit of creativity we have in the squad and that's out wide.
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We now have Rooney, Mata, Kagawa and Januzaj. All of whom can, and would prefer to play in the middle. You can't say all our creativity is out wide. Even if we played two of them in wideish positions, like most big modern teams, it would stop us from flinging it out to the touchline at the earliest opportunity.
 
Mockney said:
And everyone said it was shit then. Wouldn't it be nice to try and play another way?
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Exactly why the last thing we should've been looking for being a "Fergie clone". All it was going to bring was more of the same shite football without nearly as much success, and that's what we're seeing.
 
LawCharltonBest said:
We missed about 4 chances by a whisker.
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So did Cardiff, and in so doing demonstrated yet again that the defensive coaching at the club requires a marked improvement.

We might see improvement in the personnel available but are we about where is the evidence of progress in terms of training and tactics? The risk of Olympiacos doing a job on Moyes is as real it was prior to Mata's signing.
 
Irwinwastheking said:
United have a tendency this season to always look to play the forward pass no matter how unlikely it is. If we just recycled and waited for better openings we'd look a ton better.
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It called playing the percentages. Hit ten long passes into the channels and four will end up as crosses or corners, from those four crosses and corners should come a couple of chances, from those couple of chances hopefully comes a goal. It is a God awful footballing philosophy and it one that Moyes espouses. Teams like Bayern and Barca try to pick the lock whereas we try to break down the door. If we are playing a team like Cardiff who are intent on keeping possession, even if it is soft possession, then we end up watching them with the ball for five minutes, then when we get the ball we have a burst of activity which nine times out of ten comes to nothing, then Cardiff have the ball again.

Granted we played this way under Fergie in later years but we mixed it up more with periods of considered possession and varied the areas that we attacked from. We also played with more freedom, fire in our bellies and above all - confidence.

I just find it a little odd that the Glazer's are going to seemingly buy shit loads of expensive players just so we can have a Scottish manager that will stay here for twenty years if he is allowed. I am surprised that Fergie sold them it as being a great idea. I am sure that there are much more cost effective ways of looking after their investment, like getting a top manager who can make us an attractive side to watch again.
 
The issue with our defence is our midfield is useless. New left-back and a new midfield and I really think this squad will do really well.
 
OneUnited24 said:
I would but if the system was there for a while and the players are used to it I refuse to believe that it can be torn down as quickly as we would like. Lets face it, our football is boring - tonight I had the game on one screen while I surfed the net on another, but I cant stress that its been like this for a while.

Blame Moyes for a host of other things like poor subs but blaming him for a style of football that has been this way before he arrived is not fair. And it seems like i'm in the minority here but I think there are signs we are starting to change the way we play, namely our pressing.
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I keep seeing this mentioned... I've not seen any evidence of it, we press one man at a time, sometimes not at all, and it's not very effective.
 
OneUnited24 said:
I would but if the system was there for a while and the players are used to it I refuse to believe that it can be torn down as quickly as we would like. Lets face it, our football is boring - tonight I had the game on one screen while I surfed the net on another, but I cant stress that its been like this for a while.

Blame Moyes for a host of other things like poor subs but blaming him for a style of football that has been this way before he arrived is not fair. And it seems like i'm in the minority here but I think there are signs we are starting to change the way we play, namely our pressing.
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Why is it then that almost every new manager seems capable of imprinting his style on the team almost immediately? I haven't seen one change in our style since Moyes' first game. Is that acceptable? I don't think so.
 
Irwinwastheking said:
Our forward play although not great was completely different tonight but most wont notice that as they fall over each other to come up with the smartest arsed way to put us down.

With a little bit more patience from our players we'd look devastating in these type of games. They just tend to rush the ball forward far too often.
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I'm not sure what we do with the ball is the issue, the problem for me is how shit we are without it. After the second goal went in we started to look quite good going forward, but the 10 minutes before Young scored Cardiff were completely bossing us and we couldn't get the ball, and this wasn't just possession for possessions sake, they created some good openings and looked like scoring. We seem to do this very bizarre thing where two or three players press in the opposing half whilst our defensive line sit deep, thus allowing a huge gap in the middle. With the attacking players we have, we'll score goals, but we're so easy to play against.
 
His solution to our midfield issues let's not forget was Fellaini, and he failed to identify any other targets after Fabregas until the last 2 days of the window. He can hardly be blameless for this issue.
 
ArmchairCritic said:
The issue with our defence is our midfield is useless. New left-back and a new midfield and I really think this squad will do really well.
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They will help, but they are not the answer. Our manager's tactics are far to negative. Until he starts changing this negative approach our style of football won't change.
 
Loon said:
I think it's clear from comments made Moyes doesn't have faith in all the players. Maybe when he has players he thinks can go hell for leather and not drop a bollock he might. At this point, it's win games and give that fourth place a chance.
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So play rubbish football until you get better footballers then magically change? Got it.
 
Garethw said:
They will help, but they are not the answer. Our manager's tactics are far to negative. Until he starts changing this negative approach our style of football won't change.
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Get a decent midfield and the whole outlook of the team will change, it's fecking pointless to press with the midfielders we have at the moment and as a result our pressing looks disjointed.
 
I mean, Ryan Giggs and Phil Jones in midfield... look at the midfield of the other top teams in Europe. It's laughable, really.
 
Mickeza said:
I'm not sure what we do with the ball is the issue, the problem for me is how shit we are without it. After the second goal went in we started to look quite good going forward, but the 10 minutes before Young scored Cardiff were completely bossing us and we couldn't get the ball, and this wasn't just possession for possessions sake, they created some good openings and looked like scoring. We seem to do this very bizarre thing where two or three players press in the opposing half whilst our defensive line sit deep, thus allowing a huge gap in the middle. With the attacking players we have, we'll score goals, but we're so easy to play against.
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We were shit without it largely tonight because we let Cardiff's defence pass it round for half the game while we sat deep waitin for them. Sadly with the players we have available at centre midfield I can't see this changing. If you press you need to have stamina and pace to recover if the ball is played around you and we don't have that now.

Also, this notion that Cardiff bossed us is as scurilous as it is when it's said about most teams who have a slightly higher possession than us. They played the ball around at the back and never really threatened. If we did that for 90 minutes I doubt you'd be saying we bossed the game.
 
Loon said:
Yeah. That exactly what I said. Whatever..
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It is when you strip it down. You've suggested Moyes' tactics are as a result of the players he has/ So he's going to play percentage football and grind out wins until we get better players and the football improves. Isn't that it?
 
Nick 0208 Ldn said:
Are CMs going to alter the keystone cops routine at set pieces or crosses?
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We've defended set-pieces fine with Smalling in the team, Smalling and Evans need time to build up their relationship. Defensively I have no worries, that's something Moyes is known for and he has the players to turn that around, we only need lack a left-back and another centre-back when Rio and Vidic inevitably go in the summer.
 
Ok so still problems, still far from where we want to be but we knew that, didn't we?

We've played the last 6 or 7 games without a world class player or any player in real form. Tonight we get two world class players in, and we win fairly comfortably. The big guns bring wins, wins bring confidence and that brings better football.

Positives:
3 points
Clean sheet
Minutes for RvP, Rooney, Mata, Jones.
Smalling continues to look excellent at CB.
Young doing better.
 
ArmchairCritic said:
We've defended set-pieces fine with Smalling in the team, Smalling and Evans need time to build up their relationship. Defensively I have no worries, that's something Moyes is known for and he has the players to turn that around, we only lack a left-back and another centre-back when Rio and Vidic inevitably go in the summer.
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Exactly. Strange critique in a game that our back 4 played very well in and we actually dealt with all set pieces quite routinely.
 
Thisistheone said:
Ok so still problems, still far from where we want to be but we knew that, didn't we?

We've played the last 6 or 7 games without a world class player or any player in real form. Tonight we get two world class players in, and we win fairly comfortably. The big guns bring wins, wins bring confidence and that brings better football.

Positives:
3 points
Clean sheet
Minutes for RvP, Rooney, Mata, Jones.
Smalling continues to look excellent at CB.
Young doing better.
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Evans looked great
Raf looked more solid than all year and hungry to attack well
Evra was great
 
roseguy64 said:
It is when you strip it down. You've suggested Moyes' tactics are as a result of the players he has/ So he's going to play percentage football and grind out wins until we get better players and the football improves. Isn't that it?
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That's probably pretty accurate. We don't have cm's capable of playing a pressing game. With that pressing game will come more space in behind to play better football.
 
rio's upper lip said:
I mean, Ryan Giggs and Phil Jones in midfield... look at the midfield of the other top teams in Europe. It's laughable, really.
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There is a reason that CM is known as the engine room of a team. What happens to a car when you remove it's engine?

The fact of the matter is though, midfield deficiencies or not, that the players we put out today should have been good enough to dominate against Cardiff. Ok, we won the game, but did we look convincing or truly in control of the match? No we didn't. Moyes' defensive tactics at home to the bottom team in the league were crazy. If he had gone for it today we probably would have won by 3-4 and then we'd all of been praising him and the team.
 
roseguy64 said:
It is when you strip it down. You've suggested Moyes' tactics are as a result of the players he has/ So he's going to play percentage football and grind out wins until we get better players and the football improves. Isn't that it?
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If we were trying to grind out victories wouldn't Moyes attempt to deploy a cohesive central midfield [as best as he is able at any rate]? Cardiff's inability to score had more to do with their own shortcomings than United's qualities.
 
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