Moyes So Far!

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Yep. You can't just ignore the man that replaced Fergie. I mean if we had a manager who came better prepared (either his own fault or maybe he needed more time) then the transition from Fergie would have been better placed. As many have pointed out it is not as if there weren't holes in the team that a new manager could immediately target on improving and the football itself could have done with a new vision behind it as well to compete with the top clubs in Europe. At the moment we can't compete with the teams below City and Chelsea in the league right now.

This is in theory only.

You're entitled to an opinion but none of us know what would have happened with a manager other than Moyes in charge. That's the massive unknown in the middle of this whole debate.
 
Indeed, the question is how much of this drop off was inevitable and how much of it is down to Moyes. Unfortunately it's a very hard one to answer definitively and the only way to know for sure is when Moyes has his own squad, which is inherently risky considering how much money that will take. He's going to be backed so all we can do is hope he's the manager Ferguson thought he was.

Exactly.
 
A drop off was avoidable with an appointment of a top manager. For me anyway.
But did you expect it to be this much? I expected 4th, and for us to be stronger at the back. I didn't expect anything brilliant in attack, but expected us to have a very strong defense. Never did I expect us to fall so fast.
 
But did you expect it to be this much? I expected 4th, and for us to be stronger at the back. I didn't expect anything brilliant in attack, but expected us to have a very strong defense. Never did I expect us to fall so fast.
I was exited to see Moyes implement the high pressing game the Caf' had bemoaned the lack of the past few seasons. I was excited to see Moyes utilise Kagawa on the left much like he had with Pienaar. I was excited to see Moyes target top quality player's. I was excited to see Moyes recognise the obvious need for a midfielder. I thought top three at the minimum. If you look through earlier threads I laugh off the idea of finishing outside the top four, I also believed he'd deserve to go if we did in fact finish outside the top four. Moyes has shifted the goal posts for a lot of us this season, nobody thought it would be this bad. Nobody.
 
I can produce 10 posts on this forum that sheds negative light on Ferguson's tenure (Starkie1 for starters, the tosser). The majority of Everton fans, along with the management, had nothing but good to say about Moyes. Now whether he can take the good work he did at Everton, and apply it here, is another question that has not been answered, yet.
He did good work at Everton, yes that's true. He needs to do brilliant work at United to keep us at the top. Maybe that's the problem, he is a good manager, but we needed a great manager.
 
But did you expect it to be this much? I expected 4th, and for us to be stronger at the back. I didn't expect anything brilliant in attack, but expected us to have a very strong defense. Never did I expect us to fall so fast.
The defense is a worry, we have always had injuries in that area over the past few year, before anyone mentions the injury excuse. However we have never been this scared and yes they look scared.
 
He did good work at Everton, yes that's true. He needs to do brilliant work at United to keep us at the top. Maybe that's the problem, he is a good manager, but we needed a great manager.

At the moment you're right. If he is given more time, then who knows what will happen?

(Anything from the treble to relegation)
 
I was exited to see Moyes implement the high pressing game the Caf' had bemoaned the lack of the past few seasons. I was excited to see Moyes utilise Kagawa on the left much like he had with Pienaar. I was excited to see Moyes target top quality player's. I was excited to see Moyes recognise the obvious need for a midfielder. I thought top three at the minimum. If you look through earlier threads I laugh off the idea of finishing outside the top four, I also believed he'd deserve to go if we did in fact finish outside the top four. Moyes has shifted the goal posts for a lot of us this season, nobody thought it would be this bad. Nobody.
If he had done any of the things you said we wouldn't be in this mess. You wonder why he hasn't or do our team not have the legs for a pressing game, which could be the problem, then two bad transfer windows have not helped him.
 
I can produce 10 posts on this forum that sheds negative light on Ferguson's tenure (Starkie1 for starters, the tosser). The majority of Everton fans, along with the management, had nothing but good to say about Moyes. Now whether he can take the good work he did at Everton, and apply it here, is another question that has not been answered, yet.
Again, like I said, it's not about people "criticizing him", it's about what kind of criticism they directed at him.

He's is managing United now exactly in the same way he managed Everton. And considering that our targets are different from those of Everton's fans, and considering that we won't have all praise for him only for taking us to 6th place, I think it is worth looking at the other aspects of his game, and seeing what (some) Everton fans had to say about them.

And by the way, Martinez is hardly proving those wrong, isn't he? Wonder why he didn't need 5 years to get them back to 6th place.
 
If he had done any of the things you said we wouldn't be in this mess. You wonder why he hasn't or do our team not have the legs for a pressing game, which could be the problem, then two bad transfer windows have not helped him.
In fairness to Moyes I think he has definitely attempted to implement a high pressing game, we just don't have the player's for it.
 
In fairness to Moyes I think he has definitely attempted to implement a high pressing game, we just don't have the player's for it.
Then I would say he is 50% to blame for that. SAF should have strengthened the midfield, there again no saying he would have brought players in that would suit a pressing game.
 
This is in theory only.

You're entitled to an opinion but none of us know what would have happened with a manager other than Moyes in charge. That's the massive unknown in the middle of this whole debate.

Fair enough, it will remain a theory until he gets sacked.
 
In fairness to Moyes I think he has definitely attempted to implement a high pressing game, we just don't have the player's for it.

He's not helping himself with how he sets up the midfield. The pairing of Carrick and Cleverley probably would do better with an additional player in the middle, someone who might be more defensively disciplined than Rooney currently is.
 
He's not helping himself with how he sets up the midfield. The pairing of Carrick and Cleverley probably would do better with an additional player in the middle, someone who might be more defensively disciplined than Rooney currently is.
It really has been a strange season, footballing wise. We try to make heads or tails of Moyes' tactics and none of us have a definite clue on what he's trying to achieve here.
 
It really has been a strange season, footballing wise. We try to make heads or tails of Moyes' tactics and none of us have a definite clue on what he's trying to achieve here.

We are second guessing, whether positive or negative. Because results, performances and responses from the team are so bad, it's hard not to have a negative view on where Moyes is going. I mean I would find it difficult to trust him with the capital he needs based on what he has done so far.
 
Carragher has a strange view on Moyes; he believes that any other club would have sacked him but because Moyes is British, United need to stick with him.

So we need to stick with a manager who has been shit and lost the dressing room, give him £200m all because he is British.


in all fairness, he got the job prob cos he was scottish and no matter who got the job they'd have been supported like Moyes is doing...carraghers view isnt that strange, but its not the full picture.

i dont think anybody can deny that Moyes was lucky to get the job and even luckier to have kept it, first in December after Newcastle, then in January after Sunderland and now last week. he'd have been sacked at any other club in the world.
 
We are second guessing, whether positive or negative. Because results, performances and responses from the team are so bad, it's hard not to have a negative view on where Moyes is going. I mean I would find it difficult to trust him with the capital he needs based on what he has done so far.
I don't trust the man, based purely on the football and the results.
 
It really has been a strange season, footballing wise. We try to make heads or tails of Moyes' tactics and none of us have a definite clue on what he's trying to achieve here.

its all about making us difficult to beat and thats it. putting valencia, young and welbeck on the pitch helps that.
 
its all about making us difficult to beat and thats it. putting valencia, young and welbeck on the pitch helps that.
I think the only assumption we can make is that Moyes places an over emphasis on getting it wide. That's about it, footballing wise.
 
I was all for Moyes when he was appointed and I'd still desperately love him to succeed here. But, for the life of me, I struggle to see any positives from his tenure so far. Everything good he's done has literally been off the pitch. The signing of Mata in particular was brilliant, but it didn't give the team any sort of lift on the pitch. Same with the Rooney contract, great news, but still apart from a slightly above average showing vs Palace, we then go and put in the train wreck of a performance against arguably the worst team in the CL. After that performance, I instantly presumed that he'd lost the dressing room.

It's been meek, defensive, reactive, insipid, uninspiring football for the whole season and, worst of all, it seems to be consistently getting worse rather than better.
 
He's not helping himself with how he sets up the midfield. The pairing of Carrick and Cleverley probably would do better with an additional player in the middle, someone who might be more defensively disciplined than Rooney currently is.

Or if he just got Clev to hold position more often and Rooney to stay a bit deeper to allow us to progress the ball better there. Half our problem is that Carrick picks the ball up and there's no one centrally available with a realistic pass on and if they are it's either given straight back or sent wide where it then usually ends up coming backwards anyway. If we could get those two to play a bit deeper and Rooney to be less focussed with getting it wide so much (well if Val/Young are playing), I think it'd help a lot. Thats whats partly so frustrating, a lot of our issues feel so self inflicted.
 
He gets (justified) stick a few paragraphs down.


Tbf, that's a terrible quote for an example. The last line is almost tacked on to the idea that the players are letting him down. At no point is his tactical or managerial nouse for such a big job questioned. Nothing about whether certain players being picked or omitted, or played in unsuitable formations is even hinted at, merely that by being the boss, the buck for "the players letting him down" stops with him. It's almost apologetic in it's criticism.

There's a pervasive idea on here that Moyes is getting a free pass from the press. I think some of that is down to a piece like this, which doesn't give any real insights but basically says Fergie's departure has left the club reeling and Moyes and Woodward are having a fecking steep learning curve, which they're not exactly coping with very well. This all seems very fair to me. Don't see why anyone thinks this is giving him an easy ride (stupid headline aside)

It comes just as much from the idea that the Rafas & Scolaris & AVBs of this world got nothing like this "fair" treatment.
 
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I think the phrase "Fergie was the difference between 7th and Champions by 11 points" is pretty forgiving of Moyes.

Exactly. It should be worded "the difference between Fergie and Moyes is Champions by 11 points to 7th."

If Fergie gives you +10 points over a good replacement, Moyes is giving us -10, hence the 20~ point disparity.
 
Tbf, that's a terrible quote for an example. The last line is almost tacked on to the idea that the players are letting him down. At no point is his tactical or managerial nouse for such a job questioned, merely that by being the boss, the buck for "the players letting him down" stops with him. It's almost apologetic in it's criticism.

It's still a clear implication that he is ultimately responsible for the poor performances.

Which doesn't fit with your idea that pointing out Fergie's departure has been a major factor in our slump is some sort of "cop out", by ignoring Moyes' role in what's gone wrong.

It comes just as much from the idea that the Rafas & the AVBs of this world got nothing like this "fair" treatment.

Seeing as neither of them faced the mammoth task of replacing SAF, I don't think either of them deserved the same slack that Moyes has been afforded in his new job.
 
It's still a clear implication that he is ultimately responsible for the poor performances.

At this point, ignoring any blame that might be attached to Moyes would be transparently ludicrous. We're just at a point of no return where they have to include something...Albeit grudgingly.

Losing the dressing room is usually seen as a managerial failure. Here it's being seen as a brave losing battle against player entitlement.

Seeing as neither of them faced the mammoth task of replacing SAF, I don't think either of them deserved the same slack that Moyes has been afforded in his new job.

Since when has such a thing ever stopped the tabloid press before?
 
At this point, ignoring any blame that might be attached to Moyes would be transparently ludicrous. We're just at a point of no return where they have to include something...Albeit grudgingly.

Losing the dressing room is usually seen as a managerial failure. Here it's being seen as a brave losing battle against player entitlement.



Since when has such a thing ever stopped the tabloid press before?

The same tabloid press that stuck a turnip on Graham Taylor's head?

They've picked a strange time to suddenly start worrying about the feelings of managers who happen to be British.
 
At this point, ignoring any blame that might be attached to Moyes would be transparently ludicrous. We're just at a point of no return where they have to include something...Albeit grudgingly.

Losing the dressing room is usually seen as a managerial failure. Here it's being seen as a brave losing battle against player entitlement.

Since when has such a thing ever stopped the tabloid press before?

Yes, this is completely correct, and Moyes should've stepped in to stop it as soon as it started. Instead the club themselves have employed club old-boys and ambassadors to conduct interviews and press pieces that actively blame our players and flat out accuse them of 'not doing enough'.

The psychological result, in my opinion, has been the opposite of a 'siege mentality'. That is to say that rather than the 'us against them' mentality that a strong manager will cultivate and encourage, we've ended up with an 'us against us' mentality whereby the players have been accused, publicly, by the club itself of somehow 'not doing enough' and of being to blame for this disgraceful mess of a season.

This has, in my opinion, lead to a schism between the management and the players. And I think, personally, that the players have been treated badly by the club through this - from the appointment of such an inexperienced and incapable management team, to the public finger pointing and attempted 'shaming' by the club's old boy network who probably made them feel somewhat betrayed by doing this, rather than pointing the finger at the management techniques of the Everton lot.

You might recall AVB's hounding out of Tottenham - not once were the players shamed for not managing to deal with AVB's high-line defending or lack of penetration. He was, rightly, to blame for it. Moyes has performed worse than AVB (Tottenham were actually above us when he was sacked), and instead our club has encouraged the public to blame the players instead. Which is wrong, in my opinion, and will probably have lasting consequences for several key figures at the club - including the present manager.
 
You might recall AVB's hounding out of Tottenham - not once were the players shamed for not managing to deal with AVB's high-line defending or lack of penetration. He was, rightly, to blame for it. Moyes has performed worse than AVB (Tottenham were actually above us when he was sacked), and instead our club has encouraged the public to blame the players instead. Which is wrong, in my opinion, and will probably have lasting consequences for several key figures at the club - including the present manager.

If you're right in your opinion, it's a bad mistake to make. These are players who've won a hell of a lot of trophies and were rightly praised for winning yet another league title last year. They haven't turned to shit all of a sudden. The difference has been Moyes and his mates from Everton. That's where the blame should lie, and also with the club that ballsed up last summer's transfer window. I know I'll get flamed for this but the hiring process was suspect too. If Moyes had been employed on the basis that he was the best man for the job after going through a rigorous interview process, then fair enough, but he wasn't. The club have painted themselves into a corner. The Glazers can't simply overrule Fergie and Charlton without risking a boardroom bloodbath.
 
I was all for Moyes when he was appointed and I'd still desperately love him to succeed here. But, for the life of me, I struggle to see any positives from his tenure so far. Everything good he's done has literally been off the pitch. The signing of Mata in particular was brilliant, but it didn't give the team any sort of lift on the pitch. Same with the Rooney contract, great news, but still apart from a slightly above average showing vs Palace, we then go and put in the train wreck of a performance against arguably the worst team in the CL. After that performance, I instantly presumed that he'd lost the dressing room.

It's been meek, defensive, reactive, insipid, uninspiring football for the whole season and, worst of all, it seems to be consistently getting worse rather than better.

100 percent agree with this, not only have the team performances been utter utter shit but individuals who in the past have looked good or at least decent (Valencia, Hernandez) have been unbelievably bad at times. And the players that do play well (Januzaj) are rested in key games and replaced with players who turn in frankly embarrasing perfo4mances at times (young)
 
The same tabloid press that stuck a turnip on Graham Taylor's head?

They've picked a strange time to suddenly start worrying about the feelings of managers who happen to be British.

Not really. That was a time when every manager was British. Now we have a wealth of trendy foreign managers (and players) in the Prem taking the place of the honest, hard working Brit. Which is an angle a lot of these journos happened to have pushed over the last decade or so. The consequence of Moyes's failure is problematic for the homegrown angle, fairly or not. The 'Arry's, the Big Sams and those the press like to root for. Moyes is carrying the flag for them. The perceived risk of promoting promising managers from within the Prem to really important 'elite' jobs will increase & the evil foreign hoard will look like the only sensible choice.

Rodgers is helping to negate that slightly, but Rodgers was hired when Liverpool were in the loldrums. He would never have gotten that gig pre-2010.
 
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The one thing I hate about Moyes reign is the players have been getting all the blame from the Media and pundits for the poor performances. All we ever hear is how poor they are and how the playing staff quality has 'gone down' at the club.

Take Rafael for example. The press and Punditry are all of a sudden so sure he isn't top quality nor realiable. Yet least season he was in the EPL team of the year and literally the best right back in the league bar Ivanovic.
 
Not really. That was a time when every manager was British. Now we have a wealth of trendy foreign managers (and players) in the Prem taking the place of the honest, hard working Brit. Which is an angle a lot of these journos happened to have pushed over the last decade or so. The consequence of Moyes's failure is problematic for the homegrown angle, fairly or not. The 'Arry's, the Big Sams and those the press like to root for. Moyes is carrying the flag for them. The perceived risk of promoting promising managers from within the Prem to really important 'elite' jobs will increase & the evil foreign hoard will look like the only sensible choice.

Rodgers is helping to negate that slightly, but Rodgers was hired when Liverpool were in the loldrums. He would never have gotten that gig pre-2010.

True..but if he wins the league this season...and there is no doubt they are right in it...then that will certainly negate it to a large extent...certainly with the money City and chelsea have...
 
If you're right in your opinion, it's a bad mistake to make. These are players who've won a hell of a lot of trophies and were rightly praised for winning yet another league title last year. They haven't turned to shit all of a sudden. The difference has been Moyes and his mates from Everton. That's where the blame should lie, and also with the club that ballsed up last summer's transfer window. I know I'll get flamed for this but the hiring process was suspect too. If Moyes had been employed on the basis that he was the best man for the job after going through a rigorous interview process, then fair enough, but he wasn't. The club have painted themselves into a corner. The Glazers can't simply overrule Fergie and Charlton without risking a boardroom bloodbath.


Ferguson and Charlton are non-executive Directors, so they don't really hold any power in the boardroom. It is people like Woodward and Richard Arnold who hold more sway. If United's sponsorship quest is disrupted by the plight on the pitch then Arnold is sure to highlight his concerns. What the two old boys have is influence, but their hand is weakened by the plight of Moyes. It may encourage the owners to insist on a much tighter recruitment and selection policy for the next coach.
 
Not really. That was a time when every manager was British. Now we have a wealth of trendy foreign managers (and players) in the Prem taking the place of the honest, hard working Brit. Which is an angle a lot of these journos happened to have pushed over the last decade or so. The consequence of Moyes's failure is problematic for the homegrown angle, fairly or not. The 'Arry's, the Big Sams and those the press like to root for. Moyes is carrying the flag for them. The perceived risk of promoting promising managers from within the Prem to really important 'elite' jobs will increase & the evil foreign hoard will look like the only sensible choice.

Rodgers is helping to negate that slightly, but Rodgers was hired when Liverpool were in the loldrums. He would never have gotten that gig pre-2010.

Yeah, I've noticed in the PL that there's often a weird sort of pro-British things that tends to go on. It's natural that the media want to see British managers doing well to an extent, but guys like Redknapp seem to take it onto Nigel Farrage levels when he was advocating Sherwood to become the new Tottenham manager largely based on the fact he was the honest British type who "knew the club", like the type you mention. Obviously it's not the best example since Sherwood has done a good job so far, but I really noticed it when he got the Spurs job.
 
True..but if he wins the league this season...and there is no doubt they are right in it...then that will certainly negate it to a large extent...certainly with the money City and chelsea have...

True, although Rodgers fits less into that honest, hard working type of guys like Redknapp and Allardyce. While he's a British manager, he's a lot more modern and attacking in his approach to the point where his managerial style is probably a lot more similar to some continental managers than it is to the aforementioned ones above.
 
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