Be fair to the man, eh? Or at least pretend to be. He never said we needed an additional six world class players. He said you need about six world class players to win the Champions League, i.e. be at Bayern's level, or words to that effect. He has made enough clumsy remarks this season, surely - there shouldn't be any need to invent ones on top of it all.
Moyes So Far!
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Truth is most would settle for a bit of direction. No one asking for league titles yet. A settled team, formation and a bit of good football would do it and that isn't a lot to ask for.
We only need five signings because the smug Scot has made us believe that we do. If we don't sell the likes of Hernandez and Kagawa we won't need five - three would be welcome though. 5 new signings should have us up there with the very best, 3 would have us competitive enough.
No one's ever questioned that this squad needs some improvements. It's not the 7th best team in the league by any stretch of the imagination though and there's a lot more to squeeze out of them.
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He shouldn't say words to that effect before he's even managed the team properly. Likewise with the 'Ferguson would also struggle' - it's bad enough for me to see Mourinho question his side's title aspirations, Moyes is the same only worse with the lack of faith in his team showed in public. It must be sort of awful to be managed by a man who doesn't believe in you.
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That's actually true, Goodison was a difficult ground to play at. We always disposed of them with ease at Old Trafford except that one time when it cost us the title (funnily enough Martinez added to that with his Wigan side battling relegation only a couple days later).
Is it a surprise? I was saying exactly that before a ball was kicked. No disrespect to Moyes but he's not a Utd manager. Forget the results, I'm talking about mentality and approach to the game. He will never change.
My Favourite Moysie Muck Up Quote
It was gently pointed out that his team were 21 points worse off than at this stage last season. "Well, I was at Everton so I wasn't 21 points worse off," he replied. "I was at Everton."
It was gently pointed out that his team were 21 points worse off than at this stage last season. "Well, I was at Everton so I wasn't 21 points worse off," he replied. "I was at Everton."
That's the thing, he may get us top 4 next year and be a hero but he is very unlikely to have the mentality to get the best out of players at a club like United. We might not be as awful as we have been this season but I don't think we will reach the level we are capable of with someone more adequate at helm.
I think the consensus 'minimum' coming into the season was top 3 and doing well in the cups. This squad was capable of that without reinforcements. We've added Fellaini and Mata since. We still need improvements but that *should* be to get us back to competing at the highest level on all fronts, not just to get to what most accepted as minimum expectations 9 months so.
What was he even trying to say I do not understand, even now! It's like all his instincts kick in whenever someone tries to blame him and he almost deflects all the blame off him.
You'll get no arguments from me regarding the "Fergie would've struggled" remark. It was a foolish thing to say. As for the Bayern comment, my main point was simply that he never demanded six NEW world class players - which is what some still throw around. He probably should've kept any thoughts he had at the time to himself, though.
Should be stressed yet again, however, that we do not know what he has told the players regarding this and that. Most of the comments people analyze to death are meant for the media and the fans. He hasn't mastered that game, obviously, but still. What he tells the players in private is clearly more important than what he feeds the vultures.
Januzaj has also been promoted. One of our better players this season!
But you were the last one tipping us to win the League so you clearly didn't think this squad was that terrible in December when you still fancied us to win it. I admire your continual optimism (and wish I shared it!) but when you change your opinion just to continue to be optimistic it just seems a bit fake. I actually thought we'd scrape the top 4, athough that wasn't anticipating how good Liverpool would be, but that the squad did need 3 or 4 players to match City and Chelsea. That we didn't make those signings is a reasonable defence as to why we're not winning the league but it doesn't explain why we're in 7th.
We need five signings with Moyes in charge, yes. We need five of the best. We need five genetically modified X-men if Moyes is to win anything.
But with a top manager, we'd probably only need two or three and wouldn't need to be spending the equivalent of a small nation's GDP.
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That's where I have some hope. Mourinho comes up with these ridiculous quotes, which is unlike him because he has hyped up his players a lot in the past, but I think a lot of that is to distort the attention and they all know that he really believes in them. It's actually been his trademark for most of his career. Perhaps Moyes is the same - the Fergie quote was extremely poor either way though and what Everton players have said about Martinez in comparison to Moyes is very worrying too - especially the thing about having to adapt to the opposition.
He has been a PL manager for more than a decade. I cannot understand how he can be that naive when it comes to handling the media. Anyway, as you rightly pointed out, what he says on the camera and what he says behind closed doors could be different. However, when you hear your manager claim that this squad was bound to struggle no matter who was in charge, it will automatically breed dissent among his players. And I cannot understand what could he tell the players in private to make it feel better. "Hey lads! I trashed you in the presser to save my skin. Don't worry though, I think you are good enough but the media needs to lay the shit on your door and not mine, 'cause I am the CHOSEN ONE!"?
He's not really had to deal with a hostile press before though. Having your ability questioned is never going to be pleasant, and he hasn't dealt with it well at all. Nowhere to hide as United manager though, and certainly not the place to learn.
Look at you go.
You've become very militant in your approach to defend all things Moyes, which I assume is meant as a counterweight to all the, in your opinion, bullshit criticisms of the man since he was appointed. Fair enough, but in your "everything is going to be fine, give him time"-bubble, you're failing to see the point IMO.
We never needed and we still don't need five signings to get into the top 4. That's where DM has failed massively. He's taken the fecking title winners to 7th in less than a year. Very few United supporters expected us to win the league this season, but the vast majority at least expected us to not fall out of the CL spots.
For a serious title challenge and to compete in Europe again, well yes, we now need 4-6 signings. A few players, like Vidic, are leaving because they need a change in their careers, and some will be moved on by Moyes himself because they haven't performed/he can't fit them in(however you want to look at it).
Although the 'ageing squad' dribble from Moyes is way overstated, there are a couple of players reaching the end of their careers and need to be replaced. And like in every squad, there are players who simply aren't good enough.
We need players, everyone recognizes that, but not to the extent that we should see more or less the same title winning squad drop 6 places in the space of a year. That's mostly down to management, and even though Moyes would have you believe that Sir Alex would have done as badly, it simply isn't true IMO.
Although he's not the only reason for this mess, Moyes has failed this season. It's really that simple. I don't care how much bullshit is written about the man on the caf, he has still failed to deliver.
Hostile press? When did he have to deal with that when he has been here? Hostile is what AVB had to deal with. Moyes has been handled with silk gloves by the media.
I'm not judging the level of it, but being asked why your team is shitter than last season whilst your old team is better than last season is on the spectrum.
Wasn't he pointing out that he's been much more consistent than people have given him credit for? He's not 21 points worse off than last season - it's much closer than that.
Oh come on Sarni, you're better than that, stop twisting what he said. There's no need to make up things in order to make him look stupid.
For me the way he treated Nemanja Vidic is beyond all of being said in this thread, including results, mentality, approach and hundreds other things.
We're giving Inter our captain for free, one of our most valuable and experienced member of the squad while we're probably gonna stick with 100k per week Ashley Young who needs a frakin psychologist to restore his confidence in kicking the ball again properly. I'm not even sure if Reus gets half of that kind of money from Borussia's board. We have so many empty slots that we could give to real talented players that it's becoming more like a problem taken straight from political realm where you have this huge number of members of the government and they receive epic money for basically sitting and voting for things they don't even care to verify.
Next season, if we're gonna run into situation where we'll be lacking proper leadership in defense and our season will go down because of that I think I'm gonna go there and kick his ugly eyeballs into back of his skull.
I hope he knows what he's doing but we're gonna find out, very soon. Of course he gloats how many great players wants to join Manchester United and he's working on everything... I would love to finally see his own words becoming something close to reality because the things are going in the direction where people may actually hate him more than Glazers ! Imagine the drama when people will be forced to start begging Glazers to save their club from Moyesy...
Enough of the rant. The season is fascinating and at least I can enjoy that side of football but top competitions without Manchester United is something honestly weird and slowly losing it's magic and heart.
We're giving Inter our captain for free, one of our most valuable and experienced member of the squad while we're probably gonna stick with 100k per week Ashley Young who needs a frakin psychologist to restore his confidence in kicking the ball again properly. I'm not even sure if Reus gets half of that kind of money from Borussia's board. We have so many empty slots that we could give to real talented players that it's becoming more like a problem taken straight from political realm where you have this huge number of members of the government and they receive epic money for basically sitting and voting for things they don't even care to verify.
Next season, if we're gonna run into situation where we'll be lacking proper leadership in defense and our season will go down because of that I think I'm gonna go there and kick his ugly eyeballs into back of his skull.
I hope he knows what he's doing but we're gonna find out, very soon. Of course he gloats how many great players wants to join Manchester United and he's working on everything... I would love to finally see his own words becoming something close to reality because the things are going in the direction where people may actually hate him more than Glazers ! Imagine the drama when people will be forced to start begging Glazers to save their club from Moyesy...
Enough of the rant. The season is fascinating and at least I can enjoy that side of football but top competitions without Manchester United is something honestly weird and slowly losing it's magic and heart.
I interpreted his comment to mean that he wasn't United's manager last year-so as United's manager he hasn't had a 21 point decline.
I think he was attempting to make a joke out of the question. And, like most of everything he's done this year-he failed.
To be fair he's done the job in that department with some of his quotes, admittedly.
I think I might recall him having a straight face on that question, a rather stern one infact, but I might be mistaken, it was a good while ago now.
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The British media was not even a little bit hostile for the vast majoritiy of this season, quite the opposite really. I have never seen the media making so many excuses for a football manager. If Moyes would have worked at the Spanish, Italian, French or German counterparts of United, he would have been ripped apart by the respective Sports press and the hard questions would have come out even before Christmas.
It was not until Rodger´s Pool became stronger and looked like a potential league winner, that the momentum turned around somewhat, revealing the clear agenda by the Media of wanting a top class British coach.
We need a passing pressing style manager.....moyes has no idea what that means....i think the glazers will only give moyes another season if there are not any suitable managerial candidates out there this summer that are available....but he seems to be a dead man walking even if he gets another season..... klopp will absolutely stay at dortmund...martinez won't leave everton so soon...van gaal might get the job short term but he might ignore long term structuring of club and plan for the short term instead....I'd take van gaal over moyes in a heart beT
About the bolded line, definitely. We don't know what Moyes do in the training and we don't know if Verheijen has any access there (although I would be willing to bet all my fortune that he doesn't have any access on Carrington, though he may have had a conversation with certain players like RVP).
About him on the newbies, I never heard about it, so I don't know.
An another point I made, is about Moyes being avid student of the game. Where does this come from (I have heard it many times on Caf). I know that he went to France 16 years ago to watch the world cup, and that he goes to a lot of matches, but I would like to know more if his being a student of the game comes from only these two things or there is something that I am missing.
Bingo!
The evidence of our eyes, the words from the man's mouth, the testimony of his old players, the behaviour of our players, everything points to Moyes not being up to it and yet we still give him 'time'. Its ridiculous.
Ken - I didn't see the clip so not sure of tone of voice, but in print it looks bad: like either he's not taking any responsibility for the drop in performance (he wasn't here then, he is here now and so has been no drop since he was here?) or he's happy to have maintained the same level of achievement at United as he had at Everton.
I'm sure neither was his intention but if anyone needed some training on how to talk to the media it's him. Clanger after clanger. His players (Evra, Giggs) have recently sounded more like leaders than he has. Makes me wonder if behind his 'humble' facade lies a stubbornness or arrogance? Would love to see what he's like with the players behind closed doors.
His record against United at Godison Park:
7 losses, 3 wins, 2 draws. 11 out of possible 36 points.
Another legend, which should have a fast and painful death. We had a fantastic record there, and while at times, we had difficulties to win, the same can be said for almost every team. Still the points don't lie (or so I've heard), and getting 23 out of possible 36 points makes GP hardly a difficult place for us.
So should he be given a free pass? I don't understand how that can be construed as hostile or even close to it. It was a simple question.
Anyway, we are getting entangled in fine points here. I have no issue with how poor he has handled the media. My only concern is that if the players get effected directly because of this.
So, why is he pointing that out? That statement would imply that he has been "consistently" mediocre. Is that what he was trying to tell?
I think you're misunderstanding what side of the argument I'm on here. I think he's had a comfortable life at Everton where since moving them away from relegation dogfights, he's not really had to deal with big challenges or high expectations, and never really had his ability questioned. I don't think he should be given a free pass at all, I think it shows how out of his depth he is.
ER-No disagreement. I've been a Moyes-outer for some time now. But, of the long list of things that tell me Moyes is not our guy-his statements at pressers are not at the top.
It was a bizarre quote-but I think he was trying to make light of the question-which as you say is pretty annoying as he didn't man-up and say something about the drop.
And, yes, Moyes really has to stop using hope and try in any sentence. I figure it will take something like A Clockwork Orange set-up-where he's shocked every time he uses either of those words to get him to stop.
Anyway-it's sad that all we can look forward to now is a painless end to the season.
Ok then. We are on the same page.
I don't have anything substantial on it - but it's widely known that Moyes is a football geek, he eats, drinks and sleeps football. He is also supposedly very interested in German football - I would imagine he has studied what methods they use, etc. None of this means he, himself, is any good - of course. But it does indicate that he takes his job seriously.
I'll see if I can dig up something more tangible regarding his studies.
It was mentioned a lot when he was hired, in fact it was one of the big things that gave me a bit of hope after the initial disappointment of his hiring. I've just not seen anything that would suggest he's putting those studies to good (or any) use over the course of the season.
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