Just watched the match again, Moyes doesn't owe RVP, he owes De Gea, fantastic performance being overshadowed by RVPs hat trick.
Moyes So Far!
- Thread starter RedTillI'mDead
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Jesus, Mockney
Yes. You haven't been?
Meh, he will leave anyway, regardless who will be the manager. Never looked good enough to me. I have hopes on Varela but Vermijl is just an another Bardsley.
According to Mark Ogden, Moyes last night admitted that he had moved too quickly in overlooking Giggs in recent weeks. Moyes is quoted as saying 'I thought he is 40 years old and I need to be looking to the future. I have been trying to give everyone opportunities. Ryan is not going to go on forever so we have to find the new Ryan Giggs and use other players but we needed his experience tonight'.
Fair enough, but he has been giving some people opportunities for 9 months, others he has frozen out completely. How much longer is he going to mess about assessing people and more importantly, why has he not prioritized using our best assets to make sure of a top 4 place by the end of the season?
Fair enough, but he has been giving some people opportunities for 9 months, others he has frozen out completely. How much longer is he going to mess about assessing people and more importantly, why has he not prioritized using our best assets to make sure of a top 4 place by the end of the season?
I think we're all of a similar opinion regarding Moyes tenure so far, (some posters are taking it too far though IMO, we've heard the drum your banging and it's not changed a bit so stop fecking banging it, it's just annoying noise).
Credit where it's due last night, it was an impressive impassioned display from the whole team (ok Evra was god awful) and for 60 minutes we had full control of the game and only one winner was coming from the tie. I thought the manager should have gotten Valencia out of there a bit earlier and was fuming at the time (due Moyes lack of reactive management) but once Young came on I quickly realized Valencia with one leg and one eye was still a better option. What happened after the third goal again had me screaming towards the bench as we dropped deeper and deeper but there was David defensive feckin Moyes screaming at the team to get out ! So who do we blame for that last 20 minutes or so ? I think both players and manager shared a responsibility, it looked like total confidence collapse, once the goals had come the players immediately started to doubt their ability to see it out. I think a lot of that stems from the manager and how we've faired all season but it's now down to the players to build on this and if we can't then Moyes ability to motivate a top team is left in very very little doubt, he should then have the decency to step away and let us start to recover.
One thing I will say is that we actually saw a lot of luck last night, those DDG saves were outstanding but on another night he could have been left with little or no chance and also the timing of the goals couldn't have been more perfect, the penalty coming just as we started to flag a little and then the second right on half time and just imagine had that 3rd goal came just a bit earlier, I feel we would have been out, but were not and we and Moyes have an opportunity now to look like were building something.
Basically David the players showed the passion last night, now it's on you, no more excuses, no more passing the buck, it's completely and totally on you.
Credit where it's due last night, it was an impressive impassioned display from the whole team (ok Evra was god awful) and for 60 minutes we had full control of the game and only one winner was coming from the tie. I thought the manager should have gotten Valencia out of there a bit earlier and was fuming at the time (due Moyes lack of reactive management) but once Young came on I quickly realized Valencia with one leg and one eye was still a better option. What happened after the third goal again had me screaming towards the bench as we dropped deeper and deeper but there was David defensive feckin Moyes screaming at the team to get out ! So who do we blame for that last 20 minutes or so ? I think both players and manager shared a responsibility, it looked like total confidence collapse, once the goals had come the players immediately started to doubt their ability to see it out. I think a lot of that stems from the manager and how we've faired all season but it's now down to the players to build on this and if we can't then Moyes ability to motivate a top team is left in very very little doubt, he should then have the decency to step away and let us start to recover.
One thing I will say is that we actually saw a lot of luck last night, those DDG saves were outstanding but on another night he could have been left with little or no chance and also the timing of the goals couldn't have been more perfect, the penalty coming just as we started to flag a little and then the second right on half time and just imagine had that 3rd goal came just a bit earlier, I feel we would have been out, but were not and we and Moyes have an opportunity now to look like were building something.
Basically David the players showed the passion last night, now it's on you, no more excuses, no more passing the buck, it's completely and totally on you.
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The whole "How dare you criticize our beloved players who have given us so much" indignation is just as stupid as the "The players just aren't good enough" rhetoric that it is a response to.
How about people stop thinking in terms of black and white and look at the whole picture.
This whole taking sides thing is beyond pathetic. Especially the staunchest Anti-Moyes posters who jump on anyone who offers a different perspective. And then you have the most intellectually challenged who jump on any comment criticizing the players and accuse the poster of inventing a pro-Moyes conspiracy.
It's to the point where so many posters feel they have to post any criticism of the squad or players with the disclaimer: "I'm not defending Moyes or relieving him of blame, however..."
How about people stop thinking in terms of black and white and look at the whole picture.
This whole taking sides thing is beyond pathetic. Especially the staunchest Anti-Moyes posters who jump on anyone who offers a different perspective. And then you have the most intellectually challenged who jump on any comment criticizing the players and accuse the poster of inventing a pro-Moyes conspiracy.
It's to the point where so many posters feel they have to post any criticism of the squad or players with the disclaimer: "I'm not defending Moyes or relieving him of blame, however..."
Sounds like last season.
Moyes is here still. You must be boiling with rage. I would be... If my goal was to see him out of the club
Both groups deserve blame. The players are being paid obscene amounts of cash. When they let standards drop, something should be said. But for once, they and Moyes deserve credit today.
Why? We won the game yesterday and progressed. I love all our players, they've filled me with joy for the past 7 seasons basically, I'm not going to start hating on them because they have an inept manager. I support players and the club.
You mean have respect for Sir Alex by questioning the competency of Moyes and the idiocy of continuing to support him when in fact its widely known that SAF is one of his biggest supporters ???
Think is that most people think RVP pulled us out of a hole last season. I don't recall too much fluid football regularly last season either. Lets not rewrite history and pretend united were a swashbuckling side last season. they were efficient, effective and ruthless, that's it. .
Great post mate.
The Times reported that Fletcher came on after Giggs yelled at Moyes about the MF getting overrun. Did anybody who attended the match see that? If true-is it odd that Moyes didn't see it for himself?
Sounds about right. I think there has been a show-down between Giggs and Moyes and I think Fergie has told Moyes to involve him and to listen to him more - as he used to do apparently.
Christ, the caf has an uncanning ability to always draw out somebody for an argument ha.
Giggs was a hero last night but with all due respect, we should not have to be relying on a 40 year old man at this stage of the game. If you want to argue that then good for you.
...In another word: winners. I'll take those characteristics for my team any day of the week.
Giggs was most certainly the catalyst for everything good about the display last night, looking back it's fairly obvious why, he's been left out for months whilst watching the worst period in United's recent history, he must have been absolutely champing at the bit to show the team and the management what real fire and passion looks like.
It's clear that Giggs can now be the key to the season and our season currently rests on 2 Champions league ties, my fear here is that Moyes will now use Giggs to often, perhaps have him on the bench against City then a nice break until the 2 games that will define our season and we might just have some hope of another 2 games now that he's shown the way.
It's clear that Giggs can now be the key to the season and our season currently rests on 2 Champions league ties, my fear here is that Moyes will now use Giggs to often, perhaps have him on the bench against City then a nice break until the 2 games that will define our season and we might just have some hope of another 2 games now that he's shown the way.
I'm personally not seeing this as any kind of 'turning point'.
It was a good performance and a great result, but it was Olympiakos - all due to respect to them, but they're not that great. And we've done that plenty of times this season - beat weaker teams, and then lose again whenever we come up against someone better.
That said, i'm saying this as someone who remains in the ever shrinking 'give him time' camp (it's now more of a lonely, tattered two man tent than a camp). And i've actually been saying this for months. Let him have the summer to get the team the way he wants it to be, and see where we are next season.
One thing that does give me some small reassurance is that Moyes has repeatedly said his is a long term vision, and not a short term vision, and so there are grounds to believe that there are things going on behind the scenes that maybe we aren't privvy to, but that the hirers and firers are, and which will eventually start to reap rewards.
It was a good performance and a great result, but it was Olympiakos - all due to respect to them, but they're not that great. And we've done that plenty of times this season - beat weaker teams, and then lose again whenever we come up against someone better.
That said, i'm saying this as someone who remains in the ever shrinking 'give him time' camp (it's now more of a lonely, tattered two man tent than a camp). And i've actually been saying this for months. Let him have the summer to get the team the way he wants it to be, and see where we are next season.
One thing that does give me some small reassurance is that Moyes has repeatedly said his is a long term vision, and not a short term vision, and so there are grounds to believe that there are things going on behind the scenes that maybe we aren't privvy to, but that the hirers and firers are, and which will eventually start to reap rewards.
it actually gave me a little hope for the future. The difference from having even one decent creative midfielder in the middle was huge. If we get in a couple over summer, it should bring a lot more out of the players that stay.
Spot on.
Having a long term vision is all good and well, but you can't just hope and expect to end up at a certain point in time. The decline we have witnessed this season will make any long-term plan harder to accomplish, much much harder.
In fact the evidence this season points to there being very little plan or vision at all. To achieve a long-term goal you need to progress significantly in the short and medium term.....to build on good foundations, look at Mourinho, Martinez and Rodgers for examples. Moyes has basically ransacked those foundations. You need to start somewhere but the regression has been utterly appalling and no victory over an average Greek side will suddenly change that reality.
In fact I would suggest that the Olympiakos result will be pretty much forgotten within the next month.
Plus it will also take care of mid-lower table teams coming to OT and setting up to attack us. Even just one or two signings and we won't be nearly as bad next season. Whether better performances will also affect Moyes' tactics, interaction with the press/squad motivation, and his misunderstanding of rotation will still be up in the air though.
This is likely the truth. Unless it suddenly spurs us on to a dramatic improvement in general form to the extent we go on a run to the end of the season and manage to get into the champions league semis, we still have the same deficiencies and will still have likely a couple more very humbling defeats to better opposition yet to come, unfortunately. A 3-2 aggregate win over Olympiacos isn't going to outweigh those in a discussion of Moyes' merits.
That bit is gash, to be fair. Either you've the memory or a goldfish or you're being deliberately disingenuous.
We defended like utter clowns for large parts of last season. Conceded more goals than any other team in the top four.
In fact, we had the second highest number of goals conceded out of any of the teams in the top seven places. Only Spurs let in more goals than we did.
David Moyes
See, it depends what you mean by balanced. I was on board when we hired him. I wanted him given 2 years. I was on board during those "tough" opening fixtures where he insisted on playing the same line up despite being consistently rubbish. I was on board during the West Brom and Southampton debacles, and even the weird Newcastle one where he kept RVP on incase anyone had a go at him. My appraisal slipped to 18 months but I still thought he deserved the time.
These were my thoughts just 2 weeks ago.
So I assure you I haven't been on his back consistently from the start. I've been trying. Honestly I have. But I would consider a "balanced" opinion to be one that's changed over time to take into account facts, circumstances and reality. One that's seen the evidence and made you fight your conscience and weighed up everything you expected, everything you would've tolerated and everything you got to reach a sensible conclusion. An almost scientific conclusion if you will. A conclusion most people who haven't drunk the red tinted kool aid probably reached months ago.
Not one that flies in face of all this, and has you running after the ever disappearing point of our season screaming "It's just a little dirty, it's still good, it's still good"...That isn't "balanced" to me. How is it to you?
My problem is twofold. Firstly that I've been worn down by his inexorable torrent of shit and consistent unimprovement to the point of almost nihilism, and where I genuinely think people who continue to think he can turn it around are either romantically deluded or plain outright insane, and the other is .....
...I simply, genuinely don't think that was a result that depended on the wise implementation of his ideas. We once again played rather averagely against a supremely inferior side. We surrendered possession, attempts and passes at home to the worst team still left in the competition, and were kept in it by a ridiculous save from DDG, and won thanks to Robin Van Persie. It's that simple for me. There was a certain degree of lucking out.
Yes he motivated his players well. I can give him credit for that one thing, but he should've been doing this months ago. IT'S COCKING MARCH!
Everything else was still just exactly the same. Poor tactics, poor chance creation, odd subs, so even if the motivation was good, I'm beyond the point where giving out gold stars for semi-competence this late in the season because the bar is so goddam low, feels like a fun idea.
If things start to pick up against West Ham, i'm more than open to a mea culpa. I've reached where I am now by changing my mind. Until then...
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Bit depressing but I kind of agree with all of that.
Feck it, though. Life is much less depressing when you give in to irrational optimism.
We've turned the corner! Believe!
Good Lord.
If he said that, and if it's true he's mostly lost the dressing room, you have to wonder if he has the basic social skills to realize that overpraising in the hopes of winning a few back will lead to even more contempt. Or if he actually thought it was magnificent.
I'm fine with him calling it magnificent as long as he doesn't actually believe it
A lot of people say they were *once* prepared to give Moyes time, but no longer are because of the poor results. But doesn't that defeat the whole objective of the concept of giving a manager time?
I mean, it's easy to say they should be given time if the results are satisfactory to good. Because then there's no obvious reason not to give them time, is there?
The test of how much you really believe in giving a manager time to implement his vision surely only comes when things aren't going as well you'd like.
Of course, i'm not saying Moyes should remain Manchester United manager indefinitely, regardless of the results. But i'm not sure 8 months is 'time' either, especially given he was arguably walking into the hardest job in world football.
I mean, it's easy to say they should be given time if the results are satisfactory to good. Because then there's no obvious reason not to give them time, is there?
The test of how much you really believe in giving a manager time to implement his vision surely only comes when things aren't going as well you'd like.
Of course, i'm not saying Moyes should remain Manchester United manager indefinitely, regardless of the results. But i'm not sure 8 months is 'time' either, especially given he was arguably walking into the hardest job in world football.
As a counterpoint to the euphoria, perhaps a dose of realism from Kevin Garside.....sorry if already posted
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/...-of-quality-for-david-moyes-side-9203670.html
Some sections I thought were relevant if you don't want to read the whole article....
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/...-of-quality-for-david-moyes-side-9203670.html
Some sections I thought were relevant if you don't want to read the whole article....
It's just more Moyes bashing for the sake of Moyes bashing. In the eyes of some supporters, he literally cannot do or saying *anything* right at the moment.
Many football journalists suffer from Convenient Amnesia (the tendency to forget that they ask managers leading questions...and then craft the finished article so it appears that the managers spontaneously bring up subjects like 'lost causes').
You know how newly converted extremists usually end up being the most militant? That's me now. I got converted late and I've now gone full blown acerbic suisnide bomber.
The other side just aren't offering enough. It's either blind faith (which I've never been very good at, obviously) or pretending the players are all shit and Fergie was a bit of a bastard who left us in the lurch. Neither of which I either believe or am comfortable with. I need something pretty big to bring me back from the abyss now. And not a home win against Olympiacos.
Not that many people, from what I've seen. The ones who have changed their mind have mostly done so because of the lack of any measurable progress whatsoever this season. There's nothing really to indicate things will get better, if anything we've gotten generally worse as the season has gone on; 8 months in it's probably understandable that many have changed their mind.
Sometimes, a particular result can be the proverbial straw that breaks the camel's back — I know the Olympiakos away and Liverpool matches were that for many on here. But that doesn't mean people have turned against him just because of the results.
Very good point. Those types of people are usually the ones who weren't quick enough to recognize the extent of Moyes' deficiencies immediately.
When we finished 13th in 1989/90, i'd imagine an awful lot of fans were saying that there were no signs of progress then either - indeed, that we were going backwards quickly - and that's why Fergie deserved to be sacked after being given 3.5 years to get it right. We all know what happened next.
To reiterate: i'm not saying Moyes = Fergie. I'm just saying progress or the prospect of progress isn't always immediately obvious before it actually arrives, and 8 months isn't really 'time' to get it right. Especially in this job, given the magnitude of what Moyes was having to replace.
If Moyes wants continued progression, he has to learn that you always play the same formation all the time and you need need to be more flexible. For example in the CL and against the top teams, we have played 2 in midfield where we should have played a 4-3-3. If we carry on in the CL like this, the better teams will tear us apart.
Ferdinand was wholly viewed as being one of the best centre backs in the league last year (he was in the PL team of the year), Rafael was arguably our best player after RVP and Evra was much better than he was the season before. I also wouldn't say Evans was anything less than good.
It was almost unilaterally accepted on here that the lack of protection given to Ferdinand and Evans was the reason we conceded so many, as well as our wingers being diabolical in bringing the ball out from defence and helping the full backs.
At the same time our full backs were vital to us in an attacking sense, scoring 7 and being our key outlet in the absence of a competent winger.
I was perfectly happy with our back 4 last season, although the 3 in front of them (Carrick aside) left a hell of a lot to be desired.
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