22 Sep 2013 21:36:38
The match today was horrible to watch from any fan's perspective. We were dominated and utterly embarrased and it seems as though Moyes picked the most unsuited team for the fixture. The only way he could have made it worse is by playing Ryan Giggs instead of Carrick but since he picked Young over Kagawa, god knows what else he would do.

The problem is he used a safe approach, and if you don't gamble you will not win.

The first one was playing Young over Nani/ Kagawa.
Fact is both are significantly better than Young and would have provided much better attacking quality. But well, he needed someone to cover for Evra so he played Young.

The second one was playing Evra, therefore needing Young. Alex Buttner and Fabio are younger, faster and much more likely to be able to contain one of the most notorious speedsters in world football. You don't play an old slow left back against someone as fast as Navas. Plus they are both just as bad defensivley so it wouldn't have been such a gamble.

The third one is playing Vidic and Ferdinand together for the fifth time running. Now that's just bad management imo. You want one for the experience, fine but you do not play both against a very capable, swift and fast offense. Ferdinand was imo the worst player on the pitch. Smalling wouldn't have done a worst job

The fourth one was playing Smalling at right back. The man is a central defender, deal with it. We have Fabio and we just bought Valera and both are natural fullbacks, therefore, even with Smalling's experience and height, should have got a nod before he did.

Valencia was on a decent run of form and worked hard so I get why he played, but you cannot expect a limited player to do it all on his own. Smalling offers zero quality going forward and did not help Valencia at all.

Young is a different story all together. He lacks the quality to play for us and it showed in the fact that he completed 8 passes in the first half. 8. He had zero dribbles and zero tackles, not to mention 0 chances created. How he still gets in the team is beyond me.

Welbeck was a bad call to start. Fact is, in a balanced attack, you need both quality and work rate. Players like Van Persie and Kagawa provide the quality on the ball, while the likes of Welbeck, Young ( debatable ) and Valencia provide the hard work, while Rooney is one of the few players who have both. But when you play 3 attacking players, neither of whom has the ability to pick a through ball, interchange and create anything of note, you will have a bad time. We needed better quality on the ball in the final third and we did not have it. In van Persie's absence we needed Kagawa.

All in all, I hope that moyes has learned from this experience that if you do not set up to win, you will not.

And sometimes, the biggest gamble is not taking any gambles. He played in the safest possible way, and got the worst possible results. Same goes for our match against Liverpool.

One last thing I do not understand. If Moyes did not want to play Kagawa, and he has seen how ineffective Ashley Young can be, why not just add a midfielder ( Anderson or Cleverley ) and provide more stability. If he was worried about losing width, well, he wouldn't since Young is as useless as a broken condom.

1.) 22 Sep 2013
Mick, I don't agree fully with your team selection Moyes picked.

If fergie was still in charge it would have been the same team apart for (cleverley for young) and we would have played 451 not 442 moyes wasnt tactically aware and should have looked at our previous games and tactics used and tried to hit them on the break.

However nobody performed today apart from Rooney when he had support and stopped his tif with Kompany, fair enough we had a good last 30 min but if you were 4 nil up would you sit back, as in theory the game is won

Fellaini was poor, he has no passing ability as his states showed last year at even 27.5m for that, we supposibly bought him so he could challenge the big players in the big games i.e. Yaya but shocking doesn't cut it, then Moyes did the same as he did at everton put fellaini further up the pitch fair enough he is a hand full for defenders but he needed a good delivery (that he got from Baines, coleman and Mirales, there is no comparison to the corssing ability of young, valencia and especially smalling all were abismall at putting the ball in the box!

no plan b from moyes and I think he needs to learn from this team selection and defeat.

apoologies for the esay, feedback welcome!

2.) 23 Sep 2013
23 Sep 2013 08:12:40
Everton fan in peace, been reading a couple of posts reference your season so far. Moyes drove us blues mental with no plan b and a cautious approach all the time (particularly away to top 4 teams, see his stats, not very good). When games were going against us, he was always reluctant to make a change often until it was too late.

But in fairness to Moyes, he took a struggling club with no cash to regular chasers for Euro football with the odd cup run thrown in and his eye for an unknown bargain was as good as there is.

I genuinely hope Moyes will do OK, but many of us Blues have been aware of his particular flaws for a good number of years, (though we were always grateful that the greater good countered these so tended not to make any fuss) but at MU and in the general media he will be found out if he doesn't adapt fast.

Not palatable reading perhaps but every club has its' historic cycles at top of the tree, perhaps its time for another team, reading some of the posts maybe sometimes (even in a horrible derby defeat) there needs to be a bit of grace and humility and be happy that at least you are regarded now as the most succesful team ever (domestically) in the last 30years. can't see that changing in my lifetime.

Good Luck for the rest of the campaign.

Paddock Neil {Ed002's Note - I'll let this go but you need to be registered to post here.}