Moyes
The fact is that David Moyes needs to lay down a marker cause the squad seems out of depth and belief and with all United fans being used to success and Fergie owning journalists, Moyes comes out a bit of a media sheep. Play appallingly, he still says United managed to play well. Somehow when Fergie did it, it wasn’t as infuriating as now. Only David Moyes knows what is going through his mind and what is this ‘project’ he has turned the CHAMPIONS OF ENGLAND into. He doesn’t have the class of 92 to back his beginning and the players seem clueless. Now the question is that has Moyes cracked under pressure? Is he the one who is mentally soft or is it the players? According to me, it is both and the backroom staff he got with him doesn’t seem to be ready to manage United as well. Maybe he should’ve let Fergie’s staff stay for a season to make the transition easier but since he didn’t his current staff should do better. Are you listening Mr. Phil Neville?
Tactics
He has constantly been outwitted by opposition managers from whatever club he has faced and the Premier League table doesn’t lie. He has to come out and take the blame than to blame the luck and everything else. United seem clueless at times. This season as many of you must have noticed, United have somewhat adopted the long ball strategy when obviously it is not working. Even against Arsenal, when there was a chance to break, the defender or midfielder bringing it out of their own half would hoof the ball forward only to give it back to Arsenal who like probably every other team were happy to receive. Manchester United are known for blistering counter attacking football which has been absent this season. Tom Clevelery gets the ball in the 90th minute extra time and what does he do? He passes it square when he can either move forward or try to look for a better pass. Mind you, then the ball was passed back into United’s own half. A Manchester United fan is never happy with a loss, or a draw. United win. It is simple as that, and as bad as it may be, shouldn’t Mr. Moyes try and change his tactics a bit. He buys a £37.5m midfielder in Mata and then resorts to long balls. Kagawa has a decent game and then goes missing in the next few games. Why not try and change the formation when the wingers are clearly not performing and you have better technical players in your side. Will Mata too end up being wasted like Kagawa? Should Rooney be awarded the mega 300k contract when he has clearly been wanting to leave on more than one occasion. What message does that send out? He has even changed the CB partnership too often. Any defense with a constant and good CB partnership is hardly breached and Smalling has failed to live upto his potential while Jones is confused about his role and Vidic and Rio don’t cut it anymore. Evans is the only decent CB United have at the moment while Evra has forgotten how to defend and has become a liability in most games. How about giving the U21 kids a chance while trying to buy an established one? Moyes needs to answer all these conundrums – Mata, Rooney, Evra, Smalling, probably all the members of the squad.
Lack of a leader and injuries
Then comes the issue of leadership. United have clearly lacked the leader every team needs. Vidic is no longer the permanent leader of once and while Evra is an amazing half time specialist with motivation, his on pitch mistakes and media slating don’t make him out the perfect one. Rooney is Rooney, but still not quite the Vidic or Roy Keane quality. Manchester United need it since Vidic is leaving.