Manchester United 2013/2014 Premier League Season (+ CC & FA Cup)

alright, thanks. Poor Sunderland, the league cup spot will probably go to Utd in 7th, and they had won their tie against you...

They might beat City   

If we get anything this season .. It will be a Europa Spot .. If !!! Tonight the whole team was focused on defending just like a mid table team typical of last years Everton, again no idea how to attack... we knew Moyes can to that from his Everton years, he also did it against City and Chelsea.When he comes up against a team that defends he'll be back to 70's football and crossing.
When you look at the attacking players we have with genuine technical ability (RVP, Rooney, Mata, Januzaj, Kagawa, Nani, Welbeck) we have a set of players there that, if played in the right system with the right tactics, could surely produce some fantastic football? All highly technical players, who are all versatile, and who have all shown what they can produce ... we should really be capable of playing good football. Teams with far lesser induvidual players have produced some great football ( Southhampton/ Swansea/and now Everton ). Yet we still seem intent of just sticking to the rigid 4-4-2 and sticking players into that system, rather then coming up with a system that suits the players, and gets the best out of them. I thought at one stage tonight when I saw Januzai warming up that Moyes was going to sub Valencia and play a 4-3-3 ... instead he took Mata off and continued a 4-4-2 wide ... I am not too sure Moyes can or is willing to deploy any other system at United .

true, they might. Or not

Anyway, it's often pretty catastrophical for lower table teams to get into Euro League by overperforming a season or in a cup, they can't cope with the extra games, get stretched and more often than not have serious relegation trouble.

If they don't go down this year and participate from the 2nd division...

Louis Saha - “Sir Alex Ferguson and David Moyes work hard and both want to win. They do have different philosophies though. One was a striker and the other a defender."

Saha, is the first former United player to at least mildly criticise Moyes. Not sure about the winning part though.

Hapless_Hans wrote:true, they might. Or not

Anyway, it's often pretty catastrophical for lower table teams to get into Euro League by overperforming a season or in a cup, they can't cope with the extra games, get stretched and more often than not have serious relegation trouble.

If they don't go down this year and participate from the 2nd division...

Yeah, the record for a manager getting sacked after he has one a cup is very high indeed

Angoulême wrote:If we get anything this season .. It will be a Europa Spot .. If !!! Tonight the whole team was focused on defending just like a mid table team typical of last years Everton, again no idea how to attack... we knew Moyes can to that from his Everton years, he also did it against City and Chelsea.When he comes up against a team that defends he'll be back to 70's football and crossing.
When you look at the attacking players we have with genuine technical ability (RVP, Rooney, Mata, Januzaj, Kagawa, Nani, Welbeck) we have a set of players there that, if played in the right system with the right tactics, could surely produce some fantastic football? All highly technical players, who are all versatile, and who have all shown what they can produce ... we should really be capable of playing good football. Teams with far lesser induvidual players have produced some great football ( Southhampton/ Swansea/and now Everton ). Yet we still seem intent of just sticking to the rigid 4-4-2 and sticking players into that system, rather then coming up with a system that suits the players, and gets the best out of them. I thought at one stage tonight when I saw Januzai warming up that Moyes was going to sub Valencia and play a 4-3-3 ... instead he took Mata off and continued a 4-4-2 wide ... I am not too sure Moyes can or is willing to deploy any other system at United .

-His deluded perception that his tactics are working, but luck is all that is missing, tells you of a man who has no other ideas when it comes to football. What we currently play is Moyes in a nutshell. That's the only football he knows and it's why we call him a tactical dinosaur.

- He plays for tactics to hinder opposition teams rather than play to our strengths. We've seen it plenty of times where we'd score then drop really deep to defend the lead. Or when we concede first in a match, the team struggles to overturn the score. It's because he builds teams to defend first, then nick a goal and see it out.

I'm gonna be honest, I feared a pasting from Arsenal today. But when I saw how they were playing, they were there for the taking. We had nothing to lose, we're not playing for anything anyomore in the league. He should have man up, grew a pair and threw caution to the wind to get a win. He should have played like that from the start. But no, it's the same scared approach to a big game from him as per usual. It's the reason why his teams have never won away against the top 4.

I agree with you, it was like watching his Everton teams tonight. Play to not lose rather than playing to win.

Couple of big things I noticed last night.

Firstly it irritated me that in the after match interviews he kept emphasising that despite being happy with a point 'we wanted to win' - he must have said it 4/5 times as if he was trying to cover up the fact that if you really want to win then you have to PLAY FOR A BLOODY WIN! Deep down we all know he was delighted with a point and a clean sheet  

Secondly why on earth did he stick Mata on the wing?????? Surely common sense says to play Mata in behind RVP and Rooney on the left instead??? Valencia, despite a good header off the line, offered no threat again, whilst Janet Jazz jam jam was left on the bench until late on.

RED wrote:

I'm gonna be honest, I feared a pasting from Arsenal today.

ohh man we are gonna get that, just wait for liverpool to arrive 4 weeks from now.    

a real pasting there against our biggest rivals AT HOME hopefully sending the fans into absolute ballistic mode demanding moysie's head, triggering a resignation the next morning from moyes sending all of us into sudden raptures, thats how this whole nightmare is going to end.  You heard that first here buddies.  

Carrick has become a Cleverley that covers less ground this season, he's living off last season's performances.

The most depressing thing about yesterday, is the Arsenal fans booed after they drew against us. Like we are a team battling relegation, that a draw is not good enough for them. Look how we have fallen under Moyes.

Lumiere_Blanche wrote:

RED wrote:

I'm gonna be honest, I feared a pasting from Arsenal today.

ohh man we are gonna get that, just wait for liverpool to arrive 4 weeks from now.    

a real pasting there against our biggest rivals AT HOME hopefully sending the fans into absolute ballistic mode demanding moysie's head, triggering a resignation the next morning from moyes sending all of us into sudden raptures, thats how this whole nightmare is going to end.  You heard that first here buddies.  

A pasting against them would be bittersweet if it meant The Incompetent One got the sack.

Busby Babe wrote:Carrick has become a Cleverley that covers less ground this season, he's living off last season's performances.

That..that is exactly what made me rage last night. Guttless. And Carrick's reaction to Cleverley's pass is laughable, he has some nerve, when it was HE who passed it back rather than play a a forward pass. Just shows that even amongst the players that cleverely is seen as a scapegoat.

Carrick has been a huge let down this season. Has coasted through out the season and has been shit in shielding the defence and going forward. He's been just as bad as Cleverley this season, but he is lucky that Cleverley has felt the brunt of the criticism from fans. Carrick has gone back under his shell. Shame.

Busby Babe wrote:The most depressing thing about yesterday, is the Arsenal fans booed after they drew against us. Like we are a team battling relegation, that a draw is not good enough for them. Look how we have fallen under Moyes.

It's ridiculous how one man has completely fcked up a top team. 7 months is all he took to make us rivals with Southampton and Newcastle lol. Well done Moyes. And I don't blame the Arsenal fans, if their team had balls they would have beaten us. But they were shet scared to not lose and played for a draw.
Plus imagine the expensive tickets they pay to watch a match as awful as that.

I tend to feel sorry for Cleverley, because after all, he's one of us. I know that doesn't excuse him for his bad performances but he gets too much stick, imo. There's worse players than him in our team, and especially since Moyes is telling him to do a defensive job, which is not really going to get the best out of him. Cleverley will never be Scholes, but he has the ability to do better than what he's doing and we've seen it. A lot of our players are confidence players, and when Moyes calls them 'mentally soft' it must have hurt.

Lumiere_Blanche wrote:

RED wrote:

I'm gonna be honest, I feared a pasting from Arsenal today.

ohh man we are gonna get that, just wait for liverpool to arrive 4 weeks from now.    

a real pasting there against our biggest rivals AT HOME hopefully sending the fans into absolute ballistic mode demanding moysie's head, triggering a resignation the next morning from moyes sending all of us into sudden raptures, thats how this whole nightmare is going to end.  You heard that first here buddies.  

Wenger got his tactics wrong, imo. He should have let us have the ball, like Mourinho did and hit us on the counter and because our midfield is so slow our defense is exposed, we'll make a stupid individual error and they'll score.  Liverpool will play on the counter attack at a frightening pace and pressure us a lot, we'll struggle  

Forgot what it's like to see the team go through a weekend without dropping points.   

The images are quite big, so your going to have to open them in a new tab. First of all it's only still images from two different matches, one under Moyes and one under Fergie but it seems to be what we're seeing this season as a whole. I'll be the first to admit that last season we didn't play great football but it seems we have regressed a lot under Moyes


Moyes vs Hodgson at this point in the league

Moyes at United: P32, W16, D6, L10
Hodgson at Liverpool: P31, W13, D9, L9

Moyes is not that much better than, Hodgson. In fact, he's worse, because Hodgson didn't take over the reigning champions

link


Last Season..




This was the shape in the building phase, the player circled red on the ball has the options to play short passes to the wings or through the middle, a forward pass or a long diagonal ball which was able to increase the variation of United’s attack . In the end, the United player chose the long diagonal ball options as per the blue arrow to attack from the left.



This was the key, the swiftness and quickness of the transition of team shape from building up the play to the final third as you can see Welbeck and Rooney who were earlier offering short passing options and in just a matter of few seconds, they were already in the box which caused the oppositions unable to regroup their defensive line.



Carrick have plenty of options for a passing move. He can play it short to give time for his teammates to reshape to create more triangles to play short passing move or he can pass to middle or on the right for final third penetration.



This was where he caught the opposition’s defenders with a accurate long pass to Hernandez to head in. Again, variety of play.


Same scenario, Carrick on the ball, but this time he played a forward pass to Rooney.


Then, Rooney layoff to Van Persie to break free 1 on 1 with the keeper. Here, the penetration was through the middle.



If United chose a more patient build-up, triangles were formed to play short combination passing in order to move the build-up into the final third.



In this snapshots, after a few exchange of short passes to draw out the opposition’s defender into the centre area which afforded Evra plenty of space on the left; as can be seen the players were already on the move to the next phase of team shape.





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This Season...



The distance between the players is too large to play any short one quick passing or combination play to open up the defence. From this snapshots, there is only 2 options, pass it wide or a long ball forward. This is why United racked up 81 crosses against Fulham as it was the result of the players positioning and the team set-up which did not afforded any other options.




There is no one in the middle to create a triangle with the 2 players on the left channel and there was a big gap in between line with no United players taking advantage or dropping deep to drag defenders away. The 4 circled red United players were waiting in the box for a cross. As a result, there was only 1 option; pass it wide and cross.




Van Persie and Rooney (circled red) are too close together playing high up the pitch. Rooney should drop into the hole to create triangles and to drag opposition defender out of their position to create space. As a result, there is only 1 option, pass it wide and cross.

There is no one in between the line from United. The midfield staying deep and the forwards pushing high up the pitch.

God, BB seeing that has deflated me. What on earth are Moyes and the coaches training the guys to do. Those pics from this season are very telling and shows why we are struggling to create chances.

Our cm are so deep and remain there that when they spread the ball to the wings or hoof it forward, there are no options for the wingers but to aimlessly cross or pass it to an overlapping fullback, and our forwards are left isolated.

What kind of tactics are these? I've never ever seen tactics this bad, well not since Wimbledon's famous long ball tactics.

I can't believe a top club like ours is playing football like this. That first pic v Fulham, that space OMG, you can fit the Titanic there.

smh

Man watching the Barca Vs Man City shows how far we are from Europe's elite. I'm not even a big fan of Barca's football, but they look like Gods compared to the shit we play and this is meant to be the worst Barca in years according to Mourinho. Barca are not even playing that well.

Seriously, what the board expect of Moyes to become, that is tactically astute, will take more than a season or two, he's been playing this shite for 20 years. It's nearly an impossible task. We should go for a non-british manager after Moyes.

Yeah both teams are tactically miles ahead of us right now, sadly.

I don't get how some United fans think/hope out of blind faith that Moyes could get us to that level if he's given time. On what basis? The man has played the same and only knows one way of football for his entire managerial career.

He's lucky that even with how shit we are right now, we should manage to get past Olympiacos. What I fear is once we come up against the big boys in the following round. This football that we're playing mixed with his tactical ineptness is going to result in us getting humiliated.

ugh.

excellent analysis busby mate..

btw i couldnt see most of the pics(even on reloading the page) :(only last 2 or 3 loaded. and from that alone its looking like as long as this man stays in the job, our graph is gonna go downwards and further downwards.

with this kinda footballing philosophy, even teams as low as n power league 2 ones can devise a definite counter tactic and implement it so easily, deflate us from the word go.

Unbelievably predictable and shockingly one dimensional we have become under this LoL of a manager.

I would like to take credit Lumiere, but I didn't write the article

Here's where I got it from Lumiere, check it out, the pictures might load better

http://livelifeunited.com/alex-ferguson-david-moyes-tactics/

Fletcher confirming how we all imagine the dressing room to be

"Spirits are down at times. There is no doubt about that. The players are hurting,"

"The dressing room is full of good character but it's not the liveliest at the moment and that is understandable."

"We would be more concerned if people were coming in happy, accepting the situation. A lot are angry, there have been a few snaps. Different things like that are understandable. I like to see that."

"Once the success comes back, that is when the dressing room becomes a fun and lively place again."

http://www.espn.co.uk/football/sport/story/281749.html

Palace up next .. Pretty sure I read somewhere that Palace have taken 16 out of a possible 21 points at home since Pulis took over so definitely isn't going to be an easy game. However, as always, I believe we will win the game. Hopefully the warm weather trip to Dubai done the players and Moyes some good. We keep saying, pretty much since September that we're going to put a run of results together and surge up the table. Well it's almost March and it isn't looking any more likely than it has in the last few months. May this be the start, however unlikely it may be.

We won 2-0 at Old Trafford and it wasn't that convincing since both goals weren't from open play.

United have taken fewer points in 2014 than Palace despite playing one more match

Saying that, we'll kill 'em 2-1 

De Gea; Smalling, Vidic, Ferdinand, Evra; Carrick, Fellaini; Mata, Rooney, Januzaj; van Persie.

negative moyes finally playing the 4 goats at once

I thought he should have rested RVP/Rooney for Tuesday. At least we get to see Januzaj, Mata, Rooney and RVP at once.

Crystal Palace is in good form, so I'm expecting a difficult game.

delighted with that attacking line up. I'm as anti Moyes as they come, but I give him credit for that. Now, he has to have the balls to start that front line against the top teams.

If we drop points today....lawd.