Last night we lined out (On Paper) as a 4-3-3 and I was quite pleased until I seen the personnel involved.
Einstein has been oft quoted on here in recent months:
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results".
In September City dominated us in a 4-1 win. Fellaini being big and strong was supposed to win the midfield battle but was shown to be the average player he is against Toure. So again last night against probably the most athletic midfield in Europe Moyes started a slow-moving thug.
Juan Mata has been here 2 months now but Moyes still hasn't realised his physical limitations. As Jose knows, Mata is a luxury footballer and needs to be played as such. I have no idea what position or role he was supposed to have last night, what I do know is that his opposite number (Silva) ran riot all over the pitch.
Danny Welbeck does not cut the mustard against top teams. You can quote Real Madrid at me all you like but if the standard of player we crave at Man Utd is a willing runner then Mo Farah should have been signed up long ago.
Tom Cleverley playing right wing.
This is how I seen our playing positions last night:
--------------------------------------De Gea-------------------------------------
Rafael-------------Ferdinand--------------Jones-------------------Evra
-------------------------------------Carrick-------------------------------------
Cleverley-----------------------------------Fellaini--------------------------
----------------Mata--------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------Rooney------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------------------Welbeck
Not a farking clue what that looked like in Moyes' head.
Tactical Incompetence
posted on 26/3/14
comment by Stretty - LongLiveA$ap - Moyes Out (U3123)
posted 53 seconds ago
And Young would be roundly slated as not good enough and it would be Moyes fault for playing him.
Well it's defiantly moyes fault for choosing the players he did and installing a losing mentality in the whole squad.
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What happened when Ferguson announced his retirement in 2001 following a title winning season? We languished in ninth until he shelved those plans. I would say the mentality has very little to do with Moyes.
posted on 26/3/14
Fellani for a defensive midfielder makes zero effort to get back and defend or close down
He is usually the second player highest up the pitch when we conceed possession. Am I the only one to have noticed this?
posted on 26/3/14
I think we had every intention of playing a standard 4-3-3 ... with Clevs slightly to the right and Fellaini slightly to the left.
But they fúcking hammered us for 10 minutes. Coming to terms with a new formation and getting battered was too much... So he stuck clevs on the right while we settled the ship (which worked).
Not overly defending Moyes, i'm not sure such a huge tactic change was wise against such a strong team, but that is how I saw things pan out.
You can't have a huge dig at him for "Playing Clevs on the right" because that was not his plan, if anything, his quick thinking kept us in the game and i'm not 100% sure why he made the half time switch....
From about 30 mins in... We switched back to a more conventional 3 man midfield and it was starting to work.
His biggest mistake was playing Mata, i'm afraid. Welbeck, Rooney and Valencia in front of the 3 midfielders would have likely been much stronger.
posted on 26/3/14
Fellani for a defensive midfielder makes zero effort to get back and defend or close down
One of the laziest cms ive ever seen.
posted on 26/3/14
comment by thebettertwin (U8719)
What happened when Ferguson announced his retirement in 2001 following a title winning season? We languished in ninth until he shelved those plans. I would say the mentality has very little to do with Moyes.
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That's a bit disingenuous. We were in 9th on 8th December, 5th on 12th Dec and 1st by the 13th January.
Talks over a new contract when Ferguson done a u-turn only started on 4th Feb. He didn't sign it until 27th Feb.
posted on 26/3/14
Ji - Cleverley was injured but Moyes did say afterwards that he would have been looking to change things around anyhow.
I detect some sympathy there for Moyes and I also have some as our fullbacks were woeful last night and City overloaded them creating even more space in the middle. We were outgunned all over the park !
posted on 26/3/14
Rafael had a decent game. Nothing spectacular attacking but look at what was playing ahead of him.
There is a reason all of City's goals came from the left and Silva spent most of his time roaming.
posted on 26/3/14
Rafael delivery was terrible last night. Defensively I don't think he did much wrong tho.
posted on 26/3/14
His delivery would have needed to be Beckhamesque to give our forwards a chance of beating Kompany to the cross.
posted on 26/3/14
I detect some sympathy there for Moyes
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I just don't like to deal in only black and white... Moyes has his faults, the players have their faults.... The opposition have their strengths etc etc