Rage Against the Dying of the Light
*With apologies for the poor quality sound on Ed’s side this week due to unforeseen technical difficulties. The mic broke, innit!*
On this week’s show Ed & Paul look back on a difficult week for United and David Moyes, where two poor cup results leaves United’s season in the balance. At Old Trafford United’s meek exit from the FA Cup to Swansea brought boos from the terraces. It was one of the worst performances of an increasingly underwhelming campaign. Then at the Premier League’s worst side, Sunderland, United lost 2-1 in the first leg of the Capital One Cup semi-final. The sides meet again in 10 days to decide who meets Manchester City at Wembley. We discuss Moyes’ future, transfer activity this winter, United’s away support and take all the your questions in what has been a traumatic week. Finally, we preview United’s rematch with Swansea at Old Trafford in which Moyes men will seek a modicum of revenge and, more importantly, three points. After all, the Reds remain seventh in the Premier League.
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Good cast as usual.
Now I’m going to say something most fans will disagree with. Utd is only 10% worse than the last few years (miles behind the Ronaldo era but only 10% worse than the last year or two). Let’s face it, we have not thrashed anyone since Arsenal 8-2 (except Leverkusen 5-0 a few weeks ago!). We have been scraping past virtually everyone then losing to City. We used to beat mid-table teams 2-1 with a late goal and everyone would say playing badly and winning is the mark of champions. Now we are losing with late goals instead of winning with them. Confidence is low, winning mentality has evaporated and the opposition smell a victory.
As for players, they are basically the same. In fact, Januzaj is a bigger gain than Scholes’ loss. Welbeck is better than last year, as is Rooney. Valencia is still one dimensional, Nani is still inconsistent and Young is still offers nothing and dives. There have been plenty of games where it wouldn’t have taken much to turn losses and draws into wins. We could easily have 6 or 7 more points now.
Moyes is 100% to blame for this small drop in quality with its big drop down the table. He’s no Ferguson we know, but Fergie used to get that extra from players. His team selection and choice & timing of substitutes is questionable. Smalling (who offers nothing going forward) at RB on a game we should be attacking. Against Sunderland be brought Hernandez on with about 6 minutes left (why not earlier). The BBC on-line commentary said “and Fletcher coming on for Cleverley, hmm not the most attacking of changes”. That sums it up for me. I’m not sure he motivates players. He says things like “we need to buy some world class players” which is like saying “what I’ve got is crap”. Other managers say “we need to strengthen in one or two areas”! He persistently chases Baines when LB isn’t the biggest problem. Buttner gets a chance but Fabio hardly ever. When he came on the other day he looked like he was trying too hard to impress and ended up getting himself sent off.
If only he’d gone out and bought Thiago and Strootman at the beginning of the summer for not much more than Fellaini) we’d be in the top 3 in the table.
Quality ending song. Thanks for starting my day with a laugh.
Rooney is the only player to perform because Moyes has chosen to please rooney by playing him upfront in his favorite position!
this meant earlier in the season we had to play 2 in center midfield, and carrick and cleverly don’t have enough authority to do that… that’s why rooney had to go on the left in previous seasons… for the TEAM, but at least moyes looks like he’s learnt and moved rooney much further back to a central three so hopefully things will start to turn good .
rant over
ps marco reus to manutd…. if only !
Not sure Moyes is totally to blame, RVP was the only thing that stopped last year mimicking this one. With no RVP it is about what you would expect.. The squad is light on quality. When two of our top 3 are missing the level drops a long way. With two quality midfielders which United should have bought by now they will be a decent side again..Moyes is certainly not to blame for the team being miles behind city that happened over the 5 previous years…