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Moyes In or Moyes Out

Yeoldhammer

May 5

sounds like he is gone

Chelsea (A) 2pm Sunday 5th May not on TV (sorry Bubbles but there are a lot of injuries)

MIAHammer

May 5

If one more pundit / ex-player comes out saying how badly Moyes has been treated and how we should be careful what we wish for, they should be tied to a chair and made to watch our games with their eyes taped open.

Chelsea (A) 2pm Sunday 5th May not on TV (sorry Bubbles but there are a lot of injuries)

buffybegood

May 5

After beef last Sunday, I've got lamb again today to help me through the rest of the day after this debacle.

Moyes In or Moyes Out

claretandbluesky

May 4

I would be pretty certain one party has communicated to the other that a change will be happening and almost as certain that it was the club that informed Moyes.

Now he needs a huge appreciative send off from the crowd, a Davy Moyes clarat'n'blue army and then the club need to do all they can to make sure the gamble is worth taking and appoint a manager who can take us forward and supply him the funds to shape his squad.

Much as been said about how thin the squad is but the only benefit of that is the new guy has more ability to shape his squad. Tim S is spoken of as being the messiah in some quarters and this also gives him a chance to demonstrate that by finding good value players and persuading them to come.

I really appreciate Moyes as a man and manager and would not have been up in arms if he was staying, but I must admit I have more enthusiasm about next season knowing we are changing.

Moyes In or Moyes Out

buffybegood

May 3

There's so much that I want to say that this will probably be tl;dr so please feel free to skip as I'm sure you all do anyway when I post about Moyes. Summary at the bottom.

Firstly, I'm obviously thankful for the initial relegation avoidance (in this spell, and previously), the 2 good league finishes and obviously winning the ECL. ALthough we were generally playing counter-attacking football, I don't remember it being as painful to watch as it has been this season.

However, something seems to have gone wrong in the last 2 seasons. I know we won the ECL last season, but, let's be honest, the standard of the opposition was, in the main, pretty poor and I'm sure we were favourites in every tie except maybe the final, and that would have been fairly even I'm sure. Meanwhile in the league we were in a relegation battle for much of the season and this season I feel our league position has flattered us given some of the results we've had (against both Spurs and Chelsea in the early part of the season we should have been at least 3-0 before half time, yet somehow managed to win both). I know we've been on the rough end of a number of refereeing and VAR decisions, but we could easily have had a couple of others given against us that we were fortunate with (Luton springs to mind).

So, back to Moyes. He freely admits that he likes to work with a small squad, but that's not the way of things any more, especially if you're playing European games as well as a full domestic calendar. On every given matchday it's a 16 man game; the ability to introduce fresh legs in the last half an hour can really turn games, and you only have to look at the better teams to see how many goals they score late on in games when they can bring on really strong replacements with fresh legs.

Now I'm not saying we should expect to have 2 fantastic players for every position on the pitch, that's just not realistic, but I've watched too many games this season that we've had players dead on their feet out on the pitch because Moyes won't sub them. And why won't he sub them? Because we've got no-one to replace them with. And why is that? Because Moyes likes a small squad, and even with our small squad, there's an even smaller core squad that you need to be in if you expect to get any meaningful game time.

Personally I think our squad needs a huge amount of work; we'll barely have a starting 11 come the start of the season.

GK: Areola
RB: Coufal (not happy as we've triggered an extension on current, not very high wages, rather than given him a new one)
CB: Mavropanos (shouldn't be a first choice, but who else?)
CB: Zouma (knees shot so we won't be able to offload him)
LB: Emerson
DM: Alvarez
CM: Soucek
AM: JWP
RM/W: Bowen
LM/W: Kudus
CF: Antonio (should be a sub as he can't last an hour, but who else is there?)

Our back-ups are

GK: Fabianski (I believe he's been given a year extension already). I fear age has caught up with him, I hope Areola stays fit.
RB: No-one. Kehrer's obligation has been triggered I believe, and Johnson won't sign a new contract
CB: No-one. Ogbonna surely shouldn't be offered a contract and expected to be one of 4 CBs.
CB: No-one. Aguerd too expensive not to be starting, but not working in a Moyes back 4. At least we should get revenue for him
LB: No-one. Cresswell has refused the offer of another year, he's too slow anyway.
DM: No-one
CM: No-one
AM: Paqueta will be gone if the betting thing is resolved; at least we get good money for him
RM/W: No-one
LM/W: Cornet (might as well be no-one). Not sure if he still has medical issues, but Moyes clearly doesn't fancy him
CF: Ings. Never should have signed him, must offload if any chance to do so.

We do have Flynn Downes to possibly come back to us; he clearly wasn't rated by Moyes last season but has had a very good season for Southampton.

So, if Paqueta goes we can just about field a starting 11, although that includes 2 CBs neither of whom should be starting, and a CF that shouldn't be starting either. Our back-ups are a 39 year old keeper, a LM/W who doesn't seem to have recovered from a long term injury, and a CF who will never be effective for the way we play unless we get relegated.

Apart from Kehrer and Benramha neither of whom I expect to return we should get a fee for Paqueta and Aguerd, and for Downes if Southampton are interested. Ings we might break even on (any fee would likely have to be paid to Ings to negate lower wages from any purchasing club), and I guess we might get a small fee for Cornet.

So, in short, the state of the squad is why Moyes should go. Paqueta we can't blame on Moyes, but, him apart, from this season's squad, next season we've got a starting 11 including 3 players who shouldn't be starting, and a bench consisting of a 39 year old keeper and no-one else. Personally I feel Moyes has been very neglectful of the long term health of the squad, and so has to go.

Couldn't Think - from January 2024

buffybegood

May 2

Seems a nice young lad, and his loan obviously worked out really well for all parties concerned, guessing we might send others there in seasons to come:

https://twitter.com/wwfcofficial/status/1784284483803378059