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Comments
Ok it’s disappointing to lose that chance of getting nearer to Chelsea and further away from the pack,but sometimes you just have to hold your hands up and accept that the opposition deserved it.
Hopefully it’s a little bump in the road for us in what’s already been a great season.
We absolutely need signings. 16 days to go.
We consciously started this season with no genuine cover or competition for Antonio or Cresswell. Yes, we have players that can fill in, but as soon as both are fit, they play. They basically have zero competition.
I thought we'd addressed that very issue at CM, but Kral hasn't played much at all when Rice and Soucek haven't been available. If he's not considered good enough, fine, but why sign him? How much due diligence did we do? Or was it just that he was available on loan and it was him or no-one?
The signing of Vlasic can be questioned, too. £30m, basically half of our budget, on a player that has had little influence. He was effectively Lingard's replacement, remember; a key player in a key position, but half way through the season and he's been a peripheral figure with, what, one goal and one assist?
Masuaku and Yarmolenko haven't been effective PL players for a couple of seasons now, if, arguably, at all. Noble has been a waning force in this league for years. Diop is 25 now but has regressed since his first season and has been Moyes’ 4th choice for at least 18 months. If he's not deemed good enough to start, then should he be in the first team squad at all?
I know we're still fourth. I know we've had bad luck to lose both first choice CBs at the same time. But after last season I really think we had an opportunity to push on, and I just don't think we did enough in the summer. On paper, the four main singings looked good, but three have barely played. Moyes has often spoken about only signing players that can improve the first team, but only Zouma has been a regular. He clearly doesn't trust Kral, and is only playing Vlasic because Benrahma is unavailable.
What we needed in the summer was a Lingard or an adequate replacement, a staring CB and competion for Antonio, Cresswell and SouDec. We achieved only one of those. I think it's now abundantly clear that we still need to sort the other three and if Moyes and the board want top six again this season, I think they need to address them in the next two weeks.
Summed up our day, that.
“He is one of our key goalscorers. We were chasing the game from 15 minutes in and it was really difficult to change him. He was out on his legs after the game but again what can we do?”
What can we do?! Replace Haller in less than 12 months, for a start. Having one senior striker at the club wasn't forced on him, or the club, and yet they entered a four-competition season with just that.
Ah, hindsight is a wonderful thing and of course, if Moyes plan worked he would have been hailed as a genius. Who wants to be a football manager!!
I for one trust in the judgement of a bloke who’s turned us from regular relegation candidates to a top six team within two years.
Such short memories.🙄
As I said yesterday, everyone loses games. But for me it's more about how we've done nothing to address the issues that I believe contributed to the defeat.
And that for me is the biggest problem. I do remember where we were under Pellegrini, and I appreciate and admire everything that Moyes has done for the club and how far we've come as a team. It's an incredible achievement. That said, and call me greedy, it could be better. Yes, we're still fourth, but with Arsenal, Spurs and Man U with games in hand, it's with a very light grip. Even Wolves in eighth could match our points tally if they win both their games in hand. I just think that had we pushed a little harder in the summer we could be comfortably fourth with a genuine chance of Champions League football next season.
As it is, with players having to play every game because of a lack of options, we may not even get into the EL. Fatigue and injuries have caught up with us and that, IMO, is the result of having a small, unbalanced squad. If we don't get EL football, then there's a good chance Rice and Bowen could be pushing for a move in the summer. Soucek would have suitors. Zouma too, probably. Lose them and we could be back to square one.
I saw some comments from Rice yesterday about how it's better that we're fourth and looking up rather than sixteenth and looking down, and he's absolutely right. Maybe in a couple of days I'll feel differently but yesterday hurt. More than Brentford. More than Southampton. And I think it's because we've had three months since the summer window closing and half of the January window to identify and negotiate for players that could help our cause, but instead our manager is bemoaning the fact that we have to run Antonio into the ground each week.
In the summer Moyes was reportedly keen on En-Nesyri, but Sevilla wanted £40m for him. It feels like we ended up in a situation whereby Sullivan would never meet that valuation and Moyes wouldn't accept anyone else. And as a result we've ended up having to sub on Andriy Yarmolenko every single game.
I had hoped Rob Newman's appointment would have improved the way we do things, but so far there's zero evidence of that.
By that logic we only need eleven players in the squad. Just keep them fit for 40+ games a season.
The point is that Moyes appears to be saying that we have no choice but to play Antonio every game. Like it's been forced on the club. Between them, he and the board could have mitigated the need to do that by signing competition, and they chose not to. You can't go into a season with one senior striker and then complain when he's fatigued.
I agree we do need reinforcements up front but I think he knows that as he’s the manager and we’re not.
To be fair, I hadn't thought of that. But Moyes must have known multiple games in a week were a likelihood given we started the season in four competitions. Covid postponements probably weren't in clubs' thoughts in August, but midweek games are always a risk with cup replays.
Diop clearly is playing badly and needs a replacement but it feels like the default reaction is that it's always Diop's fault. I don't know how he's getting more criticism than Vlasic on that.
I thought Diop, Coufal and Cresswell all had bad games yesterday, and when three of your four defenders struggle it's generally not going to end well.