What must David Moyes do if Manchester United are to start firing again like they did under Sir Alex Ferguson? We make five suggestions!
It’s proving to be a troubled start to the Moyes era at Old Trafford, for results have been disappointing ever since the Scot’s reign began with an embarrassing 1-0 friendly loss to the Thailand All Stars – a contradiction-in-terms if ever there was one!
A 4-1 derby reverse to Manchester City, further Premier League defeats against Liverpool and West Brom and victory thrown away in a 1-1 draw with Southampton have left United fans unsettled and retention of the title looking only a distant dream.
Here are five things Moyes must do to arrest the slide and get the Red Devils moving forwards again:
1) Decide on a settled centre-half partnership
You wouldn’t think having five central defenders makes this a problem area, but Moyes has been chopping and changing the personnel too often.
The trouble is that tried-and-trusted duo Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic have been struggling and frankly looking past it at times, so when does Moyes pension them off and rely on Phil Jones, Jonny Evans and Chris Smalling instead?
That’s for the manager to decide – but it doesn’t help when you make a change late in the game, pushing a centre-half (Jones) into midfield, replacing him with a substitute (Smalling) and then concede an equaliser (by Southampton) within seconds!
2) Trust Shinji Kagawa
For some reason, Moyes is using the Japan playmaker only sparingly and the supporters in the stands cannot see why.
Kagawa is excellent – clever on the ball, industrious and always a threat, yet he is getting far less game time now than he did under Ferguson.
True, he is best in the same position as Wayne Rooney and the emergence of Adnan Januzaj has also limited his chances, but there is a regular role for him if the manager was so inclined…(see next point)
3) Sort out the wingers
United are famous for their wide men – George Best, Steve Coppell, Gordon Hill, Andrei Kanchelskis, Ryan Giggs, Cristiano Ronaldo – but what has happened to the current bunch?
Nani, Ashley Young and Antonio Valencia used to be cracking players but for some reason have gone right off the boil. Giggs is getting on and Moyes insists Wilfried Zaha is not yet ready for the Premier League.
Solution: how about Kagawa on the left and Januzaj on the right? And any of the aforementioned quintet can be sent on as impact substitutes if need be.
Manchester United manager David Moyes and winger Ashley Young in training (Getty Images)
4) Don’t have Marouane Fellaini playing so deep
Now that Fellaini is at United, he might as well be deployed effectively. And even though it’s where he prefers to play, that’s not as a defensive midfielder.
If the Belgian and Michael Carrick are to play as a central midfield unit, it will have to be the England man sitting back to break up attacks, which he is good at anyway.
Fellaini simply looks lost in that role having played off the front at Everton. His height and strength need to be used, which means getting into the opposition’s penalty area much more often than he has been since his £27million move.
5) Buy proven quality in January
Fergie was never a fan of the winter transfer window but Moyes has no choice when 2014 dawns because the summer was practically a complete waste of time.
If United are to win a trophy this season, a skilful midfielder would help no end and add the guile for unlocking defences that Carrick and Fellaini cannot always provide.
A left-back successor to Patrice Evra can probably wait until the summer, but a striker – Robert Lewandowski in the fans’ dreams – to ease the pressure on Robin van Persie would not go amiss either.
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