COLUMNIST JIM HOURIGAN
The Glass Ceiling
Comments (22) : That old chestnut of injuries has been heard often of late but a reflective view on that actually shows it to be somewhat dubious. Yes Cahill has been out for some time and odd injuries to Arteta and others for a couple of games have happened. Vaughan was never in the team so his injury was less significant. These injuries are no more drastic than any other club in the league, their impact is far more telling though, but why?
Firstly what is far more significant is the depth and quality of the squad, something that can only be attributed to the manager. We sold McFadden (no problems personally) and replaced him with an injured Gardner ? what??? A forward for an injured defender that has never played !!! VDM and Gravesen have played less than 45 mins all season so their presence in a squad seems completely irrelevant. Various players are out on loan and we come down to a realistic squad (excluding goalkeepers and those listed above) of 16 players. The quality within the remaining players is open to debate, Hibbert and Neville for right back ?, a left back position that seems to be beyond solution for Moyes ? Lescott or Baines or Valente (7 premiership starts so is he in the managers thinking?). Osman ? Carsley? Anichebe? Which would get a regular place at Spurs, Villa, Blackburn or Pompey? ? and we want to break into the Sky 4 !!!
We all have our own personal views on the squad and the talent, or lack of, within it but for me its symptomatic of a serious fundamental flaw in Moyes. With Cahill we play a 4-5-1 system with some degree of success. Not specifically because of Cahill but more to compensate for the weaknesses in others that the 4-4-2 system exposes. Playing 4-4-2 exposes the limitations of: Osman - too small, too weak, can?t tackle and no pace; Carsley - can?t pass, defends too deep, can?t contribute attacking wise; Neville ? can?t pass and is just plain rubbish Johnson ? out of his depth, no control, poor first touch, no presence;
In a 4-5-1 system the sum of the parts becomes greater than the individual components because lets face it Cahill has some serious weaknesses as well. However the system is set up with some overriding principles ? avoid defeat, defend deep and in numbers and look for opportunities on the break or from set pieces. Tactically this seems to be Moyes? only way of playing. Look at the results of late playing 4-4-2 and we can all see how poor we have been. The players are stumbling around creating little and looking lost. Carsley and Neville have become redundant, our full backs are contributing little and the forwards are receiving piss poor service from all areas of the field ? hoof ball !!!. Surely this is when a manager earns his corn ? in adversity. We?ve all heard the adage that a winning team picks itself and when things were going well for us that was true ? too a degree. Apart from West Ham in the cup and a UEFA tie when was the last time we came from behind to win a Premiership match? Surely a manager with some tactical nous would have affected games, not every game but surely a decent percentage ie 20%. How many of us watching last night thought we would score without a setpiece?
For me this is the nub of the problem, Moyes is tactically inept and one dimensional. He rarely if ever influences a game through tactical changes, has no method of playing that looks to win games beyond his defensive mindset of 4-5-1. His squad is composed of far too many journeymen who are wholehearted and committed but sadly lacking in ability. His loyalty to players is admirable but flawed ? 40,000 can see that Neville and Carsley will never win a Premiership match in the centre of midfield but he persists in playing them. His substitutions are baffling at times ? Piennar removed last night and the 2 afore mentioned players staying on !!!. The players look tired and seem to be running on empty, again a time when the manager earns his corn, however his options, and they are his options and nobody else?s, are almost non existent. Too few in the squad, a system that means certain players flounder when it has to change ie Carsley, Osman, Neville, and no ability to influence matches. Remember him saying at the start of the season that he now had players on the bench that could change and influence matches ? well David which ones?
Moyes has been a fantastic stabilising influence and has taken the club forward. He has put us in a position when we can see the Sky 4, and at times they are close, but he is not the man to take us to the next level. He seems incapable of adapting and changing and has reached his glass ceiling. If the club is to genuinely try and compete he needs to be shown the door ? with our genuine thanks, and somebody with some tactical acumen brought in. Howls or vitriol and bile from the apologists but if we don?t act swiftly and decisively all his good work will be undone and we will fall back into the second tier of the Premeirship.
ps: Rather than call me abusive names if you disagree put your rational arguments forward to dispute my points and don?t just make inane comments.
Reader Comments
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Other than Leon I agree with most of the article.
The Neville & Carsley thing we are all 100% agreed that it does not work but we all know that's not his first choice when fully fit. I would give this man as he has asked for another 5 years. This is his own team now and we will start to see him hopefully add to this squad with what he has come out and said with QUALITY & not QUANTITY. If we do do finish 5th this year it is a better finish to last year!!!
It is up to Bully & Billy Bullshit to give Moyes want he wants to achieve a better season than this year. Fingers crossed we do finish 5th and have the Uefa Cup as there will be NO excuses to sign QUALITY that we are badly lacking.
Everytime we go a goal behind, you know we will lose even if we concede after 5 mins, it’s always game over.
Who honestly though we would score last night, never mind from a set piece. The football is dire, he never has a plan B, and he has spent money, just not as much as the foreign owned.
I would love Mark Hughes in, a manager that likes attacking football.
There are times I despair with some of inept tactics he employs, and can only hope he chooses wisely not just for the team, but for his development as a potential top class manager.
We overreact when we?re doing well and we overreact when we?re doing badly.
We are indisputedly 5th in the league with 4 games to go and half the squad is injured and the board has no money or ideas.
I have no doubt that Moyes sees the same weaknesses we do and for those who think he is defensively minded you should have seen the abuse he gave AJ last night about getting forward and pushing Chelsea back.
I am prepared to wait until the summer to see what sort of funds he gets and who he buys but I would be disappointed if he didnt get a class RB (Dont know who though as there arent many about), a decent winger/MF and the definite signature of Manny and Peanuts.
To go definitely VDM and Valente and unless they?re happy as squad players Carsley, Neville and AJ.
Sadly the rising expectations of the club have exposed some of the poor play of the lesser lights in the team but this ignores their excellent and loyal contributions on the way to promoting higher expecations. A few well paid players have made a negligible contribution, notably VDM and Gravesen but this should not take away from an excellent season, a highest ever points total and a quite brilliant Uefa Cup run where we were again so unlucky not to progress to the semi final stage at the very least and two legs of a League Cup semi that thoroughly challenged the most expensively assembled football team of all time.
I plead for a sense of perspective and support for the management and administration that has taken us steadily forward to this stage and deserves the chance to improve agin or sustain our improvement until one of the big four implodes (money on Liverpool at the moment). I would not swap our manager for anyone other than Wenger and of course that is the kind of Fantasy Football thinking that got Leeds to their exalted position, a team with a similar tradition and aspiration to our own.
To merely credit the job that Moyes has done as "a stabilising influence" is the one comment which for me immediately discredits any substance your arguent may have.
Since the Smith Era which has still not been etched away from my brain, we have moved on light years while
Tottenham, West Ham, Newcastle, Man City, Portsmouth, Fulham, Aston Villa, Blackburn, have all threw millions at various European "tactical" managers and players and what have they achieved? The league cup in Tottenhams case, big fucking deal.
What many short sighted fans like yourself forget is that we are by no means the best side, but we certainly are not in the worst state when it comes to remedial work.
We are currently the 5th best side in the best league in the world for fucks sake.
Nobody knows better than Moyes where we lack, and I cannot wait for the summer because I am positive that he will once again silence the fickle doubters who will inevitably crawl back under the rocks they came from.
For me the problem simply lies in the depth of the squad. No more-No Less.
We are simply too shallow when it comes to quality, particularly in Midfield. How difficult will that be to correct come the summer?
Not very, because the man in charge that you seem to enjoy critiscising has turned us into an attractive proposition for quality additions. I remember not too long ago when speculation linked the Noel Whelans And Darren Huckerby’s of this world to us.
How far have we come?
If any frustrations should be vented it should be at the players who are failing to deliver the simplest of balls.
Yes Moyes picks the side, Yes Neville is the casey at the moment getting shit off the fans (much of it deserved, most of it not), but where are the fucking critics of Arteta and his awful set pieces? I was there on Thursday while dick heads called Phil Neville a manc who doesnt care, yet who is the player laughing and joking in Il Forno with 3 of Liverpools squad on the night after the derby? Arteta.
Has anyone stopped to think that with Lescotts ability in the air- how many EXTRA goals would we have scored had if Arteta could have delivered 70% accuracy on his corners and set pieces?
We can all blame but no one is jumping on his back.
Grow up ffs we are not far off from being contenders.
No one knows what needs to be done more than Moyes, let him finish what he started, and try, just try amnd get a bit of perspective in your lives.
The fact he names crap players such as Carsley and Neville week-in and week-out defies belief. He even played Gravesen last night and brings Pienaar off... wtf?!! The two players Cars and Neville wouldn't make a Championship side, more especially Neville.
We are one dimensional, with a manager lacking any kind of thing approaching tactical nous.
Whilst we do have some major injury worries, there is something far more important that comes to mind, regarding frame of mind when these players go out onto the park every match.
You can see there is no motivation, no willing to really go for it. injuries aside, David Moyes is responsible for the team he created and the team he puts out on to the pitch every week and it?s his job to motivate them, Christ they even went to Spain for a nice training session! Sorry, Moyes is too soft for his own good, and to the detriment of this squad.
The team is weak, surely even you can see this, when we play the 4-4-2 formation, people are all over the place, we have the likes of Cars doing absolutely nothing constructive, Neville flapping around doing the same... If he put his abilities of so called leadership into his own playing ability he would be great. Simple truth is, this team is far from good enough.
We play the 4-5-1 for a reason, that reason is to paper over the cracks of a team that is threadbare of quality. It?s no use shouting give us the money etc. The truth is, and always will be until we have a new manager to push us onwards, is the ability to read the game, something I am sorry to say Moyes can?t. Time and again he has demonstrated his lack of tactical nous.. or even something approaching it.
It is no coincidence, that when we got Cahill back in October, Everton improved because the team benefited from the 4-5-1 formation. Players not looking out of place that much. Players told to defend deep and in numbers, try to break if there is a chance of doing so. This isn't tactics, this is papering over the fact, when we play 4-4-2 we are left wanting practically everywhere. We loose Cahill and end back to a formation that does not help the mediocrity of some of our players.
I think a major rethink in the summer is needed, regarding a great many things, but even if he was to bring in quality of over quantity, both of which we quite obviously need. I still can?t see him doing anything right tactically.
If for weeks on end he plays Neville and Carsley as holding midfielders, you know exactly what will happen, and week after week now it has. If we can see what will happen surely Moyes can too? Obviously you cant make this up.
You can't say he wouldn't do this if he had a full squad... he does it anyways.. let's play hoofball, but that's something that has been a part of Moyes's mentality from the get-go. He is a defender he only knows how to defend.
We can't score goals period. £8.5 million on Johnson who as one of the worst first touches possible... regardless of whether he was injured or not! The guy is out of his depth, he was bought to shore up the 4-5-1 system. The amount of aimless clueless longball hoofball is a joke.
A bit of perspective from you as well wouldn’t do any harm either. I agree, Arteta has been poor since Christmas, but he’s given three years great service to this club. As for the ’fraternising with the ememy’ stuff, absolutely ridiculous. To think that he’s not going to be mates with Alonso [a childhood friend] etc. just because they wear a red shirt is just nonsense.
I agree though that those calling for Moyes to be replaced are going way over the top. He’s the best thing to happen to this club for almost twenty years. Just look at the teams we were putting out under Kendall Mark II and III, Smith, Walker, and even Big Joe and Harvey. Shite. Yes, Moyes makes mistakes. We all do. Why does everybody want instant success? The job he has done, on a relitavely tight budget, has been remarkable.
As for the team, in an ideal world, if the money was available, we should be getting rid of Hibbert, Neville, Carsley, VdM, Valente, and AJ, and bringing in a right back, a utility right sided defender, a holding mifielder, a back-up midfielder, Fernandes, Pienaar, and a striker. All of the players we bring in should be able to trap a ball and pass it ten yards to a blue shirt. If I thought long enough about it I could probably give a couple of names as targets for each position, but there’s hardly any point, as its not going to happen. We need to get investment in fast, but that shouldn’t be a problem, as BK and KW are both on the case 24/7, so its bound to turn up soon.
By the way, is anybody beginning to look over their shoulder?
Everton and Pompey are two of the finest, most well managed teams in the league and although I wouldn?t want to lose Harry, I wouldn?t complain if he was replaced by Moyes. We might lose a bit of the on and off field entertainment that we currently enjoy, but the end result would be pretty much the same.
Keep up the good work guys ? pop over and see us a little more often at vital Pompey.
You have Jagielka thrashing the ball all over the place closely followed by Yobo, Carsley, Hibbert and Neville. Each of whom have little idea how to find AJ with a pass to his FEET !
Most of the passes are either overhit or just plain useless, and normally aimed at the corner flag.
Somebody on here recently suggested that AJ thought the goal was near the corner flag. That maybe because he is constantly chasing balls down in to that area.
Who would you like to replace AJ ? Obviously somebody who will not cost the earth due to Bullshit Billys reluctance to hand over the dosh. Then again from what I read on here we are virtually potless anyway.
Yes I know we have broken our transfer fee record in two consecutive seasons but that may be more down to Moyes than Kenwright.
As soon as our defence and our midfield, primarily Neville and Carsley, learn to pass the ball to a blue shirt the better we will be.
If they could also manage to pass it to AJ ON THE FLOOR then perhaps he also may start to produce something worthwhile as well.
Just my opinion.
Will it be someone with attacking flair or another dour ex defender?
I wonder who else remembers the Johnnie Carey era, even after defeats we would be happy with the fare provided. There was a feeling of optimism that our exciting attacking brand of football would eventually bring success.
That success did arrive but not under Johnnie. It was Harry Catterick who took us to the next level.
I applauded Harry for bringing that success yet at the same time was nostalgic for our soul satisfying finer arts under Carey. There I go,lost the plot again.
Carey had the silky, if sometimes brittle defense, footballing side and, again a slight generalisation, Catterick added a bit more steel with out sacrificing the footballing side of it.
We need the reverse, more football with out losing the steel and attitude.
After all Arsenal, the much vaunted modern School of Science did us with the long hoofball. It’s all a matter of having the players to do it pysically and knowing mentally when to and when not to.
There is nothing wrong with if in doubt put it out, Row Z,its a handy back up not a be all and end all.
No money
No players
No chance.
Big Sam aint the answer but we do need a tactically astute manager and strong leader who can motivate these prima donnas to perform week in week out.
I would take winning a cup each year, or even getting to a final as a sign that the side is genuinely competing and that Moyes is capable of competing at that level.
This year aside, why have the 6 years of Moyes never produced a cup run? The answer is simple - to win a cup match you have to set out to win ? not set out to avoid defeat, and there is a fundamental difference in the mindset required for those two approaches.
Moyes does not possess the mindset to win games; he possesses the defensive don?t get beat approach - and that will never challenge the better teams. We might stifle them and draw a few games and even win the odd one, when they are less than focussed, but would they fear us in terms of losing to us? I think not.
Finally in response to those who think I?m being harsh against Osman, name me 3 games against anyone in the top 8 when he played well, scored and influenced the result. He is anonymous against all but the poor teams who afford him time and space.
We dont play the type of football you would expect to see from the fifth best team in the so-called world's best league. And we dont have a manger who will change a game with substitutions, an instance of this being taking our only wide man off for a centre-mid and leaving us with three centre-mids and a right back in midfield against one of the world's best teams
The question that bothers me the most is Kissock, Gosling and to an extent Rodwell are all good young midfielders but Neville gets in there before them. Although he?s a decent right back(only 'decent') he can't pass ? surely one of these young players can pass forwards and put a tackle in???
I disagree with your general stance on Moyes, but good points about the reason for the lack of cup runs until this season. I’d not thought about it in those terms before. Maybe this season’s progress in the League Cup and UEFA Cup are signs of progress. We have been more progressive at times. I think we’re all agreed that what we need most is money to spend on 4-5 good players. If we could get the right ones in I thing we would have the makings of a very good side indeed. Sounds easy...
Moyes bought Neville! Moyes made Neville captain! Moyes plays Neville! For those reasons I can’t take Moyes seriously.
I like Moyes and think he has made some great signings but I can’t get past the Neville issue. For me he has to sign some ’footballers’ in the summer (given the cash is made available) and get rid of Neville.
I just want to say that my dislike of Neville has nothing to do with him being a ’manc’ but is purely based on his lack of ability. He is simply not good enough by miles!
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1 Posted 18/04/2008 at 15:31:54
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I fail to see what either do. Both lack the ability to make any kind of telling pass, both lack the control of a football - which as Premiership footballers with a fairly decent wage, its a disgrace.
I get sick of hearing about Carsley breaking up attacks. Does he do anything else? No he doesn’t. Also if we look back over the season at the goals we have conceded, quite often you will see Carsley putting in some half arsed effort to get in the way of the ball, see him pointing and marking space, and also chasing shadows. To me that isn’t good enough - good enough for staving off relegation, but as for breaking the top 4. No, nowhere near the quality we require.
As for Neville, well apart from the ability to shout his mouth off prior to games, and his ability in long throws - what else does he offer? He can’t even tackle without risking yellow cards.
I am starting to feel that we have come as far as we can with Moyes, and it maybe time for someone else to come in and make a difference. I hope Moyes can do it, but I can’t see it.