The Mail Bag
How great a tactician is Moyes?
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Our best run in the league this season came when Moyes had no options available to him ? he had to play 4-6-0. Moyes has always done best when he's stuck to playing 4-5-1 and we've always struggled when he's switched to 4-4-2.
I know there were a few reasons why we started off badly this season but one of the problems was Moyes going against his tried and tested 4-5-1 formation and playing 4-4-2, putting Yak and Saha in the same team. If you look back, when have we played well this season with the 4-4-2 formation?
Against Stoke in the second half, we went to pot after Moyes replaced Cahill with Saha. We only looked steady again when he took Jo off for Rodwell and reverted back to 4-5-1 and hence we scored the 3rd. Yesterday we looked clueless again playing the 4-4-2 formation and Moyes wasn't willing to change anything until 5 minutes from the end. It's always been the same with Moyes ? as soon as we're a man short in midfield we look crap.
I don't want to be too critical of Moyes because he has worked wonders this season but I just wish he'd stick to playing the system he knows best.
Alan Clarke, Posted 22/03/2009 at 11:48:37
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I can understand Moyes starting with this system; however, in the second half it was proving ineffective and some players weren?t doing enough and in my opinion Dan Gosling should have been brought on with about half an hour to go. I thought this at the time and said to myself, "I bet Moyes will wait until a few minutes to go when it is too late..." and bingo, was my prediction right!
Gosling should have come on for either Jo or Saha and we should have switched to a 5-man midfield, having him and Pienaar out wide. This would have allowed Osman to play in the middle and we might have started to see Everton pass the ball around.
Our weakness has been no strength in depth in MF for a number of years now and that needs addressing in the summer.
I really feel Rodwell and Gosling should have been brought on much sooner for Saha and the ineffective Osman (although Fellaini wasn't far behind him).
It seems like a number of teams have hit "The Wall" right now (including Man Utd) and I hope we reap the benefit of the international break.
Then the overriding principle has to be pass the ball to someone in the same colour shirt. Hibbert can?t pass water and Neville is only marginally better. Fellaini was a defensive midfield player in Belgium so why is he playing as a third forward? ? cos he?s 6?4" !!! It's the players who aren?t good enough to do the basics that make it fail and then you have to question the coaching.
We had our best side out there that we could muster and unfortunately it wasn?t good enough.
If someone could start marking that lanky streak of piss or scream at Howard to start going through every player to get the ball (like he did with Jacobsen) more often, then we would stop conceding these daft headers.
Moyes is NOT a tactician. He's a lucky manager. The form we have had in the middle of the season was made by team selection forced onto Moyes ? particularly since the Yak got injured. Also the Jags-Joleon partnership, that some of us have been begging for for yonks, only came about cus Yobo got injured. Fact ? Moyes hasn't identified the best line-up, has happened upon it by current injuries, and still changes it after the fact. Crazy.
5th place and win the cup and I?ll sing Moyes?s praises same as the next toffee, but we all know his failings tactically and in particular the use of subs.
Moyes has been an unlucky manager losing all his best players to injury, you can't be lucky for 4 or 5 seasons challenging for Europe nearly every year with hardly any money.
You just make yourself sound stupid mate.
See we can all throw in daft comments like you Joeynkoo.
It had nothing to do with the fact we were up against the tallest player in the league who uses his only asset to great effect.
Who was the FIRST Premier League manager to use the 4-5-1 formation successfully? The answer is ?Moyes?. I don?t alway agree with his tactics but not many people come on here praising him when he does get it right.
A few comments on here seem to suggest getting it right is a piece of piss. There?s blokes with 40 years experience who get it wrong sometimes e.g. Sir Alex yesterday. It isn?t fuckin Champ Manager.
We have a little break now to get some players back and should start another good run for the remainder of the season. In Moyes I Trust.
ps: Well done Baines for getting an England call-up. That?s 3 players Moyes has bought that have now earned the call-up.
A few minutes later I was wondering why he went for Jo and Saha to start. Unfortunately the misgivings were borne out. And I will agree with anyone who says that he should have changed the system ? possibly at half time. Leighton?s goal was far from lucky, and our start was much better than theirs, but it became obvious as time went on that they were gaining the advantage.
Moyes is under intense pressure, and like all of us in these circumstances, he tends to freeze. Let?s hope the break gives him the chance to get back to basics, and we?ll be OK.
The other problem with starting 4-4-2 was that it left Moyes nowhere to go to make changes during the match, as he only had like for like, at best, on the bench & he was understandably loathe to remove either of his forwards as an injury could have then left him devoid of any strikers. However, even so, we may have come unstuck on the day as Pompey just seemed to want the win a little more than Everton did yesterday.
Mate that comment is a disgrace!!!! Fair dinkum!!! Did you watch the game the other week when he moved to centre mid? Poor ability on the ball? Have you never seen him interchange with other players? One-Tows?
The guys’ a gun mate.
YOU are a disgrace.
Its plain and simple that we didn’t pick Crouch up, I bet no one’s more gutted about it than the players themselves in the same way that we do it time and again to people with Cahill.
No one is more frustrated about Saturdays result than me but to start taking it out on a keeper who most of the league would give their eye teeth for is ridiculous.
Agreed, he?s a good keeper, but with a little thought could be much better, after all he usually has plenty of time with no-one pressing him. But then we are where we are because most of our squad have some little bit missing from their overall game.
Portsmouth play a style of football that we struggle to cope with, we didn?t deal with it at home earlier in the season when they were full of confidence and on Saturday, when they were in desperate need of points, we didn?t deal with it again.
They have a big physical side and we have 2 short full-backs as well as 2 short wide midfield players, meaning defending from set-pieces etc is always going to be difficult (see 1st goal when Johnson got ahead of Osman to head the ball back across.) Ironic really that the game we needed the extra height at the back with Joey, Jags and Lescott, is the time one gets injured meaning we are slightly shorter. (After all, height at the back is the main reason that Lescott played at LB last season instead of Baines.)
Given our lack of players, we were bound to have a bad day sooner or later; hopefully, in a couple of weeks, we will have a couple more options and get back on track.
As for most of our squad having some little bit missing from their overall game, doesn?t that apply to 99% of footballers? If they haven?t then that's when they get classified as world class ? and to have a squad full of those might be a little ambitious even for us. This probably explains some fans' frustrations if that's what Moyes is expected to deliver on a shoestring.
Football fans are a demanding lot. We go from "I don?t care if they?re not Maradona so long as they give everything for the shirt..." to "OK, OK, he puts in a good shift but where?s the quality...?" as soon as they do.
Personally, when fit, I think we?ve got a really good spine to our squad now (Howard, Jags, Lescott, Baines, Arteta, Cahill, Pienaar, Yakubu), we just need to strengthen the midfield with a bit of grit and a playmaker ? which, don?t laugh, Fellaini could develop into doing both a la Patrick Viera ? and have suitable replacements to the standard of Yobo to step in to cover injuries, suspension etc.
What we don?t need is a new keeper and I can forgive our present one for his less than perfect goal kicks if that's what they?re perceived to be. He?s a goalkeeper after all, not a goal-kicker.
We should also remember the first goal came fron a corner that should have been a GK and Howard was baulked by Kanu on the second which most referees would have spotted and given.
If we had won 0-1 would we all be on here carping about how crap Moyes is? I doubt it, so let?s move on.
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1 Posted 22/03/2009 at 15:57:29
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I agree with Alan - strengthen midfield, and if we have midfielders scoring every game, keep them playing (injuries permitting).