David Moyes' Claret and Blue Army!

[DusseldorfHammer]

Moyes fans don’t want to hear it but there’s a reason why he’s never won a trophy. The fact he likes a small squad, which is lauded as a positive on here, is the reason behind it. His teams start well but invariably run out steam as we have the last couple of seasons. Moyes will get you the odd 6th/7th place finish or cup semi final but no more because he never has the squad depth to finish the season strongly.

"Moyes fans", well you framed your posting perfectly. Unfortunally it isn't about being a fan of a manager, it's about the specific manager giving us some sort of soul back. Much more important than finishing 5th, 6th or 9th.

[Copper Bottom]

I don’t want to get told off for being off topic so I’ll leave it there. It started about Moyes apparent refusal to buy a striker and the fact we’re heading into the start of another season with just Antonio and no replacement/competition/back up.

Moyes has never refused to sign a striker. What he has refused to do is appease impatient fans like you who are pressuring him to sign any old striker, even one worse than Antonio or Bowen up front.

Moyes could have easily picked up a striker for £10m or £20m in January. That person would have rarely played due to being vastly inferior to Antonio. And now we'd have £10m or £20m less to spend on a proper striker, OR, even worse, we'd be looking to find some other mug to take our bang average striker off our hands before we could buy anyone?

We seem to have a £100m plus budget this summer. You don;t seriously think that part of that is down to the way Moyes has kept the wage bill down and resisted the chance to sign bang average stop-gaps?

[Ironing Board]

But Moyes teams always run out of steam!

Yeah, it was such a strange criticism. Moyes teams were famous for starting slow and finishing strong. The main issue was they lacked the resources to push further on top of a strong foundation.

The fact is we need a striker and PSG do not. The choice for the lad is being a bench option at a “super” club or playing regularly at a top Premier League team that is trying to break the glass ceiling. For his development you would think WHU is a better choice. He has no particular affiliation with PSG.

[Copper Bottom]

Also, I bet the people moaning about Moyes not singing a striker in January would be the first ones to bang on about how we should never have bought (say) Chris Wood, "he was never good enough, never should have got him in, too old, too slow, blah blah blah".

[Kermit]

I wouldn’t let him go Leon no, all the talk of breaking into the top 4 and winning trophies is nonsense though, never gonna happen under Moyes. People talk about him being the best manager we’ve had for 40 years etc and that’s fine, we’re all happy with 7th place but the goalposts have moved since we moved home and I want us to win a trophy.

But do you not accept that we probably have a better chance of winning a trophy with Moyes in charge ? We are in the main happy with 7th, and a second successive European campaign, qualifying round permitting, because it does represent a significant uplift on what we have traditionally achieved. Whether people accept it or not that does represent moving the club forward from it's traditional status.

Moyes is not perfect, no one is. For me the main problem I have with the team is our inability to manage one goal leads by holding the ball rather than just lumping it as far away as possible. But, that said, the "get rid of it" approach has, in the main, worked. But imo the one thing I find puzzling about the "Moyes outers" is the (presumed) assumption that were we to dispense with his services in favour of someone who it was felt could "take the club further" we would be inundated with job applications from the likes of Guardiola, Klopp, Nagelsmann and company.

We wouldn't, would we ? And why ? Because to take the club forward into a position whereby we could anticipate competing in the Champions League, and by competing I mean not just having the occasional season in it as one of the teams making up the numbers, we would need a massive injection of cash to bring in sufficient players of the quality necessary to be in that position.

[Ironing Board]

But imo the one thing I find puzzling about the "Moyes outers" is the (presumed) assumption that were we to dispense with his services in favour of someone who it was felt could "take the club further" we would be inundated with job applications from the likes of Guardiola, Klopp, Nagelsmann and company.

We wouldn't, would we ? And why ?

If the club sacked a manager with Moyes record then a good manager would probably be rightly worried that they would also get the chop for ludicrous reasons.

[Macca1973]

I’ve been hyper critical of Moyes in the transfer thread I wanted to come on here and give him a bit of love.

Was thinking about what I thought was the best thing he’s done for us and for me it’s the fact that we compete and are in every game. Got sick of the amount of batterings at Man City, Liverpool and Man Utd, knowing we were gonna get done 4-0, 5-0 before we even kicked off.

Now we might still lose some of those games but we fight and every team we play know they’ve been in a game.

[Dimension Diver]

I'm a "Moyes fan" and have always admired him as a football manager, even when he was struggling in Spain and Sunderland. Everyone goes through tough periods in their life, but for me what he did at Everton with the meagre resources he had was unbelievable.

On the other hand, he's not perfect. He reminds me a bit of Wenger. A brilliant manager who's very frustrating for the fans because he takes buying a player so seriously that he'll often refuse to pull the trigger on transfers. Too much of a transfer perfectionist, if you like.

That said, I still think he's our most talented manager since Lyall, and despite the occasional frustration, I'm looking forward to many happy seasons ahead.

[bubbles1966]

Disappointing to see that we've allowed the Lingard thing roll past 1 July. Looks weak.

Disappointing to see that we've shopped for Aguerd in the same way we shopped for Kral and Vlasic. Looks like we don't learn from our mistakes.

Disappointing to see a team line up tonight in the same way as the one that kept losing for months last season. As above.

Early days but if the club are chucking £150m - the decisions need to be right.

[Ironing Board]

Disappointing to see that we've allowed the Lingard thing roll past 1 July. Looks weak.

Disappointing to see that we've shopped for Aguerd in the same way we shopped for Kral and Vlasic. Looks like we don't learn from our mistakes.

Disappointing to see a team line up tonight in the same way as the one that kept losing for months last season. As above.

Early days but if the club are chucking £150m - the decisions need to be right.

:lol: :lol:

[Believer]

Disappointing to see that we've allowed the Lingard thing roll past 1 July. Looks weak.

Disappointing to see that we've shopped for Aguerd in the same way we shopped for Kral and Vlasic. Looks like we don't learn from our mistakes.

Disappointing to see a team line up tonight in the same way as the one that kept losing for months last season. As above.

Early days but if the club are chucking £150m - the decisions need to be right.

How can you possibly have judged Aguerd already ? How many minutes has he played ? The incident with his injury, he made a mistake but came back with a strong challenge to thwart the opportunity.

With regards to Vlasic, he was arguably our best player tonight until Moyes chucked him out wide again. Stick him in Lanzini’s position and he will flourish.

Kral - I will give you that one although, again, he wasn’t really given too many opportunities.

Moyes clearly want youth, strength and pace. I think we will all be happy by the end of the window..

Edit. Oh and please rid ourselves of any Lingard talk now. Bring in someone younger. I wanted him after his loan but it’s dragging on too long.

[-DL-]

:lol: :lol:

Anything constructive to add, or are you just going to be an Emoji Dick?

[bubbles1966]

i've watched Aguerd play 90 for Rennes and Morocco before he kicked a ball for us.

[bubbles1966]

:lol:

You'll be gone. :lol: :lol:

[Ironing Board]

i've watched Aguerd play 90 for Rennes and Morocco before he kicked a ball for us.

Wow - you know him inside and out!

[Ironing Board]

Anything constructive to add, or are you just going to be an Emoji Dick?

It was the appropriate response for such a ridiculous, reactionary post. I take it you agree given you leapt to your man’s defence?

[-DL-]

It was the appropriate response for such a ridiculous, reactionary post. I take it you agree given you leapt to your man’s defence?

I'm moderating you - by doing that has no baring on my opinion to his post - I took issue just the dog-**** emoji only reply that you frequently use as if your football knowledge and intelligence is on a higher plain.

Agree or disagree with him, but use words. You're not five years old, despite you often coming across that way.

[Believer]

i've watched Aguerd play 90 for Rennes and Morocco before he kicked a ball for us.

Dawson played for Watford reserves when we signed him. Didn’t stop him from being one of our better players for a while.

Aguerd will be fine. Moyes maybe doesn’t get every signing right but he very rarely makes mistakes when making defensive signings..

[bubbles1966]

Dawson played for Watford reserves when we signed him. Didn’t stop him from being one of our better players for a while.

Aguerd will be fine. Moyes maybe doesn’t get every signing right but he very rarely makes mistakes when making defensive signings..

I hope you're right.

[Aztec Hammer]

i've watched Aguerd play 90 for Rennes and Morocco before he kicked a ball for us.

And people who have watched him far more than you have a different opinion.