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What is happening at Manchester United?

On the back of another defeat as Man United manager, David Moyes is now under increased scrutiny from the fans. Utd supporters have set up a campaign on Twitter to get Moyes the sack by them using #Moyes out, so that shows how optimistic they are with the future.

The Scot was only appointed as successor of Sir Alex in May, and only officially started on 1 July so he is only three months into what is the nearest to an impossible job as you can get. He must have only knew that he was going to take over in Manchester about three weeks before last season ended, so he hasn’t exactly had a lot of time to absorb what has past and ultimately get used to the pressures of being Utd manager.

On the other side of that argument, he has still had time to identify targets to bring in although he did attempt to buy Fabregas, Thiago and Herrera who are all creative midfielders that they require to improve the first team. He also attempted to add Fellaini and Baines to the club.

Cesc Fabregas was never going to leave his boyhood club that is Barcelona. He was released as a youngster, moved to join Wenger at Arsenal, succeeded in London, attracted interest from the Catalans therefore he transferred back to Spain. Cesc never requested, at any time, to move back to England because he as well as his family are settled in their homeland. The Spaniard has just started to become a regular in the team after a couple of frustrating seasons behind Xavi and co.

Another man who was behind the great Spaniards was Thiago Alcantara. The under 21’s skipper did depart the Nou Camp this summer, but although he was rumoured to be on the verge of putting pen to paper at Old Trafford his move never materialized. He moved to the German capital to rejoin his former boss Pep Guardiola taking into consideration the fact that he felt that Pep has faith in his abilities, therefore he will play regularly. Like Fabregas, Thiago never really wanted to leave but the attraction of regular football, the chance to play with the European champions and first team football all resulted in him moving.

Ander Herrera was evidently a man in demand, however, no real move was made until transfer deadline day. In Spain some frauds pretending to represent Manchester United turned up at Bilbao to discuss a possible transfer; when the Spanish club realised they were some random mean it meant they didn’t wish to go through with any deal.

With Fellaini and Baines, Ed Woodward bid £28 million for the pair of them which Everton found insulting to say the least. Considering that the Toffees agreed only half a million less for just the Belgian, it is perfectly understandable from where Everton viewed the situation.

Now this is where things get a little complicated and weird. Fellaini had a release clause in his contract that, expired at the end of July, would have cost any club £23.5m to at least enter in negotiations with the midfielder. Manchester United paid £4m more than they could have done of they would have given up on the pursuit of Leighton Baines. Moyes was determined to sign the left back to bolster his options in that position, which could have shown he disregarded Evra’s stance at the club. Ferguson has already left Evra and Buttner for whoever would have taken over, in my personal view they are perfectly good full backs. Patrice is experienced whereas Alex Buttner is at the other end of his career though he has got a few PL games under his belt.

Now does this show he values Baines so much, or doesn’t he believe in the abilities of either of his options.

I would value Fellaini at £20m and Baines at £15m, so a joint bid of that much would have probably meant that Christmas has come early for David.

I don’t see how the pair can improve the squad let alone the team. Leighton is as close to a world class left back as you can get, but the other two options are plenty. Marouane is overpriced, I know he flourished under Moyes but he isn’t that creative player in the middle of the park that they need. He adds strength and does fit in but he isn’t going to be the final piece in the jigsaw.

So a massive problem is the transfer department, they did identify and track down targets but none were added. Whether that be because of they don’t want to join Moyes for not being the legendary Ferguson, or Ed Woodward doesn’t know how to finalize a big deal.

Possibly players don’t see Moyes as a dominant father figure so could that be a reason to why Cristiano Ronaldo didn’t push through with his move back to Manchester, although I still don’t believe he would have left Madrid this early.

We can only speculate. He needs time to adjust and stamp his own ideas on the project. As mentioned already in this post, they have lost again which was at home to West Brom that never occurred in Ferguson’s tenure. To make it worse for the former Everton boss his side were played off the park by a lesser side so that boosts the confidence of other lesser sides visiting Old Trafford by knowing that now the fear factor has disappeared. Not to mention, Utd failed to cover for each other so they were open constantly.

The new boss has been criticized for relying too much on the experience of Ryan Giggs, who is now a player-coach, Rio Ferdinand, Nemanja Vidic to help him through especially in the European games. You would never hear Ferguson warming up to his players is what many people would say, but that is exactly my point. Throughout his reign, Moyes will be compared to his predecessor and what Sir Alex would have done in the situation.

Fans and media alike need to allow Moyes to be his man, but it won’t fade away so the Scot needs to learn how to cope with all the speculation. If he all of a sudden bursts out angrily in a press conference he will be blasted and his image will be tarnished however unlikely that might be.

To sum up my message, he needs time which could range up to two seasons to make Utd great again. Now you might say that this team won the title by 13 points last term, my comeback would be that this is a team that had an extraordinary manager not a good manager. The key is stability and nobody knows stability better than the Red Devils.

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