What is going wrong at Manchester United? – Mid Season Review

As everybody knows, Manchester United’s domestic season is not going to plan. Struggling in the league, disastrous home form, and knocked out of the FA cup with yet another weak home performance, this time against Sawnsea, epitomised by Fabio’s cameo ending in a red card. Heading into a crucial time of year, lost to Sunderland in the first leg of the League cup, vital Premier League games and the knockout rounds of the Champions League approaching, January is seen by many as make or break for David Moyes’ season at Manchester United. So here I will take a look at what is going wrong at Old Trafford, and what can and should be done to turn it around.

What is going wrong?

1. Injuries to key players.

When Robin Van Persie, Wayne Rooney, Nemanja Vidic and Michael Carrick have been on the pitch together this season, United have looked like champions. Carrick protects the back four, which is organised and led by a dominant Vidic, and looks after the ball, Rooney and Van Persie tear the opposition to pieces, and at times, it feels like we are back to the good old days of Fergie. The problem for Manchester United fans this season, and for Moyes, has been that the four of them havn’t been together enough. Vidic and RVP have been the worst affected, with both having multiple injuries this year and being regulars on the treatment table rather than the pitch, and Michael Carrick is only just returning from a 6 week lay-off at the worst possible time, over the congested Christmas period.

Michael Carrick may well be the most underrated and undervalued player in English football. The Englishman acts as a screen in front of the back four, making vital interceptions and blocks, and denying the creative no 10s the space they need to flourish. Never was this particular aspect of his play so noticeable as when he was missing against Southampton, and Saints captain Adam Lallana took up that position time after time with acres of space. Then, once United have the ball, Carrick is central to everything that the team does. In my opinion, he is the best natural passer of the ball that we have had in the country since Paul Scholes, and his absence from the National team is just as infuriating as Scholes’ was.

Carrick has the ability to keep the ball incredibly well, very rarely giving it away, and yet at the same time he can also take the ball from a centre back, turn, and fire a 60 yard pinpoint pass to one of the wide men, immediately putting the team on the front foot. To have the leader of the midfield, and undoubtedly one of the few world class players at the club missing for such a period of time, and missing so many games, was catastrophic in a United midfield which looks thin at the best of times.

RVP was the main man in Fergie’s storm to the title last year and was critical in the club gaining their 20th League crown. Without his goals and his impact, it is well recognised that the title would almost certainly have not gone to the red devils. This season however, his form has not looked the same as it was in 2012/13, and injuries have kept him out for large portions of the season so far. This has left United’s attack over-reliant on Rooney, with Welbeck not looking the finished article just yet, and Hernandez struggling for any sort of form or confidence. Just as it looked as though RVP was getting back to fitness, Rooney was unavailable, causing Moyes to bring back a clearly not match fit Van Persie and shockingly he ends up not performing and getting injured again. Such is the importance of the man to the Champions, that Moyes felt forced into the rushed return of his star striker, which has in turn only led to more problems.

There is nothing I can say about Vidic that hasn’t been said. United look a completely different team with the Club Captain on the pitch, and he inspires confidence and performances from the rest of the team in a similar way to Kompany at City, and his injury woes this season have gone a long way towards contributing to the clubs issues.

It is a factor that hasn’t been talked about this year, with people commenting more on Moyes, but I don’t think you can underestimate the effect that these injuries have had on the squad and the results. Imagine City without Kompany, Yaya Toure and Aguero for long periods. When you add to these injuries the fact that Rafael, Jones, Evans, Ferdinand, Fellaini, Rooney, Valencia, Nani, and Kagawa have all had injuries this season as well, you can see that Moyes has had a lot to deal with in his first season in charge of the Manchester Club. A lot of talent has missed a lot of games, something which didn’t happen as much last season.

2. The summer transfer window

In a nutshell, its hard to imagine a more disappointing transfer window for a club like Manchester United. Moyes and the club made (mostly) the right noises, attempting to sign the calibre of player we all know the club needs, with Thiago, Bale, Ronaldo, Fabregas and Alonso all apparently targets, but with no success. When you combine this with the embarrassing, almost farcical bit of Baines and Fellaini together, it makes the window make for bleak viewing as a United fan.

The lack of interest from the club in a clearly available Mesut Ozil, the kind of star that every club in the world would kill for, was shocking, with Moyes instead preferring to stick with a deadline day£27.5m bid for Fellaini, a move with more than a hint of desperation about it. If you then factor in the fact that the big Belgian has had zero impact since his move, although it would be remiss of me not to point out that injuries have hampered his progress, it would appear as though the Champions havn’t added anything to the squad from last year. This, in a window where every challenger for their crown spent big and spent well, with City, Chelsea, and Arsenal all making significant signings. The only saving grace from this farce- Rooney stayed.

3. Home form – The loss of the ‘fear factor’

You can imagine it now, a smaller team heading up to Old Trafford, with many fans just hoping to keep the score down, and a thought going through every players mind, ‘This is going to be a long, hard day, and even if we take the lead, United will throw everything at us and we will be hanging on for grim death’. There was a time when taking an early lead at Old Trafford meant only one thing, you had angered the beast, and you knew that for the rest of the game you would be hanging on, with an irate Ferguson driving his players on with the passion, the authority and the fury you would only otherwise see if he ran out of chewing gum on the bench. Not this year. Not with Moyes in charge. The same team that has been so dominant at home for so long has lost something. That indescribable ‘fear factor’ that it once had. They suddenly look beatable, and the powers ofrecovery which have long been the trademark of every home team at the Theatre of Dreams down the years have faded.

So too have the lightning quick starts for which Old Trafford was once famous, where if the away team wasn’t at the races straight away, they went behind quickly and were staring down the barrel of a humiliating scoreline, just ask Roma fans if you can’t remember. But now United don’t seem to play until they are 2-0 down, and even then there isn’t the fury and anger you associate with teams of the past 20 years.

None of the ‘How dare they take the lead against us at Old Trafford?’ but rather ‘Here we go again’. The air of invincibility that once surrounded this 100 year old ground has gone, and teams arrive knowing they can win. Moyes and his staff need to recreate that fear factor, that fury, and that fortress feel about Old Trafford, and he needs to do it quickly. If he fails, he will lose more games and more fans. For them, United do not lose at the Theatre of Dreams. And certainly not back to back games. ‘Wouldn’t have happened in Fergie’s day’ they whisper.

4. The lack of cohesion in the team

Having watched Manchester United over and over again this season, I don’t think Moyes has any idea what his best team is. Moreover I don’t even think he knows what the best formation is for this squad. If you go through the team, the clear first choice players number seven, with De Gea, Evra, Vidic, Rafael, Carrick, Rooney and RVP being the stalwarts that this team is built around. But that leaves open a vital spot at the heart of defence alongside the captain, a crucial central midfield role, and both wingers. If you think of the best United teams of the past, the players picked themselves.

Never do I remember such uncertainty around every line-up for every game the club plays in. Players need confidence to perform to their best, and as Jonny Evans admittedly recently theyhavn’t got any, which I think stems originally from not knowing they have the managers full trust and backing. Moyes needs to decide on a first choice partner for Vidic as soon as possible, and tell everyone that he has his manager’s backing. For me, I hope its Phil Jones, as I think he is the future, not only for this football club, but also for any successful England team.

Then he needs to turn to his midfield and find the answers to the questions that everyone is asking. ‘Is Fellaini good enough to partner Michael Carrick?’, ‘Is Antonio Valencia a long term solution at right mid, and if not then who is?’, ‘Who is first choice on the left wing?’ and ‘What on earth is going on with Wilfried Zaha?’. This team are the champions of England and are playing for the most successful club in English history, so why are they playing like they don’t believe in themselves. I believe this comes down to Moyes, and this is an area he needs to work on if he wants to be a success at Old Trafford.

What is the solution?

In my opinion Moyes is the right man for the job, he needs time and backing from the club, which I have no doubt he will get thankfully. Sir Alex Ferguson picked him for a reason, and supporters need to get behind him, just as the great man himself asked us to. In the short term, ensuring Champions League football for next season is an absolute priority. For the sake of the players and the fans it may well be worth Moyes coming out and saying what we all know, which is that the title will be leaving the club at the end of the season, probably across Manchester.

Then we can concentrate on realistic ambitions for this season, which come in the form of the League Cup (hopefully a turn around at Old Trafford), the Champions League, and 4th place in the Premier League. Obviously the squad needs strengthening in key areas, with a top quality young left back (like Southampton’s Luke Shaw for example) and a dominating central midfielder(possibly Marco Verratti from PSG) being top of the shopping list. A marquee signing in January could well be what the club needs, not so much for the production of the player on the pitch, but also for the huge lift it would give to the fans and the players, much as Ozil has at Arsenal.

Great players make others play better, and the German is providing a perfect example of this in London. I would like to see Moyes build around youth as well, because there is no doubt that there is a whole host of exciting talent at the club, with Januzaj, Zaha, Powell, Jones, Smalling and Welbeck being the obvious ones, and that is without touching the outstanding talents in our successful U21 team from last year. Make it David Moyes’ team, not SAF’s and build for next year. The sooner he does that, and the fans accept it, the better for the club.