Moyes insists he sets the team up to win
The manager’s perceived cautious approach – particularly in impossible looking games away from the London Stadium – will always come in for criticism.
But it remains difficult to understand how we do not have more attacking options on display if he’s determination to win these games is to be taken seriously.
And of course so far we have won absolutely no games away from home under his stewardship this time around and only the one Premier League match – against Bournemouth.
As a result of those facts, reading his press conference comments is a little like arriving in some alternative reality.
We can only hope that he has now seen enough of the squad and its abilities to ensure that he adopts a positive approach to the most difficult game on the calendar at Anfield.
Commenting at https://www.whufc.com/news/articles/2020/february/21-february/david-moyes-well-do-everything-we-can-anfield he said: “On Wednesday, we didn’t set up to get beat, we set up to win, but we set up to be hard to play against because we knew the quality of players we were playing against.
I’ve got to say the players did a really good job at it. We did a lot of good things. We conceded from a corner kick, which was disappointing, but there’s an awful lot of the play which you’d have to say we defended very well.
We didn’t use the ball well enough when we got it and we didn’t counter-attack well enough when we got it, which are things we have to improve on.
That’s why we love the game and that’s why we take part in the game, because you always hope that you’re going to be the team who can win. We’ll try and do that [on Monday], and let’s hope we can.
It’d mean a lot for me [to beat Liverpool]. Anfield is never an easy place for any manager or team to go to, but we’ll go there and do everything we can to get a result.
With any top team, all the managers of all the other teams are trying to find ways of beating them. That’s the way football is. Manchester City were the top dogs in the last few years. Liverpool have found ways of getting above them in the league.”