Having refused to sign a striker in the window and finding tonight he was forced to go with Andriy Yarmolenko, the manager can only blame himself for the lack of offensive enterprise on display.
Full credit for the brilliant defensive organisation and the Craig Dawson signing in particular because the guy put in another towering performance.
But why on earth the manager persisted with the Ukranian – who frankly didn’t look as though he wanted to be there before departing – goodness only knows.
Benrahma showed how much difference he could have made had he been thrown on much earlier.
Football is so simple – goals win games and to be entirely honest at no time did we look likely to do so without our No 30 who is fully expected to be back for Sheffield United.
It gave a chance to Mipo Odubeko of course but sadly the boy was out of his depth and one begins to wonder how badly that lack of a second striker will hurt us in the second half of the league season.
Hopefully Jesse Lingard will make the difference as a false 9 when required because tonight showed that the only real way we were gonna win was via penalties.
Moyes rating 6
If Moyes is building for the future then that’s what he’s doing. Expecting a top four finish and the FA Cup is very optimistic after West Ham’s position last season. Let’s see which striker he buys next summer, Then we can start talking about replacing Moyes with Frank Lampard.
The striker debate, to a degree is irrelevant…in that we could have had Aguerro, Cavani, Aubamayang up front for us last night, would not have made a bats bit of difference because we tried to play the same way as we would with Mikey up top and that only works because he runs channels. None of our Plan B’s Haller, Yarmolenko, Benrahma will work with the same style. The game was lost with the shape and style, we moved Soucek to accomodate noble and lost Soucek’s influence. That had a detrimental effect on Rice’s ability to influence and stem the tide on Man U attacks. If you want to play the same style then Soucek needs to be the centre forward and have Benrahma/Lanzini/Bowen/Fornals right up alongside him. Last night when we had Yarmolenko upfront we had to pick a team to be able to play through the lines…. knocking it 40 yards down the channels or booting it up the middle from goal kicks was never going to work. There’s a reason Man City don’t do it!!! we just need to improve at our ability to play out from the back and through the lines. Tactically, last night we got it wrong. Dissapointing but we need this plan B because Mikey will be out periodically every 4 or 5 weeks!
Right on the money Simon! You don’t put a player totally different in approach to Antonio and keep punting it forward as if to Antonio!!! Man U centre backs – internationals – strolled it. It wasn’t about who we picked, but how we played.
Haller was offering nothing and it was right to sell him, Yarmo offers a little bit but not enough to be more than a sub am happy to keep him as that because he does make a difference in some matches with his clever passing, Mipo didn’t have the debut he would have liked but that could prove to be a massive benefit so long as he learns from it, I was happy to see Moyes put him in and give him a run, would have liked him to be a bit more aggressive but thats a learning curve. Noble has been promised the cup games so its not a surprise to me he was left on but it is clear he lacks the pace now and his reactive style is less and less effective in this team.
It’s all very well going on about we failed to sign a striker in January but unless I missed something David Moyes has commented that he tried to sign a striker. Failure was due to some not wanting to come, clubs unwilling to release a player or really silly money being quoted.
This is a season of transition so Summer is best chance of doing business plus we will hopefully know the final impact of covid on all clubs finances. Its no surprise that hardly any money was spent by Premier clubs in January!
I thought that we were much better when going 3 at the back – I thought Ben Johnson played very well and showed that he can cross with his left if need be
It is disappointing to be out the FA cup but Man Utd at Old Trafford was always going to be a tough ask
This will reignite the debate about buying a striker or selling Haller – but to me that is done and Moyes job now is to do as well as possible with the players at his disposal
It is a bit of a worry that Fornals and to a lesser extent Bowen seem to have gone off teh boil – maybe the number of games is taking its toll
For the next few games I would stick to a 3-4-3
So for last night – given our injuries and a Man U who had put 9 past Southampton I would give Moyes a 7
Absolutely infuriating..back up forward yarmelenko awful ,but out with ligament problems anyway now,, youngster who he said could step in ,just out of his depth as hugh said ..our main forward injured,,how is saving your money working out for you now mr Moyes..gives me no pleasure at all ,its shocking that i and so many other fans could see this happening so easily ..its such a ridiculous gamble he has taken and its only taken 3 games and we are right in the sh## with our horrible depleted squad already …god knows what happens now but if I’m honest I csnt see Antonio being ready for a few weeks knowing what normally happens when he misses a game with fatigue/hamstring 🙄🤬
I have seen a lot of people praising Moyes when he said he would not be rushed into getting another striker in January. Well, who in his right mind would think we will survive until May with Antonio and a few attacking midfielders?
Very poor long term planning. Didn’t they see the problem coming? Were they expecting no injuries?
Moyes has improved the team in defence, but the planning for strikers is non-existent.
Wow mate lashing out at other fans ain’t gonna solve anything! We all wanted a striker, DM tried to get a striker!! Nothing wrong with him saying he would not spend for the sake of it if it didn’t improve our squad! Most comments have been how to try constructively to adapt with what we’ve got. We are where we are – We have spent shed loads before and got nowhere – Carroll??
I follow, for sentimental reasons, a few teams from around the world. Many have budgets smaller than West Ham’s. Of the ones who sold a striker, none did so without first lining up a replacement. That is what happened with Haller. I call that bad planning. If you disagree, that is fine.
Moyes knows how to organise a sturdy defence and build a solid team but he’s hopeless offensively in terms of tactics, substitutions and signings. To leave Noble on for the full 120 minutes today was testament to this.