Silke Smooth Irons away to Man Utd

Slacker

We had spells when we were good, we had spells when we’re poor but you surely must accept that if it wasn’t for De Gea and Maguire’s ankle we would’ve won that game.

Lukerz

We can still finish top 8 but it requires not many more slip ups in ‘winnable’ home games & we 100% won’t with our current away goals tally.

buffybegood

Pengeman said:

Have we won any game when Downes, Rice and Soucek played in midfield? Moyes selection is peculiar and continues to cost us. With Fornals on, we looked a more promising team. Why did Moyes not try Antonio and Scamecca? The best that we can hope this season is a mid-table position.

To answer a couple of your points, Fornals has looked way out of form for a good while now (and that's from someone who really rates him), and in this game Scamacca was already on a yellow and then made a suspect challenge with more than 30 mins to go. Under the circumstances (ie biased refs) very easy to see him getting a dubious 2nd yellow so, as much as I agree with your criticisms of Moyes' negative tactics, I can understand subbing Scamacca off for Antonio, if not all other decisions he made.

steve

Are we sucking the life out of scamecca like we did Haller

OldCastleSwift

steve said:

Are we sucking the life out of scamecca like we did Haller

Feels like it. Our wide players are never close enough to him, and without Paqueta none of the CMs get close to him either.

He's been completely isolated recently and it's looking very much like what we saw with Haller.

OutcastLondoner

Slacker said:

We had spells when we were good, we had spells when we’re poor but you surely must accept that if it wasn’t for De Gea and Maguire’s ankle we would’ve won that game.

Yes. Martinez was excellent as well.

But we could have had more chances through the whole game if Moyes hadn't persisted with this formation and we were more aggressive earlier. I don't think there was any real threat from Man U to justify this line up. We are constantly defensive in these games without it producing much.

jay_in_cpt

The only part we looked a bit like the West Ham of the last 2 seasons IMO was the final 15/20 mins
The rest, well for me it's not a great watch....
We have become the West Ham of old IMO, somewhat frustrating and wasteful.....

Lukerz

We also expect we’ll lose Rice next summer (he’ll only have 1 year left plus the option for us to extend, so 2 maximum). That’s a massive hole in our side if we don’t have European football to offer.

buffybegood

Imo this is how Moyes views us as a club. He takes a very pragmatic approach to all things football, and tends to feel we have little chance against "bigger clubs" so he tends to set up up fairly negatively; stay in the game as long as possible, try to nick a point (maybe 3) if at all possible, avoid a thrashing more for what it might do to morale than the likelihood that goal difference will actually play a part at the end of the season.

This is Moyes to a tee; if we don't progress as a club we'll see a lot more of this against "Bigger clubs".

Slacker

“Moyes out!”
Too soon?

welovethehammers

buffybegood said:

Imo this is how Moyes views us as a club. He takes a very pragmatic approach to all things football, and tends to feel we have little chance against "bigger clubs" so he tends to set up up fairly negatively; stay in the game as long as possible, try to nick a point (maybe 3) if at all possible, avoid a thrashing more for what it might do to morale than the likelihood that goal difference will actually play a part at the end of the season.

This is Moyes to a tee; if we don't progress as a club we'll see a lot more of this against "Bigger clubs".

You make a good point at the end of your post. With there being more “big teams” than the traditional top 4, I guess it’ll mean more matches where Moyes sets up negatively. A while back we looked extremely threatening on the counter (I’m talking a long time back) but now we seem a bit more toothless up front until the last 20 mins of games.

Fortuneseeker

steve said:

Are we sucking the life out of scamecca like we did Haller

Does anyone know in what type of formation Scamacca played for Sassuolo last season. Am I right in thinking he had at least one striker along side him - Raspadori? IF that is the case why are we playing him in such an isolated role like we did with Haller. This just appears to bear out the believe that David Moyes doesn't like orthodox strikers but goalscoring midfielders like Tim Cahill are difficult to find.

Lukerz

I think he’s missing Paqueta. No need to panic. He’s gone from Paqueta to Downes. Once Paqueta is back he’ll be fine.

alderz

Lukerz said:

I think he’s missing Paqueta. No need to panic. He’s gone from Paqueta to Downes. Once Paqueta is back he’ll be fine.

Personally, I’m not panicked. I feel pretty comfortable with this season and have high hopes for the Conference League. That said, I find us very boring to watch at the moment, and the idea that Downes is even in the reckoning to be a replacement for Paqueta is part of the reason why.

OutcastLondoner

Lukerz said:

I think he’s missing Paqueta. No need to panic. He’s gone from Paqueta to Downes. Once Paqueta is back he’ll be fine.

He didn’t need to go from Paqueta to Downes though.

Lukerz

I’m not sure. He’s not going to go for Antonio. The alternative is Lanzini or Fornals. The latter is being criticised quite readily on social media & Lanzini has been a bit of a 0 impact player. I, personally, would have played Benrahma as a 10 & Fornals on the left but Moyes maybe felt Fornals hadn’t done enough to start.

Bazshuayi

Slacker said:

“Moyes out!”
Too soon?

Nope, not too soon although I know you aren't serious of course...

I'll say it happily though. Moyes out!

I want to see a manager/team thats not afraid. There are teams in the Prem that aren't afraid to give it a go and I want us to be one of them.

We have a decent squad IMO. I'll take the odd heavy defeat if that means we try to play on the front foot

welovethehammers

Anyone else like Downes but think it’s crazy to play him in that position. That’s like deciding to play Matic/Kante/Mascherano/Fabinho as an attacking midfielder.

I think playing 3 central midfielders that are all relatively defensive (although each a slightly different role) extremely excessive. In a strange way, it actually makes them less effective playing all of them together.

I remember a while back we tried something similar. Once upon a time we were getting overran in midfield so we tried Kouyate, Obiang and a third (going to guess Noble), which didn’t work either.

It means we have no out ball and sacrifices attacking intent and creativity. Also the 3 don’t exactly rack up a lot of goals and assists between them (with the exception of Soucek’s goals, although these seem to have dried up a little). When you combine that with the fact our defenders aren’t scoring much from set pieces at the min, it puts pressure on just our 3 attacking players to score/assist (Bowen, Scammaca and Benrahma today).

claretandbluesky

In my view Downes is the last of the three midfielders you would ask to attack. I think I would ask Rice to play furthest forward as he is a world class player and carries real threat when carrying the ball forward and can strike the ball also. Should we take a lead and want to see out a final twenty minutes then he can drop back and maybe allow Sucek to go forward, Downes is always a deeper DM in my view. Had Moyes wanted a midfielder to play in a more forward position and not wanting to commit Rice, then surely that's Lanzini.

My view of the season so far is that we have failed to improve due to a very considerable summer spend. I do think we have bought some good players however which are going to show their real value to the team in the second half of the season. I would go as far to say we could end up ending the season in good style.

My prediction is a 8-11 finish in the league but a serious attempt at the conference and that being our best chance of securing Euro football next season.

BubblesNeverDies

IMO Moyes has run out of ideas. The thing that annoys me so much is when we pass the ball back and forth across the back line until we're pressured into playing back to Fab/Areola, during which time the opposition has had time to reorganise, have a cup of tea, and wait for us to move the ball out of our half - just so frustrating.
Look what Brighton did to the Chavs yesterday by playing on the front foot from the off.

chicagohammer

Last 15 mins aside, we rarely even looked interested, there were 3 or 4 occasions when we regained or more often, were gifted possession, and despite being in good shape to counter, only to remain pedestrian in possession, almost to the point of standing still

It was truly a very frustrating watch, way too many of our players were anonymous, Downes certainly offered absolutely nothing and I do not recall Soucek doing much either - when two thirds of your midfield are non existent, you are not going to create much in the way of chances.

Now we ended the game on the front foot which is always nice but does anybody really think that United played well, they gave up possession to us very cheaply and far to often for comfort. Fred’s effort aside, they did not really look like extending their lead.

A much more positive posture from us, earlier in the game would surely have yielded results today.

At least they did show willing and perked up at the end and despite everything, we could still have salvaged a point here, but it was not to be and frankly, I am not sure that either team deserved the points today

Ho hum

Bazshuayi

This isnt the first time (not just those 70 games) and it won't be the last. Surely the players would prefer to be more attacking rather than play most of the game in a rigid, almost scared mindset

jay_in_cpt

Thing that I’m not enjoying, we seem to have lost that speed, last couple of seasons we had it, we were a threat, just seems we are now slow and laboured when attacking, just IMO of course

IronHerb

Aaah Lingard!

WHU_Champo_league_in_7_years

jay_in_cpt said:

Thing that I’m not enjoying, we seem to have lost that speed, last couple of seasons we had it, we were a threat, just seems we are now slow and laboured when attacking, just IMO of course

Doesn't help when we have 3 holding midfielders


Think we need to get back to the Bowen, Fornals, Benrahma trio behind the CF

thornburyiron

Regardless of what set up or tactics they may or may not have been told to use it really all boils down to the fact that nobody at the moment seems to have any idea how to put the ball in the net. We have one of if not the highest PL expected goals rating at the moment with virtually no actual outcome.

OldCastleSwift

Some good points being made here, IMO.

The Flynn Downes Experiment is a weird one.

Like C&BSky says, he's the last of our midfielders that should be playing that role, IMO. He has four goals and six assists in 159 career games. Doesn't exactly scream attacking threat. But let's not kid ourselves that he's there as a traditional No10; he's simply the most advanced defensive midfielder.

And the result is exactly as WLTH puts it:

welovethehammers said:

It means we have no out ball and sacrifices attacking intent and creativity. Also the 3 don’t exactly rack up a lot of goals and assists between them (with the exception of Soucek’s goals, although these seem to have dried up a little). When you combine that with the fact our defenders aren’t scoring much from set pieces at the min, it puts pressure on just our 3 attacking players to score/assist (Bowen, Scammaca and Benrahma today).

"Slow and laboured", "rigid", "pedestrian", "frustrating"; this is how I've seen our football this season, and for large parts of the second half of last season, too. It just hasn't been fun to watch. If, as uneducated fans, we can predict how a game's going to go, then you can bet your bottom dollar the opposition will too.

And to pre-empt the counter-arguments, yes we had chances in the last 20 minutes, and yes, De Gea pulled off a couple of great saves, but the fact remains that for 70 minutes we were passive and unthreatening; it's a big risk to try to win a game of football in 20 minutes, particularly if you're not tight at the back as you are almost always trying from a losing position.

We have Germany's starting right back, Italy's No9, Brazil's No10, a genuinely world class midfielder and a number of other seasoned international footballers. And yet I can't remember the last time we dominated a league game. Norwich last season, maybe? I just don't think we play enough front-foot football; not necessarily a problem if you have an effective counter-attack, but we don't anymore.

OutcastLondoner

IronHerb said:

Aaah Lingard!

I know what you mean. It was the best when Lingard came it was the best but even without him I wish we could play like that again. We'd been doing it for a while before that - the end of the season after Covid resumption and half a season until Lingard arrived. He wasn't the key, he just made it better.

alderz

thornburyiron said:

Regardless of what set up or tactics they may or may not have been told to use it really all boils down to the fact that nobody at the moment seems to have any idea how to put the ball in the net. We have one of if not the highest PL expected goals rating at the moment with virtually no actual outcome.

The XG thing is really interesting to me. In terms of Open Play XG, we are 11th, and we are 7th for Set Piece XG (according to theanalyst.com). But according to the same data, we've had the sixth most shots of all PL sides - 176.

Our XG per shot is about 0.08, which is joint lowest with Wolves, Southampton and Bournemouth - and if you only looked at open play XG, then Southampton's XG per shot is higher than ours.

What this means, is that we are having a lot of very low % efforts on goal - i.e. we are not creating "good" chances. And to illustrate the point, our XG per shot being 0.08 means we have to take nearly 12 shots to get to 1.0 XG.

alderz

That website is quite interesting, btw. And there are two other things that I think are worth pointing out from there.

Firstly, this is a map of where we control possession. Blue means we are dominant in those zones, and red means the other side are. You can see quite clearly how we are effective attackers down the left, but we are vulnerable down our right - which is something I've heard a lot recently.



And the other thing, this shows how different teams build up. The y (vertical) axis is metres per second for passes - high means more direct; x (horizontal) axis is passes per sequence - which is basically how long you have the ball, with a sequence ended by the other side intervening.

What you can see is that we aren't really in either camp - we're not an intricate ball playing team, and we're not quick and direct. You could read that top right box to be "rushed". We get the ball, knock it about a bit, then try to go direct.



I know analytics isn't for everyone, but for me it highlights that we don't really have a team identity in our playing style.