Sunderland 2-1 Manchester United

I nearly couldn't be bothered writing about Tuesday night, even though to my mind, it was nowhere near as bad as the loss to Swansea. But there were one or two things of note to mention, apart from the fact our season is in danger of falling apart. If Moyes can come through this and guide us to top four spot and or a league cup triumph, maybe he will turn out to be the man that Fergie thought he was going to be, taking his torch forward.
First, the team selected wasn't as bad as it might have been, or it would have been, if Januzaj, not Giggs had started behind Welbeck, as had been speculated ahead of the match. On the evidence this season, unless we have got someweher near our strongest side out, Giggs hasn't got the pace to play in the hole anymore.
It was only when he and Januzaj swapped places after about twenty minutes that United started to play and look anything like a Manchester United team should. In fact almost with his first touch of the ball, after he had moved inside, the youngster got hold of the ball, and promptly beat three men before Bardsley had to bring him down as he approached the box. Thereafter, Januzaj was the man who looked most likely as after a shoddy opening, United took control of the match.
My problem then, is why did Giggs start inside, it's not as if we can take any opposition for granted at the moment. Basically we completely wasted the first twenty minutes, instead of trying to blow them away, we allowed Sunderland to gain in confidence, unfortunately they never looked back.
Saying that, the last thing you could see coming as we approached the interval was a goal for the hosts. And yet that's exactly what happened. It looked like a foul from Evans to me, others didn't think so, but the defending of the free kick was, calamitous. As poor as the midfield is, the defence is even worse at the moment. I hate to say it, but the way we are going at the moment, we're going to start looking at a 0-0 as no goals conceded instead of no goals scored.
United showed some spirit to get a levelling goal early in the second half, but it didn't really arrive from any improved attacking play on United's behalf. I don't think it was a penalty and i thought whilst Rafael's tackle may have been a foul, the jump into the air from the recipient, was about as blatant an attempt to get an opponent red carded as you're likely to see.
Once behind United did at least show some urgency, even if it wasn't parctularly inspired, once more almost all out best moments came from the feet of our 18 year old future superstar. Whatever else this season has thrown at us, we can at least see that we have got one of the best, if not, the best, young player in Europe today.
So on to Saturday and the return of our FA cup conquerors, I can't exactly say I'm looking forward to it, more fingers crossed and hoping for the best. For all the talk in the press of our last three game losing run, the three games it's reminding me of, is from the 90's, the 5-0 away to Newcastle, 6-3 at Southampton, 1-0 at home to Chelsea before we out battled Arsenal through a Nigel Wintreburn own goal to stop the rot with a 1-0 victory. Byt the time of that Arsenal game, which was more a physical battle than a football match, our confidence had similarly been shot to pieces. And that was a far better side than we possess at the moment, so I live in hope, if not expectation.

Manchester United 1-2 Swansea City

I can't pretend that yesterday was a total shock, squad rotation of sparse resources, iffy form, especially at home and a half decent opposition meant that the odds I saw of 13/2 for a Swansea victory, would have been snapped up if I could ever back against United. It's got to be said, it doesn't really matter what the quality of the opposition is right now at Old trafford, we will struggle.
There can be no getting away from the fact, that as badly as the players are letting him down, Moyes looks to be floundering badly at the moment. His press interviews are getting worse, not better, you're not sure what he's trying to say sometimes. I'm not sure why he had to confirm what he did about our pursuit of De Rossi in the summer, a simple, no comment, would have done. I never expected us to open the purse strings this transfer window, and to an extent, think it's the right thing to do. Whether the club can hold their nerve, after a fourth home defeat in six games, remains to be seen.
I've always felt that for all the talk of the gimps, being proper United owners who will give the new manager the time to build his own team, the evidence from Florida suggests otherwise. It may be that they have decided that they won't be letting Moyes spend anymore of their money until they see where we are at the end of the season. I'm fucking certain they must be wondering whether they should have got rid of the club at the same time as Fergie stepped down. They really don't know what they've let themselves in for, a new sponsorship deal won't be making any sports pages, any time soon.
The tactics were questionable again, an almost total reliance on wingers and overlapping full backs to get crosses in, to who exactly, it's never quite obvious, it's not as if we have a latter day Scholes or Robbo arriving late to augment Hernandez and Welbeck in the box. It's not as if we have even got the full backs to make it work anyway. The worrying thought strikes me, that the reason he was so desperate to bring Baines to the club, was because that's the limit of his attacking tactical nous, Christ I hope that's wrong. I had to rub my eyes when I saw Moyes asking Welbeck to move left during the second half to allow the ineffectual Kagawa to go central. Welbeck had been just about the only bright light of the performance, the one man the visitors couldn't take the ball off. It just seemed desperate, because it was.
As for the game, I was even more iffy about our chances when I saw the team, Rio Ferdinand at centre half is almost a guarantee of a below par, whatever that is anymore, defensive display. He would have been better off  moving on during the Summer, or even retiring. It's painful watching him one of the clubs best ever centre backs nowadays, it's becoming reminiscent of Gary Neville's last season. Buttner actually had one of his better games, especially in the first half, but he'll never be United standard as long as he lives.
Fletcher started alongside Clevcerley in the middle of the park and managed to put in a decent performance during the first half, but sadly he faded phsycially right out of it straight from  the start of the second half as Swansea twice walked through our rearguard, showing yet another away team that had seen us as there for the taking. Still during his solid first half Fletcher had looked twice the player Cleverley was, make of that what you will.
I'm not mad on Hernandez leading the line, but to be fair to him, he had a decent game yesterday and took the goal well to boot. Welbeck apart, I thought everybody else just really weren't the standard required if we are going to be competing for the game's top honours, i.e the title and champions league.
Fabio's red card summed everything up really, he is the one player that Moyes has never really given a fair crack of the whip to. I mean why couldn't he have started yesterday. When he was given the chance to come on, it was obvious that he still hadn't given up on the club, despite all the evidence to the contrary and he set about trying to shake things up, and then he does that. I'm not defending the tackle, even if he didn't catch him as badly as he might have done, and the Swansea lad milked it, a lot of refs would have given him a red card.
After that, I would have gladly took a draw, the way the season's going, domestic cup competition's are as good as it's going to get for us. Yet around me, they were all urging United forward as if we were still watching the class of 92, when it was obviously a time to try and keep the ball. United's players did the crowds bidding, leading to us seeing less and less of the ball, and leading to the visitors seeing their chance for glory and attacking Flecther at makeshift right back to snatch a last minute winner.
Those two games against Sunderland now seem gigantic, in terms of the season, the league cup must now be our only realistic chance of a trophy this season, and in the tems of Moyes tenure of the club. I've said it before, I would have took coming eighth this season, if it meant bringing through the youngsters and then bringing in a couple of top quality recruits in the summer who could see the way the club was heading. It's not quite clear where the club is heading at the moment though is it. So for all that talk of the Glazer's being perpared to spend big, how are they going to persuade the world's best players to choose Old trafford over City, Chelsea, PSG and that's before you even get to Barca and Real Madrid, as the Sex Pistols sang, Problems, problems.

Manchester United 1-2 Tottenham Hotspur

One step forward, two steps back, or is it two steps forward, one step back, I haven't a clue. I can't say I was that confident ahead of the game, we may have been on a wining run, but the form has been a bit hit and miss. Some reds told me after the game, that we didn't deserve to lose, which you could say about all our home defeats, my response, as it was after the other three home defeats, was that we didn't deserve to win either. And that's the point, if you can't dominate the opposition, you can lose by the odd goal as well as win by the odd goal.
For all the talk of a hole in the middle of the park, and it is there, it's the defence that has looked all at sea over the last couple of games. I wasn't very impressed with Spurs, yes they were a hard unit to break down, they defended well as a team, but they didn't threaten us that much at the back. And yet we managed to concede two goals. I'm not sure what Smalling was doing for the first goal, I would have thought the whole point of playing him at right back is to make sure we don't get done with back post headers. And the second was pretty soft as well.
We started the game as well as we have at any time this season, but for all the energy and movement, there was only really the Smalling shot that could go down as a real chance. Valencia didn't have a bad game, but he's not really producing killer balls into the box, and Smalling isn't a right back. On the other flank, I though Januzaj got better as the game went on, but Evra's legs weren't there, though for once, Lennon didn't give him as hard a time as he usually does. He did get behind him once, in the first half, but De Gea saved Evra's blushes with an excellent save.
I've got to say, I'm starting to have a problem with Moyes tactical approach, like all United fans I love wingers and width, but you can't base our whole attacking approach down the flanks. It's happened a few times this season, if we don't get any joy out wide, we seem to run out of ideas. And that's what happened yesterday. When was the last time we scored a goal from someone shooting from the edge of the box, alright it was Young, but that was like a bolt from the blue, it was so unexpected. Think back to Beckham, Scholes, Denis Irwin even. I've said it before we have too many players who don't score enough goals
Once they saw out that first twenty minutes they became reasonably confident. I feared the worst when they got that first goal, even though it came out of nowhere really. Our response was pretty limp, it took their second goal for us to really up our game. Of course then, we were all over them, but the luck wasn't with us on the day, a penalty not given, balls not bouncing right for us in the box.
I suppose the substitutions were attacking enough, but I've never liked Valencia at right back, and I definitely don't want to see him there against the better teams. Hernandez is never the best outside of the box, but at the moment his whole game has gone right off the boil. I would have Januzaj inside behind Welbeck and put Young on the right, with Rooney in midfield. Januzaj was our most creative player, play him where he can hurt the opposition most. I thought the youngster and maybe Welbeck were our best two players, but we couldn't get Welbeck on the ball enough. It was a great goal, a beautiful ball and a great finish from the man who's supposedly not a natural goalscorer.
Rooney had a very in and out game, he started well enough, but seemed to go right off the ball for a spell after the yellow card. He may have been carrying an injury, I don't know, the balls to Januzaj on the right when we were chasing the game we as good as it gets. I always feel he struggles against strong fit teams and Spurs are definitely that.
I'm afraid the truth of that matter, is we just aren't good enough at the moment, we can probably give anybody a game, but you wouldn't put money on us to actually win any of them. We missed Jones badly yesterday, either in central midfield or at the back he would have improved things. When i look at Smalling at right back, I wonder why we let Michael Keane go out on loan, because for me, he would do us a decent job there.
I suppose there will be hysterics that we should buy someone, anyone, I don't go along with that, if we can find a world class central midfielder out there, then fair enough. But I'd still sooner see youngsters, like the Keane's, Powell's and Lingard's given a go. We're going to really find out whether we have "great owners who don't intefere with the manager"as a famous man once said, over the coming months.