Manchester United’s season of horrors continued as they were beaten by Stoke city at the Britannia stadium on Saturday. Stoke city had a super charged Charlie Adam who took them past the champions scoring two goals and handing Moyes his eighth defeat in the league. The defeat continued Moyes’s record breaking spree at the Old Trafford club as The Potters beat their opponents for the first time since 1985.
The optimism of signing Mata and the confidence from the victory over Cardiff City vanished as they once again suffered a defeat to a team that was fighting its own battle to survive in the league. Post the match David Moyes admitted he did not know what he could do to turnaround the inconsistent season.”I don’t know what we have to do to win”, he said.
Moyes signed Juan Mata from Chelsea in the January window and handed him a debut straight away. However he fails to understand that buying one world class player and slotting him into a position that may not best suit his capability and preference will not help his cause. There is a good case for the Manchester United boss to try and work out a new formation in place of the outdated 4-4-2 or 4-4-1-1 setup.
Moyes possesses some talented and creative players who could actually play an exciting brand of football. Rooney, Van Persie, Mata, Kagawa and Januzaj are creative and technically proficient players. It has to be observed that Kagawa is one player who has often been played out of position on the wings in a traditional 4-4-2 or 4-4-1-1 setup. This reduces Kagawa’s effectiveness and ability to contribute to the team.
Moyes could look at using a 4-2-3-1 formation to take advantage of the creative group he possesses. A switch to this formation would allow him to accommodate Van Persie, Rooney, Mata and Kagawa/Januzaj in one team.
Van Persie leading the line with the trio of Rooney, Mata, Kagawa playing behind him and Fellaini/Jones/Cleverely partnering Carrick in the centre midfield could well be the right formation for this squad. The likes of Rooney, Mata and Kagawa switching positions to play in the No.10 role would make it really difficult to mark them. Their movement and runs in the box would create plenty of scoring opportunities. Such a formation was used during the successful 2007-2008 season when United had the trio of Cristiano Ronaldo, Rooney and Tevez winning the Champions League in the process.
There could be a case against including Kagawa in place of Antonio Valencia or Ashley Young. Kagawa has made just 9 appearances this season, with just 585 minutes on the pitch in comparison to 13 appearances and 663 minutes of Young.
Young has scored 2 goals, created 11 chances, won 43% of the duels, shot with an accuracy of 50% and passed with an accuracy of 80%. On the other hand Kagawa has not scored a goal, created 5 chances, won 57% of the duels, shot with accuracy of 67% and passed with an accuracy of 87%.
Although Young has created slightly more chances than Japanese talent, bear in mind that Young often played in his preferred position on the wings unlike Kagawa.
It is now impossible for the defending champions to retain their title this season. Even the crucial Champions League spot looks out of reach given the current form and the challenge mounted by Liverpool, Tottenham and Everton. It could be the right time for Moyes to just change it around and take that bit of a risk. After all he has nothing to lose now except the Europa League spot or even his job.
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We all know that’s exactly what Moyes needs to do — except Moyes himself. The guy’s a throwback. You could give him Lionel Messi and he’d still set up like Graham Taylor. He needs to be got rid of sooner rather than later.