Red Rants |
| Posted: 20 Jan 2014 04:16 AM PST
Yesterday’s defeat at Stamford Bridge saw United’s gap from league leaders Arsenal widen to 14 points, with even fourth place looming increasingly distant, as Spurs and Liverpool are six points clear of United.
Despite the numbers, Moyes insisted his focus remained to win the title, but Nemanja Vidic has different ideas and conceded that United’s title defence it’s all but over. “We are too far behind and we have now to focus on the top three or four,” said Vidic in an interview with Sky Sports. “We have to be positive,[yesterday] we didn’t play a bad game. They had three shots and scored three goals and that’s the difference in the game, we have been punished for every mistake we made. “It’s not going to be easy, we have to now fight to achieve the Champions League. We have to stay positive and stick together and work hard. With a bit of luck hopefully we can achieve that.” Vidic’s view might be entirely different from Moyes’, but the United captain refused to blame his manager for the shockingly poor season United are enduring. “We cannot always speak about managers, the players are tired of speaking about that because the manager is trying to do the best he can. Tactically we did well today,” said Vidic. The United captain will miss the next three games after Phil Dowd showed him a straight red for clattering Eden Hazard, a challenge many deemed to be worthy only of a yellow and Vidic himself was left disappointed by the sending off. “My feeling is that it was very harsh because I went for the ball. Hazard we know is a sharp player and he just pushed the ball,” explained the United captain. “In my opinion it was not a red card I was disappointed with that decision at the time.” Disappointment, now that’s a feeling we’ve got use to this season. |
| Posted: 20 Jan 2014 12:03 AM PST
Perhaps it really is staunch belief that his team will, at some point, turn the corner or perhaps the United manager is simply trying to desperately rally his troops, but Moyes’ determination in insisting that United are still in the title race is beginning to look like a desperate and pointless exercise.
Having been humbled 3-1 by Chelsea yesterday, United remain seventh, 14 points adrift of league leaders Arsenal and six points away from Liverpool and Spurs, currently occupying that much coveted fourth place – never thought it’d come to this, did we? – but Everton could leapfrog both of them with a win at West Brom tonight. Moyes, however, insisted that United are still focused on retaining the Premier League title rather than merely clinching a top four spot – an arduous task in itself as things stand. "What we won't do is throw the towel in until we can't get there. The job is to try and finish first. There are no clever answers: the next game,” said the United manager. "We'd lost one in six before today in the league, and I didn't think there was a big difference between the teams today. The difference was our defending to set-pieces. "I thought Vidic wasn't a sending off, but I've seen Rafa's and I think that could have been one." Asked whether United were in crisis, Moyes’ response was much sharper than United’s defending at Stamford Bridge : "Crisis is your word, not my word. The priority is to win the next game, a cup game in midweek. I'll try and do what we can there." Jose Mourinho, meanwhile, has other ideas – or perhaps is simply more in touch with reality – and declared that United’s title challenge – if there ever was one – is as good as over. "I don't think David will be upset if I say the reality: 14 points difference, and 13 and 12 (to the others),” said the Chelsea manager “Can they recover to one of these teams? They can. "But to three of them? It needs three teams to have almost a collapse. What I hope they do is to beat all of them to finish top four.” On that, we can all agree, Jose.
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| Posted: 19 Jan 2014 02:57 PM PST
Back then, United boasted a superb squad capable of taking on Europe’s finest, while today they crumbled against aChelsea side which, while looking solid, never got out of second gear.
It was hardly surprising to see United falling victims of their own shortcomings in South West London, but it was crushing to see them have the wind knocked out of their sails after a promising start. Having never beaten Jose Mourinho in the league, David Moyes decided to go all out and picked his best available XI, with Danny Welbeck leading the line and Adnan Januzaj behind him, while Phil Jones returned in midfield alongside Michael Carrick, as Antonio Valencia and Ashley Young patrolled the wings. Despite the lack of confidence that had accompanied to South West London, United started brightly and almost took the lead within 120 seconds, when Welbeck and Young exchanged passes, only for the former Villa man to fire straight at Peter Cech. Having controlled the opening 15 minutes of the game, United thought well of sitting back and allowing Chelsea onto them, the hosts’ pressure soon proving decisive as Eto’o took on Phil Jones, who lost his footing and allowed the former Inter man to skip past him, before unleashing a shot that, having been diverted by Michael Carrick’s shin, flew past David De Gea. Conceding the goal had tragic effects on United, their confidence evaporating in a blink of an eye and not helped by Phil Dowd opting to deny Danny Welbeck a clear penalty after he was brought down by Cesar Azpilicueta and could only fire a tame shot at Cech. United’s performance turned even worse when, 60 seconds from halftime, Eto’o doubled his team lead after some incredibly poor defending from David Moyes’men, who allowed the cross to get into the area, before leaving Eto’o all the time he needed to steer his finish past De Gea. What Michael Carrick and Ashley Young were playing at is hard to fathom, but neither was trying to defend to the standard a Premiership footballer is required to match and United went back to the dressing room with a scoreline that didn’t do any justice to their efforts in the first half. Having conceded twice in the first 45 minutes, United allowed Chelsea in within three minutes in the second half as Willian’s corner was headed towards De Gea, before Valencia stood and observed as Eto’o completed his personal ha-trick with the simplest of finishes. Quite what United’s back four were looking at, will remain a mystery, for neither Vidic, nor Valencia, Evra or Young were anywhere to be seen as Chelsea tripled their lead, nor did they offer a concrete contribution as Chelsea doubled their advantage. Smalling and Hernandez replaced Evra and Young, with the Mexican netting United’ s consolation goal, after Jones’ effort had looked to drift wide of the target. It wasn’t enough to lift United’s spirits, nor was it enough to alleviate the away fans’ torture but, at least, it made the scoreline a little bit more bearable, before Nemanja Vidic was ridiculously sent off for a challenge that was only worth of a yellow card, while Rafael should have suffered the opposite fate but, somehow, escaped punishment. As they say, when it rains, it pours.
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