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| More Greek tragedy could be a turning point Posted: 19 Mar 2014 03:11 AM PDT
It could, in many ways, be an emotional night at Old Trafford: probably United’s last Champions League appearance after 19 consecutive years and one which could determine David Moyes’ future and therefore the club’s future, the immediate one as well as the long-term one.
The astonishingly poor display in Athens in the first leg was what many thought to be the nadir of Moyes’ tenure at Old Trafford but, having managed to plunge even deeper into misery on Sunday, there are no guarantees whatsoever that United will avoid another embarrassment in a season of lows. It’s not defeatism, it’s pragmatism. In the history of the Champions League, only once a team trailing 2-0 after the first leg has managed to overturn the deficit and progress to the next stage and even though Olympiacos have never avoided defeat on English soil, only a fool would bet on United progressing to the quarter finals. Granted, Old Trafford has seen many great European nights, but this team has none of the cavalier approach embodied by Robbo, Whiteside and Stapleton against Barcelona in 1984 – the most obvious term of comparison ahead of tomorrow night, though only for the scoreline, not for the calibre of the opposition – nor does it possess the verve of the teams that put Juventus, Barcelona and Inter Milan to the sword in seasons gone by. What Old Trafford still can produce, though, as it was abundantly clear on Sunday, it’s a rousing support for the 11 men on the pitch in a red shirt and the fans will need to get behind the team yet again tonight, another act of defiance probably destined to fail, but one that remains necessary, nevertheless. Almost everybody seems to want David Moyes out now, perhaps even the players himself, but accepting a defeat tonight as a sacrifice for a greater cause are missing the point. United should part ways with their manager regardless of the result against Olympiacos, particularly because, in the unlikely event of them sneaking through to the quarter finals, they’d anyway be obliterated by the likes of Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Real Madrid or just about any team left in the competition. United, though, really ought to go through against a side that was made to look good by United’s tragic deficiencies in the first leg, which are likely to exploited again tonight, as Antonio Valencia and Ashley Young could return to the starting XI, given Juan Mata is cup-tied, while Mr £27m could again feature alongside Michael Carrick. Chris Smalling and Jonny Evans are both out, meaning that Nemanja Vidic will get to skipper the side again, and too bad if he’s already thinking about which high street shop he should visit first when he gets to Milan, he’ll have to put the thought aside for a while and improve on his recent performances, for United must keep a clean sheet if they’re to stand any chance of going through. Tonight is United’s 250th game in the European Cup/Champions League. How long we’ll have to wait for the 251st is anybody’s guess. Probable line-up:
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| Posted: 19 Mar 2014 01:19 AM PDT
In yesterday’s press conference Moyes reiterated that he doesn’t consider himself or his job at risk and that the club’s hierarchy shares his view for the club’s long-term future.
“My future has not changed one bit. I have got a great job, I know exactly the direction I want it to go in. It’s not been the season we hoped we would have but I have ideas of what I want to do and put in place when the time is right,” said Moyes. “The most important thing now is to get the Olympiakos game played and hopefully get through. If we can it would be a massive lift but we know we have got ourselves in a poor position being 2-0 down. We have got a lot of belief and we have got to try to make it show in the game.” With United 18 points behind league leaders Chelsea and all but out of the race to a Champions League spot ahead of next season, it’s been widely reported that the club might soon demand drastic improvements, but Moyes remained defiant about his relationship with United’s hierarchy. “The biggest assurance is that they let me get on with the job. We never discuss it, we talk about the future. We are making big plans for years going forward, this is why it’s a six-year contract, this is not a club that works on a short-term vision, it works on a long-term vision,” claimed the United manager. However assured Moyes might be about his job, there are growing rumours reporting that tonight’s clash against Olympiakos could be the beginning of the end for the United manager, who’d surely be a dead man walking should his team fail to qualify tonight and lose against City on Tuesday. For the first time in his tenure, the press seems to have turned on Moyes and in the Guardian, Daniel Taylor lifts the lid on how volatile the United dressing room appears to be this season: “What he [Moyes] really needs, though, is the players’ backing and the latest leaks out of the dressing room are not exactly glowing for Moyes and his staff, in particular the coach who now goes by a deeply unflattering nickname. “Has he lost the dressing room? The way it has been described to this newspaper is that he never actually had the dressing room.” The Times, meanwhile, adds that: “There are growing doubts within the club about whether his tenure should continue into a second season. “From boardroom to dressing room, there is a profound sense of awkwardness and a pained acknowledgement that, barring a dramatic transformation over the next few days, let alone weeks, the Moyes regime is beginning to look moribund.” One way or the other, tonight could be a momentous night for the club’s future. |
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