John McCormick writes. Pete’s sevens were pessimistic but I thought we did OK in the second half and will be fine once we sort out our defence, midfield and attack.
What does our manager think, however? Well, to let you know, here’s a look at the letter he sent to M Salut, and maybe one or two others, immediately after the game:
Dear Colin,
I thought we didn’t deserve to be 2-0 down at half time; there was some poor defending on some occasions and their first goal was really good, however, before then Middlesbrough had barely been up the park.
Before the goal I thought we were the better team, we lost our way 10 minutes before half time when we lost John O’Shea to injury; that didn’t help and we had to change it quickly.
The second goal was poor and there are things we need to work on, we’re giving people games at centre back who’ve not been here long and we were short of midfield players today too.
The players who came in today because of injuries did a really good job. In the second half I thought [Lynden] Gooch was terrific and Steven Pienaar did brilliantly after coming on; everyone stuck to it. Papy [Djilobodji] had a good game, he looked really solid.
We struggled to find a real balance with the team today, but I think everyone understands we need more players in.
The fans were brilliant; I hope they understand it’s going to take time and we have some problems at the moment that we’re trying to make better.
Thanks for your support,
David Moyes
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If he had any self belief he would be banging the drum about how he intended to change things. No players are going to want to come to a club managed by a bloke who anticipates his own failure after two games.
He isn’t the right man for the job, and he hasn’t done a single thing since he arrived to convince me otherwise. He is an unambitious man who had ambition thrust upon him by Sir Alex Ferguson. A decade at a club who at that time had even more modest expectations than he did. Never won a trophy in almost two decades of management but got the hot seat at Old Trafford where he was totally rumbled, and then embarrassed himself at Real Sociedad. Now its our turn. His stock has fallen so low that he took on the challenge at SAFC. His own expectations are rock bottom. Same as the rest of us now. He is out of his depth with this altogether. His only real achievement in management was to get Preston out of the third tier. Not the sort of track record that indicates his tenure will end in anything other than abject failure.
The answer seems pretty simple to me. Spend some money and buy some players .
A bit disconcerting to hear what Moyes had to tell the BBC about supporters expecting another relegation fight: “Well, they would probably be right. That’s where they’ve been every other year for the last four years so why would it suddenly change? I don’t think you can hide the facts, that will be the case, yes. People will be flat because they are hoping that something is going to dramatically change – it can’t dramatically change, it can’t.”
His pessimism might well be realism but I worry about a manager who comes across sounding almost beaten before he starts.
But if he was a Pollyanna he’d get slaughtered for either being naive or creating false expectations. We all know it’s going to be tough but I like the use of young players. Better than the usual mercenaries.
Hard to understand why people get vexed playing the Boro. They parked the bus well ….smash and grab stuff. We once again failed to do well against a newly promoted team. That said I’ve never seen so many young players in our first team. It has to be the way forward even if we occasionally get turned over like today. It’s our 10th season in the Prem…..will the Boro be able to do the same? So well done Smoggie, enjoy the honeymoon period.
Ta mate
The fans were brilliant not so much, they were walking out before the whistle and they booed the team off at half time