Consecutive away fixtures but the two performances couldn’t have been more opposite from Manchester United. Against Cardiff they were second best, unambitious with possession and lacklustre going forward. 4 days later and they had their biggest ever away win in the Champions League, dominating most of the game to beat a Bayern Leverkusen team 5-0 that hadn’t lost for 13 home games, winning 11 of them. United seemed much more willing to keep hold of the ball, playing it forward intelligently and looking genuinely dangerous when entering the final third of the pitch. This was in stark contrast to Cardiff; there were very few (if any) sustained and flowing phases of play where United strung a number of passes together. For me this shows Moyes must continue to show ambition and intent in the way he sets out his United team to play.

Tentative Moyes

Moyes had a reputation at Everton for being too reactionary at times, failing to make his team dictate the game when the onus was on them. This tendency of his was plain to see at Cardiff. When Kim Bo-Kyung equalised in the 92nd minute against Manchester United on Sunday there was a serious sense of inevitability about it. Cardiff had looked more threatening throughout most of the game and as more time went on, the deeper United dropped and the more in confidence Cardiff grew. For United fans it felt much too similar to the Southampton game at Old Trafford in October, they had started brightly and held an advantage only to surrender more and more of the ball and with it control of the game. Instead of looking to build on an early lead and kill any chance the opposition had of getting back into the game, they looked to soak up pressure in the hope of holding onto a slender lead.

Moyes’ defensive minded philosophy has been evident on a number of occasions this season. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing. There is certainly a time and a place that this style of football can be successful, even the most sensible option. Against Arsenal, Moyes opted for to play very narrow to stifle their immense creative talent in the middle of the pitch and take advantage of the fact that they were lacking in the wide positions with injuries to the likes of Walcott and Oxlade-Chaimberlain. In the second half, as United got narrower to protect their lead, Bacary Sagna became one of Arsenal’s most threatening players – with a number of extremely tempting crosses into the United penalty area. On this day, United held on and Moyes was vindicated in his approach. That Arsenal result was a fantastic result for United fans, and a brilliant weekend with other results also falling our way, but I couldn’t help but feel a sense of disappointment with the way in which we won that game. Like I said, there’s a time and a place to be defensive. But for the last 20 or 30 minutes of that game United were at times simply resorting to hoofing the ball as far out as possible. They took a very pessimistic approach that really stifled and took the life out the game a. It was the least number of passes (344) United have made in a home game in over 7 years, and compared to the same fixture last season they played over 200 more passes (532). There have only been away league games since the start of the 06-07 season when United have played fewer passes. It is even more surprising given how well United started and how much of the ball they had; they controlled the first 10 minutes with 66% possession and still had 58% possession after 20 minutes. This displayed they have more than the capacity to dictate the tempo of the game for large periods of time. But the more time went on and the less willing United were to keep the ball. It wasn’t particularly pretty.

Obviously it has to be considered that we were playing an extremely dangerous Arsenal side who before that had gone 15 games on the road unbeaten (winning 14 of them), so it did make sense go for a more defensive approach. But Cardiff on Sunday and other games have highlighted a worrying trend. They only played 67 successful passes (out of an attempted 109) into the final third throughout the 90 minutes, displaying a worrying lack of possession and attacking intent. Cardiff were more than happy to concede possession and soak up pressure for most of the game, they almost seemed to expect United to take control of the ball and dictate the tempo of the game. Instead United were uninspiring with the ball and conceded possession far too easily. Gary Neville spoke on Monday Night Football after the West Brom home defeat about United’s uncharacteristic reaction to equalising. He spoke of how surprised he was to see United step off the pedal after equalising, when you previously would have expected them to be pinning West Brom back into their own half. West Brom are more than due credit, it was a flawless away performance and Steve Clarke rightly said in his post match interview that at least as much praise should be given to his side as criticism to United. But United facilitated West Brom’s superiority with an overly cautious approach. The stats below show Man Utd’s response in the 10 minutes after equalising.

Against Cardiff too there appeared to be a reluctance from the United players to keep hold of the ball and continue to press to put the game to bed. The picture below shows United’s attempted passes into the final third of the pitch in the last 20 minutes of the Cardiff game. Only 11 successful passes displays a serious lack of attacking intent or ambition. At a time when they should have been looking to build on their slender advantage, or at least keep hold of the ball to stifle any chance Cardiff had, United were happier to sit deeper and deeper. Granting Cardiff so much command of the ball only enhanced their confidence and the only surprise in their equaliser was that it didn’t come sooner.

Dominant Response

4 days later though and United put in what is undoubtedly their best performance under David Moyes. United were much more assertive with the ball and once in the lead never looked like relinquishing it. It was an emphatic and extremely professional performance; they were intelligent with the ball and ruthless when going forward. Shinji Kagawa excelled, contributing to a much more fluid and cohesive attack and drawing a number of fouls (one leading to United’s second goal) in the first start Moyes had given him in the hole.

What was more impressive was that this was without a number of key players – Van Persie, Carrick and captain Vidic all missed through injury while Fellaini was suspended. If anything you would have expected the reverse approaches to have been made; an assertive display at Cardiff in a game that United had to get 3 points against a team who would have been happy to concede possession, and a defensive reactionary set-up away to Germany’s 3rd strongest side when we were missing key players and absolutely could not lose. For me this demonstrates why Moyes must continue to show an active and positive approach to the vast majority of fixtures we have. If United had showed half of the attacking intent against Cardiff that they did in Leverkusen they would have at least granted themselves with more opportunities, then it would have come down to their finishing. The graphic below shows how in Leverkusen they made nearly as many successful passes as they attempted into the final third against Cardiff (104 to 107). As Michael Carrick tweeted after the game, this was much more like the United we know.

This was the kind of ambition that was lacking at the start of the season when United had some potentially season-defining fixtures. Chelsea at home and Liverpool away were two pretty dire affairs, and the less said about the Manchester Derby the better. You could count the amount of chances they created in open play in each of those games combined on one hand. It would be far less worrying if we were creating chances but just failing to take them.

Conclusion

Moyes’ start was never going to be seamless. Whoever had been Fergie’s successor was going to have a difficult time; it’s a pretty unprecedented scenario to have a manager for 26 years who has achieved such an incredibly sustained period of success. It is a huge transitional period for the club. Moyes will still be getting used to the club and players just as much as the players will still be getting used to him. As Neville said in that segment he covered the West Brom game, Moyes has a 6 year contract for a reason. He will be given plenty of time to implement and shape his stamp onto the team. In the grand scheme of things this is still a very short period of time, he still hasn’t had his first busy Christmas period with the club. As soon as Fergie announced his retirement I knew the next few years have to considered in a much wider context. While I’d like to see more ambition from Moyes I’m not going to judge him for a long time yet. Judge him in 3 years time when he will have been able to put his stamp on what will truly be his squad. Something else I don’t want to see more of is comments like those he made about our lack of world class talent in pursuing the Champions League. Quite why he ever thought that was a good idea I’ll never know. Last season Ferguson said this was one of his best squads and capable of the Treble; while I certainly don’t agree with that it must’ve given tremendous amounts of belief to the squad. I’m not so sure the players would have been so thankful of Moyes, it’s such a defeatist attitude.

Still, there’s a lot for United fans to be optimistic about. Moyes will learn more as time goes on, and hopefully his negativity will become less common and more sensibly used when the time calls for it. If he continues to show the kind of intent he did away to Leverkusen then United more than have the players to show their superiority. There’s no doubt this one of their weaker title winning squads, but they’re still the defending champions. A lot of this team were part of the squad that reached 3 Champions League finals in 4 years not long ago. Carrick is maintaining a very high standard, Kagawa is continuing to flourish when given his opportunity, and Jonny Evans is having some of his finest displays for the club. Against Leverkusen he made a great challenge on Kiesling not 60 seconds before United went 1-0 up. Compared to his successor it’s easy to paint Moyes as overly negative; there’s simply no way the 3-3 Merseyside Derby would have happened while he was Everton manager, but he still had his Everton team playing some very attractive football at times and oversaw one of the league’s most exciting and effective full back-winger partnerships of Baines and Pienaar. Two huge fixtures follow with Spurs away on Sunday and the visit to Old Trafford of his former employer Everton on Wednesday. United must be looking for 2 wins, 4 points is a good return but the Cardiff game is one of too many dropped points already.