Moyes - should he stay or should he go?

[Tom Hughes]

Some interesting posts about fan's patience etc. Football has been over-hyped and analysed to excess over many years now, and expectations are sky-high almost everywhere. Often well beyond the reality for those respective clubs. People are increasingly paying over-inflated prices, when realistically only a small proportion of those fans can ever experience the levels of satisfaction that they might feel is proprtionate with their outlay. This appears to have created increasingly impatient and often even fractious "support" at most clubs, which then demands changes at almost the first sign of failure or drop of form. Clubs need to be more aware that the fans are a major part of their product, and probably shouldn't be charged excessively when consumer-satisfaction cannot ever be guaranteed.

Years ago, the dynamic seemed slightly different. Many less committed fans simply walked away when their team stopped winning regularly, and you often got big reductions in attendances as team performance dropped off over a season. Nowadays most clubs have much higher numbers of season ticket holders and fan-engagement levels are to the maximum as a result of that now over-hyped, well-packaged product, with all stadiums at or near capacity every week. More fans are essentially contracted to attend now, so the easily disgruntled get to be heard at most grounds, with the ubiquitous moans and groans at every misplaced pass, plus the mass exodus for the exits as soon as the opposition scores. It might be my imagination, but the general moaning and levels of venom directed at players/managers seems to be higher than ever.

I think the reality for us is that we're still a fairly dysfunctional first eleven and quite limited squad. We're practically toothless up front, fairly solid but unbalaced at the back and largely workmanlike overall. Moyes has had one summer window following a long series of new managers and a period of almost terminal decline. Despite that, we're somehow still just a few points off 6th. I think, if given the chance, Moyes will fill some of those glaring gaps in the squad, and hopefully our home form will eventuallh begin to match our away form.... where that whole dynamic/expectation relationship appears to be slightly different. I don't think we're that far off being decent.

 

[Username.]

Some interesting posts about fan's patience etc. Football has been over-hyped and analysed to excess over many years now, and expectations are sky-high almost everywhere. Often well beyond the reality for those respective clubs. People are increasingly paying over-inflated prices, when realistically only a small proportion of those fans can ever experience the levels of satisfaction that they might feel is proprtionate with their outlay. This appears to have created increasingly impatient and often even fractious "support" at most clubs, which then demands changes at almost the first sign of failure or drop of form. Clubs need to be more aware that the fans are a major part of their product, and probably shouldn't be charged excessively when satisfaction cannot be guaranteed.

Years ago, the dynamic seemed slightly different. Many less committed fans simply walked away when their team stopped winning regularly, and you often got big reductions in attendances as team performance dropped off. Nowadays most clubs have much higher numbers of season ticket holders and fan-engagement levels are to the maximum as a result of that now over-hyped well-packaged product, with all stadiums at or near capacity every week. More fans are essentially contracted to attend now, so the easily disgruntled get to be heard at most grounds, with the ubiquitous moans and groans at every misplaced pass, plus the mass exodus for the exits as soon as the opposition scores. It might be my imagination, but the general moaning and levels of venom directed at players/managers seems to be higher than ever.

I think the reality for us is that we're still a fairly dysfunctional first eleven and limited squad. We're practically toothless up front, fairly solid but unbalaced at the back and largely workmanlike overall. Moyes has had one summer window following a long series of new managers and almost terminal decline. Despite that, we're somehow still just a few points off 6th. I think, if given the chance, Moyes will fill some of those glaring gaps in that squad, and hopefully our home form will begin to match our away form.... where that whole dynamic/expectation relationship appears to be slightly different.

Just stay or go, will do.

 

[Tom Hughes]

Just stay or go, will do.

Might as well shut the thread then since almost 2 thirds say stay.

 

[Davideeyore]

I'm very disillusioned.

No confidence in what ever they're trying to do as a group. Not going quite as planned. Moyes picks them sets them up. They don't seem like they have the fight or desire.

 

[Username.]

Might as well shut the thread then since almost 2 thirds say stay.

Hopefully he does.

 

[Look to the future]

Changed my vote. His treatment of Dibling makes me sad.

 

[davek]

Might as well shut the thread then since almost 2 thirds say stay.

The poll was carried out 4 months ago and doesn't reflect current feelings.

I think the reality for us is that we're still a fairly dysfunctional first eleven and quite limited squad. We're practically toothless up front, fairly solid but unbalaced at the back and largely workmanlike overall. Moyes has had one summer window following a long series of new managers and a period of almost terminal decline. Despite that, we're somehow still just a few points off 6th. I think, if given the chance, Moyes will fill some of those glaring gaps in the squad, and hopefully our home form will eventuallh begin to match our away form.... where that whole dynamic/expectation relationship appears to be slightly different. I don't think we're that far off being decent.

That sounds like Moyes was powerless to make the squad more balanced last summer. He had a transfer warchest and could easily have got a RB in and a striker of his choice.

He wasted almost the entirety of that warchest on players he wont play.

 

[blueblood]

Some interesting posts about fan's patience etc. Football has been over-hyped and analysed to excess over many years now, and expectations are sky-high almost everywhere. Often well beyond the reality for those respective clubs. People are increasingly paying over-inflated prices, when realistically only a small proportion of those fans can ever experience the levels of satisfaction that they might feel is proprtionate with their outlay. This appears to have created increasingly impatient and often even fractious "support" at most clubs, which then demands changes at almost the first sign of failure or drop of form. Clubs need to be more aware that the fans are a major part of their product, and probably shouldn't be charged excessively when consumer-satisfaction cannot ever be guaranteed.

Years ago, the dynamic seemed slightly different. Many less committed fans simply walked away when their team stopped winning regularly, and you often got big reductions in attendances as team performance dropped off over a season. Nowadays most clubs have much higher numbers of season ticket holders and fan-engagement levels are to the maximum as a result of that now over-hyped, well-packaged product, with all stadiums at or near capacity every week. More fans are essentially contracted to attend now, so the easily disgruntled get to be heard at most grounds, with the ubiquitous moans and groans at every misplaced pass, plus the mass exodus for the exits as soon as the opposition scores. It might be my imagination, but the general moaning and levels of venom directed at players/managers seems to be higher than ever.

I think the reality for us is that we're still a fairly dysfunctional first eleven and quite limited squad. We're practically toothless up front, fairly solid but unbalaced at the back and largely workmanlike overall. Moyes has had one summer window following a long series of new managers and a period of almost terminal decline. Despite that, we're somehow still just a few points off 6th. I think, if given the chance, Moyes will fill some of those glaring gaps in the squad, and hopefully our home form will eventuallh begin to match our away form.... where that whole dynamic/expectation relationship appears to be slightly different. I don't think we're that far off being decent.

I accept some of this, but Moyes is a large part of the first 11 still being dysfunctional. He consistently picks a centre back at right back, a limited left winger as a right winger- who we tried and failed to sell in January.
He was backed last summer with several new players who he just hasn’t picked- Aznou, Rohl, Alcaraz, Dibling. In January we brought Harrison Armstrong back and George from Chelsea. And he’s not picked these boys to play either.
I think it would be perfectly reasonable for the Friedkins to be asking serious questions of Moyes judgment before committing to another £100m plus outlay this summer when last year’s efforts are up there with the disastrous summer spending when Moshiri was first here.

 

[FrannyJeffersLeftEar]

I voted stay, but I'm getting closer to the other side of the coin. I certainly don't want to see a new deal offered any time soon.

 

[Simo]

Launch into the Mersey wouldn't be far enough

 

[EGWToffee]

He hasn’t helped himself by putting emphasis on Europe in the media.Anything other than that’ll be seen as a failure now.

There is so many good and positive things about Moyes. But it’s the on field decisions that are the most frustrating:

Yesterday you could see West Ham’s first goal coming a mile away. He waited until we conceded to change it. This is common with Moyes. His insistence on playing experienced players (even if out of position) over young players. Freezing players out of the team. There’s a long list of players who’ve done well then not been given another chance this season. Players out of form who continue to get picked.

This is so frustrating for us as fans and in the end I can only ever see us being a mid table team under Moyes.

 

[MercuryBlue88]

Just changed my answer to leave, purely because i had hoped as the season progressed we would have seen more opportunities afforded to the whole squad. But we haven't, we are now seeing performances drop from key players due to playing every available minute. We bought depth and Moyes has decided not to use any of it.

 

[dockroad]

In my opinion Moyes has got carried away by all this talk of Europe and pundits calling him a great manager . He isn't great he's adequate . His team selections and reluctance to use subs or squad players is stifling our ambitions . He didn't go for the win when we equalised against the RS and the same thing yesterday. He'll be content with a plucky defeat against City as per usual.

 

[Moomin]

@GrandOldTeam , can you reset the poll and lets see what the verdict is today.

 

[Tom Hughes]

The poll was carried out 4 months ago and doesn't reflect current feelings.



That sounds like Moyes was powerless to make the squad more balanced last summer. He had a transfer warchest and could easily have got a RB in and a striker of his choice.

He wasted almost the entirety of that warchest on players he wont play.

You can change your vote at any time. So it should be reasonably current.... but besides, almost twice as many have voted stay.

Liverpool practically spent our entire "warchest" on each new player they recruited (to a league winning side). I think we mostly matched them last week and they only beat us by the odd goal. I don't know for certain what our recruitment process is and who is responsible for each part of that tbh, maybe you do. Priorities, availability and budget rarely align perfectly..... and certainly not over just one summer window. Apparently, we have the 2nd best away form in the league, with a squad that is valued firmly bottom half by most metrics and with some pretty glaring legacy gaps in the squad remaining. I think that is something we can build on, and a far more comfortable position than we have had for years. I don't thing anyone seriously thought we would be challenging for top 6 this year..... but having got us within sniffing distance, some now think we should've easily achieved it.