Foot Long Hot Dog
Player Valuation: A packet of pork scratchings
Absolutely not. If he finishes outside the top 7 with this team and with the net spend he seems set to have been allowed this year, he's had a poor first season. Mirallas, Fellaini, Jagielka, Baines, Distin, Gibson etc - that is a top 6 quality team Moyes has built. There's no getting away from that. It's settled, enthusiastic and ready to play for the new man. All he has to do is get his tactics right and keep the football good and we stay top 7 at least. Short-term we are laughing. I expect the best of his reign to come now. He has a massive opportunity to get some early success here, in the league and/or cups. He can do that. He's a decent manager.
He has said that he wants to move us on to "the next level" and that what is massively important here is that we don't "let the standards set by Moyes slip". He's right, because if we finish 10th next year we miss out on millions in prize money, probably a good bit of attendance revenue, surely lower season ticket sales for the year after and all that on the back of a net spend that the club are probably going to have to bend over backwards (knowing them, ffs) to give him.
If he finishes below the likes of West Ham and Fulham next year, expect an exodus from our quality players and a bigger hole in the debt to be filled, not to mention a deflated atmosphere around the club. You are making excuses for him that he wouldn't even make for himself, already.
I don't expect him to be successful in the long-term. I won't fume if he slowly takes us down the league. It's what should happen, really. It's what would have happened had Moyes not been so good for us. As long as he's notably slowing that decline and performing better in cup competition than Moyes, I'm happy for him to stay. I do like the lid after all, as well.
Bang on the money that imo. Well said lad.
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