Last night Manchester United were eliminated from the Champions League. Drowning in the possession of Bundesliga champions Bayern Munich, David Moyes saw his team go out 4-2 on aggregate in the quarter-final stages.
It could have been a lot worse. The neutrals and our rivals expected us to get a hammering, as did some reds. In the first leg we set up the way we needed to but were wasteful in front of goal. The second leg saw a repeat of that wastefulness along with an ever growing amount of tiring defenders. This lead to Bayern taking advantage of avoidable mistakes.
Patrice Evra’s goal granted us the best 22 seconds of Manchester United’s first season under Moyes. However, it was quickly wrote off with Mario Mandzukic equalising from a header. Thomas Muller and Arjen Robben then added two more to the scoreline, really putting a nail in our coffin.
In reality, the Germans were beatable but a poor United side just couldn’t pull it off.
So, where does this result leave United? Nowhere different in my opinion. The issues that needed addressing some months ago still need fixing. This summer we will see the last of Nemanja Vidic, Patrice Evra, Rio Ferdinand and possibly Ryan Giggs. The latter two will retire while Evra looks set to join Vidic at Inter Milan.
Regarding the current squad, it’s not as bad as people have made out this season. I don’t think it needs to be torn apart and rebuilt. There are several areas of concern and I hope we don’t see more transfer periods spent ignoring them. Although in addition to our struggles this season, appointing a manager well out of his depth certainly didn’t help, so this process will take longer than what it should.
United need a quality left back, a world class midfielder or two and a manager of the standard expected. An attacking philosophy along with winning mentality would be great, not mediocrity.
Ta ra, Moyesy.
