He didn’t go full Arsène Wenger and skip his press conference, but after Manchester United lost 3-0 in today’s Manchester Derby, manager David Moyes was in no mood to endure the post-match ritual. After briefly addressing the assembled press corps at Old Trafford, the embattled first-year boss walked out on questioning, providing few explanations for another disappointing performance.
The performance saw United fall 3-0 to its cross-town rivals, with City’s win at the Theater of Dreams vaulting Manuel Pellegrini’s side into second place. United sits seventh after its sixth home loss of the season, with 12 points separating the reigning champions from fourth place.
Wenger, whose team suffered a 6-0 loss at Chelsea, didn’t even show up for this spost-match session on Saturday. In the face of his own embarrassment, Moyes stopped short of matching his colleague, but as one reporter on the scene relayed via Twitter, the disappointed manager wasn’t long for today’s affairs in Stretford:
[tweet https://twitter.com/tomwfootball/status/448585740784791552]
[tweet https://twitter.com/tomwfootball/status/448589504178569216%5D
Given how quickly his team fell behind, you can understand Moyes’s frustration. In less than a minute, Edin Dzeko had put Manchester City in front, a lead the striker doubled 10 minutes after half time. Yaya Touré added a third late to give the Manchester’s blue side its lopsided result.
“We never came out of the blocks. You warm up the players, get them ready, but we just never started well enough,” Moyes said, one of the few answers he gave after the loss.
[tweet https://twitter.com/DTguardian/status/448585862616735744]
Perhaps Moyes feels his players’ early capitulation speaks for itself, but throughout what’s became a historically disappointing campaign, he still hasn’t answered the questions that puzzle Manchester United supporters week-in, week-out: Why is this team setting up they way it does? What’s the motivation behind the selection (choices that left Adnan Januzaj out of today’s game)? Why such a huge tactical shift from last year to this? In short, can you explain why the team has been so bad?
There may be good answers to all these questions, but at the beginning of the season, all we heard were platitudes along the lines of I thought we played better than the result. Now that the season is an obvious failure, United fans probably want those answers. And if there are none, at least let fans in on the thought process.
Supporters are past hoping this will turn around. Now, they just want some reason to believe things will change. He’s under no obligation to, but Moyes could give that to them, if he stuck around.
