Moyes admits United struggle

David Moyes has admitted that Manchester United’s slow start this season has left him disappointed, despite the club’s tradition for being notoriously slow off the blocks.

United conceded a late equaliser on Saturday as Southampton grabbed a deserved 1-1 draw at Old Trafford, which means that David Moyes has now won only once in four league games on home turf, with many suggesting that the Reds have lost their fear factor and that teams are no longer scared to travel to Old Trafford.

Sir Alex Ferguson insisted that even winning just a trophy would be a success for David Moyes in his first season in charge, but with United lying eight points adrift of league leaders Arsenal, any hopes of success seems misplaced and irrational at the moment as the lack of investment in the transfer window has backfired upon United with sheer force.

Moyes, however, remains convinced that his players are good enough to mount a serious challenge for success.

“The players here are good enough and come the end of the season is when you have to be in your best form.

“Over the years, Manchester United have been slow starters quite often. We’ve been a little bit slow in the way we’ve gone about things at the start, but hopefully that will improve,”  said Moyes.

“We knew we had a difficult opening period and we knew the games we were coming into, in lots of ways, looked as if they were more winnable.

“But we have to try and do it. We’ve got to do it. We lost two points today. But we’ll pick ourselves up.

“We have to make sure we do our job. We can only try and win our games now and then concentrate on the other matches later on. It is a slow start but I am sure we will improve.”

The United manager rejected suggestions that his defensive-minded substitutions costed United the three points against Southampton. Moyes replaced Nani with Ryan Giggs, Danny Welbeck came on for Marouane Fellaini and Wayne Rooney was withdrawn to make way for Chris Smalling.

“I didn’t think that at all,” said Moyes. “We didn’t take the two forwards off. We kept them on. We brought Danny Welbeck on, brought Ryan Giggs on.

“I thought we actually tried to get a second goal. Only in the last three or four minutes when I was trying to make sure we had some height at set-pieces we actually lose a goal from a set-piece.

“That is one of the things we will be looking to try and do,” said the United manager. “Try to finish matches off. We have had some opportunities.

“But I’ve been saying that near enough from the start. We’ve had quite a few chances and not taken them and while it’s like that, you’re at risk.”

It could be a long season.