David Moyes has warned United fans that the club are in a transitional phase and that those thinking that Sunday’s derby day shellacking at the hands of Manchester City was a one-off occasion could be hugely disappointed.
The United manager told the Guardian that failing to adequately strengthen the squad over the summer has made the transition from Sir Alex Ferguson to him even more difficult and that it will take time to start seeing results.
“Not for a minute did I think this Manchester United job was going to be an easy job,” said the Moyes.
“There will be days like we had on Sunday, and there might be more of them because we’re in a period where there will be transition.
“There’s a new manager for the players, and in turn there will be new players as well at different times, so obviously that will happen.
“It does mean I may have to take a few more blows, definitely. Maybe even more than that – maybe all season I’ll have to take a few blows – but I knew this was going to be the case because I was taking over from a great manager and it was always going to take time for me to get my own ways and change things round a little bit.
“It doesn’t mean big jobs, but there will be some things. I think a lot of people thought Manchester United [winning the title] last season, but it was probably the form of other teams that was poor.”
The United manager defended his squad, but admitted he was keen to add a couple of quality signings over the summer, when United’s only arrival was Marouane Fellaini as fans looked on in disbelief at the club’s utter ineptitude in the transfer market.
“I don’t think it’s actually the squad. I think we’ve got numbers.
“I think maybe where we’ve got work to do is bring players in, not for the squad, but to go right into the team, so that’s the slightly different equation.
“It’s not necessarily squad players we needed. We needed one or two who might have just gone straight into the team. But that will happen.
“Going back to that transfer window, we always said it was going to be a tough one and it was going to take a little bit more time.”
Moyes is confident his players will bounce back against Liverpool, in tonight’s Capital One Cup clash.
“And when you’ve got [players] like that you hope there will be a reaction and I’m sure there will be.
“I think it’s important that I took the punches. I’ve taken the punches and I’m happy to do that. Any manager who’s in a situation where they’ve lose a game will tell you that it’s not a nice place to be when you’ve been well beaten, which we were.
“I hadn’t seen that poor a level of performance from us either in our games – we looked quite easy to play against, which is not the norm.
“I think the one thing when you play here is that any team is always going to have a hard game against Manchester United. But I thought it was just too easy to play against us.”
