TWO HOME DEFEATS in the space of four days saw large contingents of Old Trafford boo Manchester United manager at the final whistle this afternoon.
The Premier League champions mustered little in the way of a fight in response to Yohan Cabaye’s 61st minute goal for the Toon. Robin van Persie had a header ruled out for offside and Patrice Evra hit the post with a header but the visitors held out for a 1-0 win. The scoreline was the same as Everton’s Wednesday night win over David Moyes’ former side.
Under Moyes, United are now winless in four league games. The Scot put up a brave front when he was interviewed by BT Sport following his team’s latest setback.
“I’m disappointed with the result,” he conceded. “There were parts of the game where we needed a bit of luck to go for us and to take opportunities a bit better. In the end, that didn’t happen.”
Moyes added, “We’ve lacked a bit of creativity at the right times. When we’ve had chances to make good passes, we’ve not quite made them. We lost the two games 1-0 and both have been against the run of play slightly… We have to create more chances, more opportunities, play better. That’s the way to do it.”
There will be light at the end of the tunnel, Moyes agreed with BT commentator Ray Stubbs. “It is that transitional period, which was always going to be the case. We hoped we wouldn’t be as poor as we have been in the last couple of games but hopefully we’ll get this right,” he said.
Moyes brushed over any concerns about rumblings of unquiet in the home crowd and declared the United fans ‘have been great’. The champions could fall 15 points behind Arsenal if the Londoners win tomorrow but Moyes refused to throw in the towel on the title race.
The Scot declared, “I stand firm that we’ll be very close to [the title race]. Hopefully we’re in and around it when it comes to the end of the season.”
Moyes revealed, in a separate BBC interview, that he was planning to take Robin van Persie off after 60 minutes before Cabaye scored for Newcastle. “If I had [substituted van Persie] people would have said what are you doing? We were chasing the game and needed to get a goal back.
