Under-fire Manchester United manager David Moyes has admitted the job of replacing Sir Alex Ferguson in the Old Trafford hot-seat is “harder” than he expected following Sunday’s 3-0 home defeat against Liverpool.
The Scot arrived at United last summer with the daunting task of trying to build on the job Ferguson had performed in over 26 years in charge at the club.
However, Moyes has struggled in the job so far and Sunday’s defeat against Liverpool on home soil was their joint-record ninth loss of the campaign and fifth in front of their own fans so far.
It has left United not only out of the Premier League title race but with virtually no chance of even securing Champions League qualification as they sit 12 points adrift of fourth-placed rivals Manchester City with only nine games remaining.
Speaking after Steven Gerrard’s brace of penalties and Luis Suarez’s goals sealed the win for Liverpool against his United side, who also had Nemanja Vidic sent off for two bookings, Moyes said: “We didn’t play well, Liverpool deserved their victory.
“Some decisions were correct, some were incorrect, but overall I’m disappointed. It is difficult to explain it.”
United have only won one game against teams in the top nine this season – against Arsenal at home – and Moyes accepts that big improvements need to be made. And he has also admitted the job of replacing Ferguson is bigger than he imagined.
He added: “That tells you we’re not doing as well as we should be. We have to play better and make ourselves harder to beat, harder to play against, and we are also going to have to make sure we are creating and taking more opportunities.
“We have a lot to do, to do both those things. I think the job was always going to be hard. Yes, it is harder (than I thought) I would say so.”
United will look to bounce back from their latest Premier League defeat by overcoming a 2-0 first-leg deficit against Olympiakos in their Champions League last-16 tie this week.
Moyes’ men can be backed at 10.00 to win 3-0 at Old Trafford and are 2.88 to advance to the quarter-finals on Wednesday.
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