Manchester United manager David Moyes would be foolish to plump for experience against Liverpool
David Moyes faces a dilemma when he selects his team for Manchester United’s Capital One Cup clash against Liverpool on Wednesday, one which strikes at the heart of the predicament he and his players find themselves in right now.
Thinking man's game: United
have, in recent decades, used the League Cup to blood youngsters, but David
Moyes might opt for experience against Liverpool Photo: PA
1:00PM BST 25 Sep 2013
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Having endured a 4-1 derby humiliation at Manchester City on Sunday,
the United manager is understood
to be contemplating a strong starting XI against Brendan Rodgers’ team, with
potentially only Nemanja Vidic, Rio Ferdinand and Wayne Rooney being rested from
those on duty at the Etihad Stadium.
Fair enough. Liverpool, without European
football to worry about this season, will be at full-strength at Old Trafford as
the Capital One Cup is a competition that Rodgers is determined to win, so Moyes
will clearly be wary of picking the wrong team.
The Scot is as keen as Rodgers to add the League Cup to United’s trophy
cabinet this season, but this is the issue – he should not be.
When the Capital One Cup takes on huge important to Manchester United, as it
appears to have done following the defeat against City, then it offers the first
sign of shifting sands at Old Trafford.
Perhaps it is arrogance, forged by two decades of success under Sir Alex
Ferguson, but when Moyes unleashes his team on Liverpool this evening, the vast
majority of the United supporters inside Old Trafford will not care less if the
team does well or not in the Capital One Cup.
Clearly, they will want to witness a victory against the club’s most bitter
rivals, especially after the embarrassment meted out by City.
But Ferguson’s treatment of the League Cup, in its many guises, has altered the perception of the trophy in the red half of Manchester and, for many, it only counts as a valuable testing ground for the club’s young players.
Moyes may know this, but while Ferguson was free to shrug it off on the basis of having won Premier League titles and European Cups, the new United manager has already admitted his determination to lay his hands on the first major trophy of his managerial career.
And that desire, coupled with the opponents on Wednesday and the events of Sunday, are likely to see Moyes pass up the chance to bank huge credit with the United supporters by treating the Capital One Cup like Ferguson did and turning to the kids.
Last Saturday was the nineteenth anniversary of United’s controversial, and landmark, League Cup second round victory against Port Vale at Vale Park.
An otherwise unremarkable tie earned its place in folklore because Ferguson prompted the local MP to condemn his team selection in parliament because, to paraphrase, it was cheating the Staffordshire public to rest United’s big names in favour of unknown youngsters such as Paul Scholes, Gary Neville, Nicky Butt and David Beckham.
Scholes scored two on his debut that night, a 19-year-old Beckham made his second appearance, while Butt and Neville played the sixth and fourth games respectively.
From that point on, the League Cup became the domain of United’s kids and many other clubs eventually followed.
There were some low-points, most notably a 3-0 defeat at home to York City the following season, but the trend was set and Ferguson stuck with it.
The benefits were obvious and even those youngsters who failed to come good at United did enough to earn moves away and forge careers elsewhere, such as Chris Eagles, Keith Gillespie, Guiseppe Rossi and others.
Moyes now has the opportunity to do the same against Liverpool, by turning to Adnan Januzaj and Wilfried Zaha, as well as giving the popular Javier Hernandez and Shinji Kagawa the chance to build fitness and make a point to the new manager.
Circumstances are conspiring against that, however, and Moyes’s decision to loan out Jesse Lingard, Nick Powell and Federico Macheda since the third round draw was made suggests that he will go with experience.
But if he is bold enough to turn to the kids, he will have nothing lose, except for a third round tie in the Capital One Cup.
And when it comes to surveying the bigger picture at Old Trafford, that does not really matter.
But Ferguson’s treatment of the League Cup, in its many guises, has altered the perception of the trophy in the red half of Manchester and, for many, it only counts as a valuable testing ground for the club’s young players.
Moyes may know this, but while Ferguson was free to shrug it off on the basis of having won Premier League titles and European Cups, the new United manager has already admitted his determination to lay his hands on the first major trophy of his managerial career.
And that desire, coupled with the opponents on Wednesday and the events of Sunday, are likely to see Moyes pass up the chance to bank huge credit with the United supporters by treating the Capital One Cup like Ferguson did and turning to the kids.
Last Saturday was the nineteenth anniversary of United’s controversial, and landmark, League Cup second round victory against Port Vale at Vale Park.
An otherwise unremarkable tie earned its place in folklore because Ferguson prompted the local MP to condemn his team selection in parliament because, to paraphrase, it was cheating the Staffordshire public to rest United’s big names in favour of unknown youngsters such as Paul Scholes, Gary Neville, Nicky Butt and David Beckham.
Scholes scored two on his debut that night, a 19-year-old Beckham made his second appearance, while Butt and Neville played the sixth and fourth games respectively.
From that point on, the League Cup became the domain of United’s kids and many other clubs eventually followed.
There were some low-points, most notably a 3-0 defeat at home to York City the following season, but the trend was set and Ferguson stuck with it.
The benefits were obvious and even those youngsters who failed to come good at United did enough to earn moves away and forge careers elsewhere, such as Chris Eagles, Keith Gillespie, Guiseppe Rossi and others.
Moyes now has the opportunity to do the same against Liverpool, by turning to Adnan Januzaj and Wilfried Zaha, as well as giving the popular Javier Hernandez and Shinji Kagawa the chance to build fitness and make a point to the new manager.
Circumstances are conspiring against that, however, and Moyes’s decision to loan out Jesse Lingard, Nick Powell and Federico Macheda since the third round draw was made suggests that he will go with experience.
But if he is bold enough to turn to the kids, he will have nothing lose, except for a third round tie in the Capital One Cup.
And when it comes to surveying the bigger picture at Old Trafford, that does not really matter.
