Moyes still shocked by Greek calamity

Moyes admitted that he had been taken aback by the
abject quality of his team’s performance in their
shock 2-0 Champions League loss to Olympiakos. The English champions must attempt to overturn a
two-goal deficit in the home leg of the last 16 tie on
March 19 after a limp display at the Karaiskakis
Stadium in Piraeus in Tuesday’s first leg. Olympiakos were good value for their victory, secured
through goals in each half from Alejandro Dominguez
and Joel Campbell, who is on loan at the club from
Arsenal, but in United they came across surprisingly
generous opponents. Careless in defence and short of ideas in midfield,
United failed to muster a single shot on target during
the game and did not seriously threaten until Robin
van Persie shot over the bar in the 82nd minute. “I’m just surprised,” a shellshocked Moyes told
journalists afterwards. “I didn’t see that level of performance coming. I didn’t
see that. I still didn’t think we were necessarily two
goals worse off in the game. “We have a shot which gets deflected (for
Dominguez’s goal), but we didn’t offer enough on the
night to create a goal, really.” Democratic in his criticism of his players, Moyes
added: “We never really got to grips with things. To a
man, you could hardly pick anybody out (who played
well). “We just didn’t perform well tonight (Tuesday). We
came into the game in good form, with a good
mindset, but it didn’t show tonight.” The defeat, United’s first against a Greek team, was
the latest sorry chapter in a season of misery for
Moyes and his faltering side. Knocked out of both domestic cup competitions,
United trail Liverpool by 11 points in the battle for a
top-four finish in the Premier League and face the
stark prospect of missing out on a place in the
Champions League for the first time since 1995. They last overturned a two-goal deficit in a European
tie in 1984, when they came from 2-0 down to beat
Barcelona in the Cup Winners’ Cup, but Moyes
believes the club can harness the mystique of their
famous stadium to turn the tie around in the second
leg. - ‘the players are hurting’ - “The players are hurting as well. They know how they
performed,” he said. “But there’s a team here, and we won’t change. We’ll
stick together. There’s a second game to come and
Old Trafford has seen some great nights in the past
and I’m looking forward to hopefully seeing another
one.” Former United captain Roy Keane, working as a
pundit for British television, opined that Moyes would
have been “shocked” by the lack of quality in his
squad, but the Scot dismissed that assessment. “I think there’s undoubtedly talent at Manchester
United, but tonight we didn’t show it,” he said. “Me and the team, we didn’t show it together. It’s
something we have to do and we’ll put it right. We’re
determined to put it right, and we’ll have opportunities
to do it in the coming weeks.” Dominguez opened the scoring in the 38th minute,
cleverly flicking Giannis Maniatis’s shot past United
goalkeeper David de Gea, before Campbell curled in a
fine effort from 25 yards after 10 minutes of the
second half. Olympiakos coach Michel, the former Real Madrid
midfielder, described the result as the best of his
managerial career, but he refused to disparage his
opponents despite their wretched display. “We’ve been preparing for a long time, but in silence,”
he said. “We know about the qualities of Manchester United
and we know they’ll be far better in the second leg at
Old Trafford. “We congratulate our players and we’d rather do that
than talk Manchester United down.

Vanguard