League title a ‘long way away’, admits Moyes

Manchester United Manager, David Moyes, admitted his team’s chances of defending their Premier League crown look extremely unlikely after today’s 3-1 defeat to Chelsea.

Moyes witnessed his United team lose a seventh league game this season, leaving them 14 points off Arsenal in top spot and six out of the Champions League places. He felt his team were the dominant party in the first-half at Stamford Bridge, something opposition boss Jose Mourinho conceded despite saying his team deserved to win.

Moyes told Sky Sports, “We go a bit unlucky with the first [Samuel Eto’o] goal. The other two were from set-pieces and were our own fault. Terrible defending for their second and just as bad for their one in the second half.”

The former Everton boss said United lacked a player who could finish the chances carved out by Adnan Januzaj in the first half. “We created as many chances, if not more than Chelsea. Football is about scoring goals; we didn’t do that today and Chelsea did,” said Moyes. He also admitted that his thoughts, when Eto’o deflected strike opened the scoring, were, “Oh, here we go.”

Moyes defended captain Nemanja Vidic, who was sent off for a late hack on Eden Hazard, but he claimed not to have seen the two-footed lunge by Rafael that Gary Cahill was lucky to avoid.

With United well adrift of the leading pack, Moyes was asked if he was ready to concede the title. He responded, “It’s a long way away. I’ll never say it’s gone for us but we’ll do our best to get back into it.” Mourinho agreed with Moyes that the league crown may be beyond United. He said:

“They will do that with their pride and tradition and fight and hopefully they win against the other contenders, because now we do not play against them [United] in the league.”

Moyes also confirmed that he is hoping to bring in a couple of transfer targets and added, “We’d like them now if we could get them.”