We need new blood, admits beaten Moyes

David Moyes has admitted there is an urgent need for Manchester United to bolster their underachieving squad in the January transfer window but concedes it may not be possible to sign the players he so desperately wants.

United’s troubled season hit a new low last night as they exited the FA Cup third round in a 2-1 home defeat to Swansea, their fourth home defeat in the last six games and the Welsh club’s first ever win at Old Trafford.

“There is an urgency that we would like to bring people in but are those players available in January? So there is no point in me hyping it up because the players we would like to bring in are probably not available in January, not because we don’t want to do it,” said Moyes.

United had seven senior players unavailable through injury but their manager refused to use their collective absence as a reason behind his fifth home defeat of the campaign.

“That is no excuse,” he said. “We had a very strong team out, just about every player we had out was an international player, maybe Alex Buttner wasn’t but the others are internationals.

“It shouldn’t be that. We put out a really strong team, lots of international players, everyone is getting an opportunity to show what they can do and hopefully then I will make the decisions from that.”