David Moyes: Manchester United boss has doubts on transfer targets

 

 Manchester United boss David Moyes says he may struggle to strengthen his squad in January because there are not many suitable players available to sign in the mid-season transfer window.

He said a lack of new faces would "not be because we don't want to do it".

"We would like to bring people in but are those players available?" he added.

"There is an urgency but there's no point in me hyping it up because the players we would like to bring in are probably not available in January."

 Marouane Fellaini, who was with Moyes at former club Everton, was the only new arrival at United last summer.

The defending champions, who are seventh in the Premier League, were knocked out of the FA Cup by Swansea at Old Trafford on Sunday and Moyes admitted there was less of a fear factor at Old Trafford this season after his side's fourth loss in six home matches.

"Of course we need to return to winning ways," said the Scot.

"We need to try and get ourselves to be hard to play against and get something out of the good play we have in games."

United were knocked out at the third-round stage for only the second time in 30 years when Wilfried Bony's 90th-minute winner earned Swansea a first win at Old Trafford after Javier Hernandez had cancelled out Wayne Routledge's early goal.

The hosts' misery was compounded by a sending-off for defender Fabio 10 minutes from the end after he had replaced Rio Ferdinand, who suffered a knee injury in his first game since 10 December.

The defeat, United's seventh of the season in all competitions, came after they were beaten 2-1 by Tottenham at Old Trafford on New Year's Day.

 United midfielder Darren Fletcher said the team "had let Moyes and the fans down".

"It's a massive blow, let's not kid ourselves here, this is a really bad result and there are a lot of angry, hurt players," the Scottish midfielder added on MUTV.

"It's not good enough and we're going to have to raise our performance levels."

United were without injured strikers Wayne Rooney and Robin van Persie, while Moyes also rested midfielder Michael Carrick and centre-half Nemanja Vidic ahead of Tuesday's Capital One Cup semi-final first leg at Sunderland.

"We have another big game in 48 hours so we have to keep that in mind, but there is no excuse really, we had a very strong team," added Moyes. "Just about every player on the pitch was an international player.

"We shouldn't [rely on Rooney and Van Persie]. It should be that we put out a really strong team, everybody gets their opportunity to show what they can do, and then I make decisions from that."