MANCHESTER UNITED are ready to back David Moyes in the transfer market after acknowledging their squad needs strengthening.

United are due to fly to Donetsk for tomorrow’s Champions League encounter with Shakhtar that has taken on additional significance following Saturday’s Premier League defeat by West Brom.

The loss was the club’s third in six games this season.

It represents their worst start to a league campaign since 1989, has seen them slide into the bottom half of the table and pushed out to fourth favourites to retain their crown, with the bookmakers believing United will be battling Tottenham for the final Champions League place.

This is not quite the transition envisaged in the summer, when Moyes walked into a club fresh from romping to a record 20th league championship by 11 points.

Yet the majority of Red Devils supporters accepted it was a rather flattering outcome, and the squad Moyes inherited from Sir Alex Ferguson had clear deficiencies.

These certainly go well beyond the scope of Marouane Fellaini, Moyes’ only significant signing of a desperate transfer window.

Yet, despite the intense glare of scrutiny on United from the outside, inside the club there is a sense of calm.

Work is continuing to identify suitable targets and the Glazer family, having handed Moyes a six-year contract as Ferguson’s successor, are determined to provide the Scot with the required financial muscle to strengthen his squad as he sees fit.

There is an acknowledgement that a difficult adjustment was not helped by the decision not to buy Moyes out of the final six weeks of his contract at Everton once it had been confirmed he would replace Ferguson.

The decision cost Moyes the chance to get to know some members of staff, including the scouting network, which meant he was effectively starting from scratch when he took charge on July 1.

It was for this reason previous targets such as Thiago Alcantara were suddenly dropped, with the ultimately doomed effort to prise Cesc Fabregas out of Barcelona taking shape instead.

All this cost time in what Moyes knew was going to be difficult period anyway, as he acknowledged in an interview at the end of July.

“Ideally, you would get your signings done early but for different reasons it has not been possible to get them done at this moment in time,” he said.

“This club is always preparing for the future. We are looking at targets we hope to sign in a year’s time, not necessarily just this year.”

Yet, even though Moyes has been assured funds will be put at his disposal, fans hoping for an influx of players in January may be disappointed.

Although United have made significant signings during the mid-season window, Patrice Evra and Nemanja Vidic being the most obvious examples in 2006, it is a notoriously difficult time to do business.

Many top players are cuptied from European competition and even though two of the most obvious options – for whom Moyes made offers last month, Leighton Baines and Ander Herrera – do not fall into that category, Everton and Athletic Bilbao may view them as essential in reaching targets that have been set for their respective clubs.