1. He had ‘lost the dressing room’
Widespread dissatisfaction with Moyes has been emanating from Old Trafford for some time. It goes back to Rio Ferdinand complaining about the manager’s tendency to delay the release of his team-sheet, a comment which was uttered all the way back in December, when United still competing for the Champions League and the title.
Furthermore, some players were reportedly unhappy with Moyes’ rigorous early-season training regimes, while Robin van Persie – though he denies that it was his intention – clearly sparked controversy after expressing frustration that others were playing in his zones.
Consequently, the picture portrayed at Old Trafford was one of widespread disharmony, with reports that Moyes had lost the dressing room intensifying. The recent performances on the pitch backed up these claims, with United looking unusually spiritless in games against rivals such as Manchester City, Everton and Liverpool.
So when faced with the option of selling all these unhappy players or sacking the manager, there was only going to be one decision (the eminently cheaper one).
2. This is comfortably United’s worst season in the Premier League era
Perhaps David Moyes’ tenure can be summed up by the number of unwanted records he manager to acquire during his brief time there.
It’s the club’s first failure to qualify for the Champions League since 1995, they have are guaranteed to finish with their lowest points tally ever, it’s the first time Everton and Liverpool have both done the double over them in one season, the list goes on…
Perhaps the biggest issue is United’s lamentable home form. They have almost lost as many home games (six) as they’ve won (seven).
As many people have pointed out, the total points accumulated in Moyes’ first season is vastly superior to many past Manchester United managers initial endeavours, however this era is completely incomparable to previous ones.
Moreover, a deeper examination of the facts will illustrate that Moyes took over the league champions, whereas Ferguson became manager of a side in the relegation zone.
3. He lacked the personality for such a high-profile position
Being manager of Manchester United is a far more complex and demanding role compared to when Alex Ferguson was appointed on 6 November 1986.
Aside from the obvious differences – having to control egotistical millionaires, requiring worldwide scouting systems rather than ones focused primarily in Britain and Ireland – perhaps the most fundamental difference is that managers are now required to be politicians in a sense.
Moyes’ public utterances rarely inspired confidence. Instead, there were either overly negative (“as you can imagine, the blood drained from my face,” he said upon learning that he was to become the next Manchester United manager) or ridiculously positive (he insisted his time played well during several abject defeats, including their most recent loss to Everton).
Furthermore, some of his comments during his reign were borderline embarrassing – his suggestion that United “aspired” to reach City’s level, his assertion that “any average person” would struggle to do his job, his claim that United won the league last seasons because other teams “were poor”. These unwise words were exacerbated by the fact that Ferguson was a consummate media operator and it is consequently difficult to ever imagine him, or indeed most top-level managers, making similar slip-ups.
4. For all his years at Everton, he had no experience taking teams to the next level
It would be churlish to suggest that David Moyes did anything other than a fine job at Everton. Yet his work at Goodison Park, while being consistently solid, was rarely spectacular in a sense.
It’s therefore unfortunate from his perspective that the Toffees chose so wisely in picking moyes’ successor. Not only has Roberto Martinez maintained Moyes’ success, he has proceeded to build on it.
Even if they fail to qualify for the Champions League this season, which currently looks the most likely outcome as they trail Arsenal by a point, Everton have undoubtedly progressed under Martinez.
While under Moyes, Everton were invariably well-organised and difficult to beat, the football they played was seldom breathtaking. Moyes deserves enormous credit for the manner in which he quickly guided them from being relegation contenders to regular top-half finishers.
However, the problem was that they had stagnated under Moyes – in the Scot’s 11 seasons at the club, they had secured Champions League football just once, and even then, they failed to reach the group stage.
Meanwhile, Everton have flourished this season by playing the type of attacking, exciting football that was rarely seen in the Scot’s era. Players such as Seamus Coleman have swiftly developed. New signings such as James McCarthy have made a big difference. It’s difficult to conceive of this ever being the case in an alternate world in which Moyes had remained Everton boss – if anything, his departure was a blessing in disguise.
The fundamental issue is that Moyes is not a risk-taker like Martinez or Brendan Rodgers or others who have overachieved immeasurably. It would simply not have occurred to him to convert Steven Gerrard into a deep-lying midfielder. It’s impossible to see him overseeing a truly audacious feat, such as Martinez masterminding Wigan’s FA Cup triumph.
He will always be a good manager capable of getting a team to a certain level, however as with others such as Harry Redknapp and Sam Allardyce, he seems to lack the necessary attributes to be a genuinely great manager of a top club.
5. Alex Ferguson/the board made life difficult for Moyes
It may sound ludicrous to suggest that Moyes was given anything other than an enviable job, as he was taking over statistically the best team in the country, however that was always a false position, particularly when United failed to emulate many of theur rivals and significantly strengthen in the summer.
Arguably aside from their goalkeeper and strikers, there was weakness everywhere you looked at United.
Rio Ferdinand, Patrice Evra and Nemanja Vidic had all seen better days in defence. Ryan Giggs and Michael Carrick weren’t getting any younger in midfield, while the loss of Paul Scholes’ vast experience and technical ability was another blow.
Ed Woodward’s failure to secure a number of transfer targets in the summer exacerbated these flaws, while it didn’t help that their two big signings have yet to really set the world alight.
Injury, combined with a series of limp performances, have rendered this season a virtual wrote-off as far as Marouane Fellaini is concerned, while Juan Mata, despite looking sporadically impressive, has been hampered due to a reluctance to play him in his favoured number 10 role – a particular problem, given that it’s also the position in which another star player Wayne Rooney, tends to operate in.
Of course, none of the aforementioned difficulties render Moyes blameless; it merely shows he was far from the only individual at Old Trafford guilty of committing serious errors.
