1. “For any player, whether it be the captain of Manchester United or the a bench warmer at a League Two club, it becomes extremely difficult to play to your best ability when you are planning which house to buy next.
“Vidic will be moving on to pastures new in the summer and it was evident from the beginning of the season why. The Serbian, already a legend at Old Trafford, has struggled heavily at the Theatre of Dreams this season and, when the youth of the United side looked for a leader, Vidic failed to stand up.”
Squawka run the rule over the four players who let down David Moyes over on Eurosport.
2. “They found [training] boring. One coach appointed by Moyes was referred to as ‘F*** Off (insert name here)’, simply because that was what some players felt like saying when he started talking.
“Nor was the disaffection and the disloyalty restricted to the training ground. Towards the end of that game in Athens, for example, Moyes found himself arguing with the fourth official.
“‘Send him off,’ came one voice from among the substitutes. ‘We would be better off without him.’ A clear act of insubordination, it astonished those who heard it — but it was not an isolated incident.”
The Daily Mail’s Ian Ladyman outlines just how much contempt Manchester United players showed David Moyes.
3. “Old Trafford, once the theatre of dreams, is now the setting for a tragedy of unfulfilled expectations.
“The Glazers must’ve expected that they were getting a wee, ginger, fledgling Ferguson; Moyes surely imagined that the great day had come after years of stability and prudence at Goodison Park, frugally guarding the Toffees, he was finally to be given the reins of the all-conquering devils. The expectations of the United players I query.
“Perhaps a dressing room of potent alphas for decades rendered beta, shackled by the Bordeaux-stained Uncle Joe, sensed that the new incumbent would not be so ferocious with the boot-kicking and the hair-drying and, like over-parented teens suddenly in the care of a clammy-palmed au pair, decided to kick up a bit of a fuss.”
Russell Brand is usually worth a read – regardless of the subject – and he’s in top form in The Guardian as he discusses, for Moyes at least, the crumbling of the Theatre of Dreams.
4. “People don’t change. And 72-year-old people change even less.
“You don’t achieve the vast success that Ferguson did by taking long, agonising looks at yourself, whatever the self-help book industry pretends. Self-reflection is obviously required on occasion but only as a function of self-interest: to enable the elimination of mistakes that are preventing the benighted from realising your primacy.
“Whether motivated by fear of failure or the desire to win, the victor’s personality type requires the constant assertion of the self – a self in which one can only place the most fervent and unshakeable belief.
“As Ferguson himself stressed time and again in interviews during his managerial career: there is absolutely no room for self-doubt. And if there wasn’t then, there certainly won’t be now. He’s just not wired for it.”
Alex Ferguson has been quiet since Moyes’ departure but Marina Hyde outlines why we shouldn’t expect much humility in The Guardian.
And away from David Moyes…
5. “Some think Mourinho is playing possum ahead of the Anfield fixture. They think Chelsea will leap off the floor and do unto Liverpool what they did unto Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium, hounding and counter-attacking Manuel Pellegrini’s team with gusto.That night showed us Mourinho-the-master-strategist.
“If the mind games theory is wrong, Sunday will show the Mourinho who is willing to pull the sky down on one of the great title races out of self-interest.
“There is no bluff involved in him thinking he cannot win the league. But the stalemate at Atletico and Real’s 1-0 victory over Bayern Munich in the other semi-final will have raised his hopes of winning the Champions League with a third club.”
Paul Hayward argues that Jose Mourinho’s self-interest in in real danger of taking away from the best title race in years in The Telegraph.
6. “Armstrong cheated to win, and he destroyed people to cover up that fact.
“Those are serious sins, but they’re hardly more atrocious than the kind of bad behavior that has left the door open for other high-profile Americans to resume a respectable public life. Michael Vick tortured and killed dogs.
“Some people might never forgive him; others already have.
“Richard Nixon made a mockery of the presidency. He also, improbably, returned to public life. In the 1980s, he was a regular on Meet the Press, respected for his opinions on domestic politics and international affairs.
“But we can’t forgive Armstrong? Ever?”
Christopher Keyes asks if the world is ready for the return of Lance Armstrong over on Outside.
