Red Rants |
| Posted: 22 Apr 2014 04:31 AM PDT
By 'all', I mean the fans, players and certainly David Moyes. The air of inevitability surrounding the defeat to Everton at the weekend was a step too far for the hierarchy at the club who have, at long last, pulled the plug on what has been an outright disaster for the Scotsman.
There have been some truly horrendous performances this campaign, but few have been as worrying as Sunday's showing at Goodison Park. There has, in previous matches, been some sort of evidence that the team were trying to get going, even if it clearly wasn't ever going to happen. However, Sunday was a completely different kettle of fish. The team never got going. They weren't up for it from the first kick of the ball. They are already in holiday mode and David Moyes was powerless to quell that mentality. If you were to have sat down with Moyes at the beginning of the season and asked him what his worst case scenario would be for the forthcoming year: finishing seventh, below Everton, and Liverpool winning the league, would have ranked pretty highly. Absolutely nothing has gone the way of the former manager this campaign and it is difficult not to at least feel a tinge of sympathy for him. Everything that could have gone wrong has done, and it's ultimately cost him his place in the hot seat. But he didn't really help himself did he? On his arrival, understandably, Moyes wanted to make it his Manchester United. Not necessarily to rid the memory of Sir Alex, but to start a new era. However, he took it too much to the extreme by completely clearing out Sir Alex's staff. It must be something he now regrets as when the water began to get choppy, there was nobody there that really knew how to steady the ship. There would have been absolutely no shame in David Moyes leaning on the likes of Mike Phelan in those first few months as a tutor in how Manchester United and it's players work. I liked the idea of bringing in young coaches, whom maybe didn't really carry the experience either, but, at the risk of sounding like Alan Hansen, it's difficult to be successful with youth. No one seemed to have the strength to stand up and say, 'right, this is what we do.' It almost resembled the blind leading the blind. Performances this season have been non-existent, bar a couple of rousing Champions League displays. We have been consistently outclassed by teams in the top half of the table as motivation for the big games seems to have all but burnt out amongst the players. Long gone are the days that Sir Alex's presence on the touchline was enough to galvanise the troops without him even saying a word. This season, all we've seen is David Moyes sit in his chair and sulk or stand in his technical area and shout to players that quite clearly weren't paying a blind bit of attention. This is something I do want to put across to you all also. The players are not blameless in all of this. They clearly never believed that Moyes was the man for the job, which I do find bizarre as he was 'The Chosen One' of the man whom they had played for and trusted for years. But player power is at an all-time high, meaning once you lose them, the loss of your job will quickly follow. All that aside, I'm in no doubt that the decision today was the correct one. The job was too big for Moyes and the collapse of the club's stature was in danger of becoming irreversible. I understand some fan's concerns about the club not having enough patience and ruining the so called 'tradition' of 'sticking by the manager', (see my article, 'Are United becoming the new Arsenal?', for my opinion on that) but the club was in grave danger whilst Moyes was still in charge. There is no shame in admitting that Manchester United got it wrong. The job now must look a much more attractive one it's to prospective candidates. The next man to walk into Old Trafford as boss will find a club on it's knees, but there will be money to spend. They won't be replacing the most successful Manchester United manager of all time, in fact quite the opposite. Effectively, the only way is up. Greg |
| Moyes and his charlatans have run out of luck: 5 things we’ve learnt from Everton vs United Posted: 21 Apr 2014 09:09 AM PDT
It’s hard to draw any lesson at all from such an atrociously poor performance, but here’s five things we’ve learnt.
1) The sooner Moyes goes, the better “We came in at 2-0 but we had passed the ball really well. Unfortunately we didn’t have the final through ball”. Even by Moyes’ abysmal PR standards, yesterday’s post-match interview was a disaster. United didn’t play well at all, rather they delivered a masterclass in pointless football, constantly passing the ball to no avail, while Everton were clinical, sharp and effective – in other words everything that United have failed to be this season. Moyes deserved better than to be booed by the Everton fans, given his contribution to the club over the last decade, but the contrast between his side and Roberto Martinez’s couldn’t have been starker. Everton clinched their first league double over United since 1970, yet another record Moyes has manage to break, and if the club doesn’t act quickly things could get a lot worse for us.
It looks like it might be a matter of hours and, please, rip that banner down once he’s gone. 2) Our coaches couldn’t run a piss-up in a brewery Ahead of yesterday’s trip to Goodison Park, Phil Neville had spoken of being able to “go there and enjoy the occasion”, doing nothing to dismiss the notion that United have got the wrong brother on their coaching staff. For a player who’s won as much as he has and who’s been brought up in an environment where nothing bar the utmost commitment and desire to win we’re tolerated, Neville’s words sounded ominous. It was almost as he revealed in United being out of the title challenge, so they could travel to Merseyside without any particular pressure on their shoulders. Well, sorry Phil, but we’d rather not enjoy the occasion and see the players put a shift in than having to witness such shocking efforts. Steve Round, meanwhile, was caught on the touchlines holding what appeared to be a word document on how to defend set plays. That alone should be a good enough reason to sack Moyes and the charlatans he’s brought along with him, for losing might be hard to stomach but amateurism is simply not acceptable at this level.
3) The Nani conundrum For the umpteenth time in his career Nani is at the stage where “the next four games could decide his future”. Leaving aside for a second the fact that he should have done enough in the last seven seasons to ensure his future at the club, surely his long-term prospectives were decided when Moyes thought that offering him a five-year deal was a good idea. Nani isn’t good enough to make it at United – he hasn’t been anywhere near as consistent as a player of his potential should be, bar for the 2010-11 season – and his decline this season has been emblematic of United’s beleaguered campaign: he was expected to seize the opportunity to impress the new manager, instead he’s just drifted into mediocrity and should be offloaded in the summer. On the other hand, Moyes’ decision to play Nani yesterday was unexplainable, given Nani had barely been involved at all this season and Goodison Park isn’t the ideal ground where to experiment with players who are short of form and confidence. 4) Where does the club stand in the Moyes vs players story? United’s dressing room hasn’t been a happy place this season, with rumours of unrest and players growing disillusioned with life under Moyes almost as frequent as defeats to teams in the top six. Danny Welbeck was the latest to be linked with a move away from the club, joining Robin Van Persie, Ryan Giggs, Rio Ferdinand and Javier Hernandez on the list of players who’d rather have their cars nicked on a daily basis than play under Moyes. While the players need to take a long, hard look at themselves given the appalling performances they’ve delivered this season, it’s hard to fathom footballers being motivated by a manager who’s only agenda since arriving at the club has been to get rid of as many of them as possible. United needed to strengthen in the summer and failure to do so has left the squad and Moyes dangerously exposed to failure this season, but this team won the league last year. They might not be good enough to challenge for top spot again, but they’re definitely much better than the current position suggests.
Moyes must bear the brunt for those shortcomings and it’ll be interesting to see whether the club will stick or twist in the summer: the tide of support has long turned into a wave of discomfort and disillusion, the club’s hierarchy are the only ones who haven’t registered the change yet, though this afternoon’s events might be the beginning of the end for him. 5) Numbers Earlier this week, Moyes was apparently told that he needed to clinch a Europa League spot in order to strengthen his position ahead of the summer. As if considering a sixth-place finish a decent result wasn’t indicative enough of how bad United have been this season, Moyes could now fail to manage even that given that Spurs are six points clear with three games to go – albeit with a game in hand. Avoiding the Europa League would be a blessing in disguise, but Ed Woodward and the Glazers should look at United’s record vs the top six this season, which reads W1, D3, L8, F7, A22. An ignominy. |
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