To be honest it just sounds like he was winding you up. We do that sometimes when talking to Americans.
Well, Carrick and Giggs were the central mids last year when they put the bow on top of the league, so it isn’t like you can blame the failures of the team on who Moyes is trotting out to play in those spots at this point this year. And adding Fellaini isn’t doing nothing, even if he has been a disappointment (to you; I’m a Liverpool supporter so he and Mata have been quite all right with me). Unless you expected him to come in on day one and completely blow up the roster that ran away with the league last year, I do think it’s a bit harsh to blame his moves or the lack thereof on the poor performance this season.
This is akin to saying 7,2 is a good poker hand because the last flop came down 7,7,2.
I hope you can appreciate the contradiction here with regards to David Moyes own performance. Because the roster that ran away with the league last year is currently a misfiring turgid bag of dirt that will fail to qualify for the Champions league for the first time in over 15 years. So why is that?
Regardless of the obvious squad deficiencies this is still a squad of champions that should be finishing top four, it’s actually quite a fucking achievement to make Manchester United as bad as they have been this season.
The contradiction is what I’m pointing out. It’s the same players plus a couple of world-class additions. If you want to blame him for not making enough changes to avoid having such a shameful midfield selection, have at it. If you want to call the present roster a squad of champions that should be in position for European play next year, have at that, too.
But if you think he should have tried to win with what he had, deficiencies notwithstanding, while reshaping the side over time to fit his particular vision, well, I don’t think eighty percent of one season is enough time to tell. It’s not like he was just going to buy Iniesta in January.
But he hasn’t done either, thats the problem. I certainly don’t expect him to win while reshaping the squad, but I do expect one or the other!
If its win with what he has, well he has failed miserably in that regards, pretty much every senior player is playing like dirt under his regime. If its reshape the side, well he hasn’t done that either. Two transfer windows past and he hasn’t done near enough in terms of developing the squad.
Nobody is saying he should be buying Iniesta, but look at the left back issue for example. Evra has been an utter liability for two years now, and has been at fault for numerous goals this season, a left back has been a major priority for a while now. In two transfer windows Moyes has not only failed to address this issue, but he has made it worse by allowing the stand in left back Fabio to leave the club!Now we have Evra suspended for the Bayern Munich game, and Moyes will have to play the mighty Alexander Buttner left back against the best side in Europe. We are going to get creamed there.
This is an issue that should have been dealt with, but instead we spent £37m on Juan Mata, a great player we absolutely did not need.
Bump to say:
The answer to this question is No
Unsurprising I guess. They weren’t going to sack him until he definitely couldn’t get them into the Champions League (became a mathematical certainty in the last week) but they needed to push him prior to the transfer window opening, so that they can get someone in and rebuild the team. I assume that they will have someone in their thoughts - but they definitely need a name sooner rather than later, so they can start to attract players. It will need to be someone good too - given no CL next year, it will be wages and a manager worth working with that will attract players in the short term.
Ah well, a £16m pay-off will sweeten the deal I’m sure but I can’t help feeling sorry for the guy. I thought at the time that the better option would have been Mourinho, he is one of the few world managers who could’ve carried that weight.
But seeing as they still have to rebuild and find a worthy architect for that rebuilding I suspect their troubles are far from over. The man coming in will be looking at hundreds of millions to buy what he needs and the Glazers have seemed more adept at taking money out of the club rather than re-investing.
So who now? I’ve seen rumours of Van Gaal but is he really a long-term option and if the players couldn’t get on with Moyes what the heck will they make of Van Gaal?
Rocky times ahead I think.
I appreciate the argument that Moyes has neither rebuilt his squad nor got the best out of the existing one, but I still feel this is a big mistake. As I have said before, it’s starting to look like 1969 (i.e. post-Busby) all over again. Absolutely no-one, even Mourinho, was going to be able to get immediate success post-Fergie. In my view, the club made the best possible choice with Moyes and to give him less than a year is ridiculous. Naturally it is disappointing to miss out on Europe next season but look what that has done for Liverpool this season. We had a good run in the Champions League this year and could have gone further with a bit of luck. I can only see things going downhill from here.
Is it me or is Premier League a lot tougher on managers than American leagues? Seems like with a bad run of three games that fans of every club are calling for heads.
You think the Premier League is harsh, you want to check out Italy or Spain. Can’t remember who it was but some Italian in the papers pointed out that Moyes would have been fired three times by now if he was in Italy. Italian clubs will “fire” managers, not pay out their contract (so they’re still ostensibly under contract) and “rehire” them later in the season if the new manager doesn’t pan out (NB: don’t ask me how this works - because I have no clue, just that it gets repeatedly mentioned on the Guardian Football Podcast).
Self reply to note - it was Gianluca Vialli. And he said it in February - so presumably Moyes would have managed to have been sacked 4 or more times by now.
In answer to RW’s question then - yes, managers in the the European football leagues generally get considerably less slack than in American sports (I suspect that this is going to be to do with the heavy financial losses that come from missing out on silverware, Europe-wide competitions and relegation - none of which apply in the US - as well as there being, perhaps, more of a hair trigger temperament when it comes to these things in Europe). But the Premier League, even with the mass of firings that happens every year, is probably not the worst offender on this score.
I for one won’t mind observing the ManU decline for at least another season. I hope they go through a dozen managers next year! And then … watch with satisfaction as they go through at least as long a fallow period as Liverpool did (for whom it was not long enough, admittedly).
Yes, it’s all Schadenfreude here. The Red Devils can suck it.
I think you’ve made an excellent point in that the penalties for failure on the field are much harsher than they are for American franchises in their closed league bubbles and managers are thus given far less rope.
I’ve also read that fan pressures are greater as well. If a club reported a healthy profit while finishing fifth in their league, fans (and local media) would be calling for not only the manager to be sacked but also for the owner to sell the club to somebody who gives a fuck about winning. Those profits could have been used to buy a couple of midfielders who might have helped the team win a trophy.
Once they’re in, American sports franchise owners have it pretty sweet. Whereas the authors of Soccernomics called soccer the most efficient means of wealth transfer from fan to player, not owner, that sports have ever known. I don’t think a Donald Sterling or William Ford would cut it over there.
edit – crap, I quoted Cumbrian’s wrong post. Sorry, my friend.