Once Manchester United‘s players decided the only place David Moyes was leading them was over a cliff, he was doomed. He was beaten by a combination of his shortcomings and the scepticism of the dressing-room in which Alex Ferguson had set a buccaneering tone for 26 years.
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Elite footballers can sense when a manager is out of his depth. In United’s increasingly limp demeanour it was obvious that few of Ferguson’s former players were willing to sacrifice their own careers while an overpromoted manager served a long apprenticeship in life at the top.
Call it player power, if you wish. United’s players would call it player survival, or unavoidable reality.
So far had the stock of Moyes fallen that some inside Old Trafford considered it an act of kindness to end his brief reign with four league games left. They could see him suffering, and felt no wish to see his reputation further damaged by the kind of feeble performance he oversaw at Goodison Park on Sunday. There was a growing sense that he needed saving from cruelty and ridicule.
A powerful financial consideration was also at play. Moyes was planning to spend huge sums this summer to clear out United’s passengers and instill fresh talent. The Glazers, who own the club, were due to arrive this week to discuss transfers. Sunday’s alarming 2-0 defeat at Everton destroyed the remnants of their willingness to hand Moyes a €150m-plus fund.
Simple business logic dictated that it was better to confront the malaise before money was wasted than stumble on out of loyalty to a man who is held in high regard for his personal qualities but (in retrospect) was poorly equipped for the jump in class and culture at Old Trafford.
How did this manifest itself? In long, monotonous training sessions that were at odds with much of what went before. United’s practice routines were always skills-based: short, concise drills for players who were used to operating at Champions League level. Moyes and his former Everton coaching staff laid down a longer, slower pattern of training that suggested a more chess-like, old-school style of play.
The results were apparent straight away. United’s cut-throat, relentlessly positive football gave way to a more ponderous approach. United’s fans wondered why the team were no longer reaching for the throat of the opponent.
There was more at play here than “tactics”. There is a Manchester United way, based on attacking, creativity, domination, spirit. Ferguson once said: “I never picked a team without thinking I was going to win the game.”
The opponent was a dartboard, especially at Old Trafford, where the badge, the history and the will of the crowd were all harnessed to maintain a domineering mindset.
The spiritual complexion of the club he inherited seemed lost on Moyes. He understood the “size” of the institution, its faith in youth and its winning “tradition”. But there was seldom any sense of emotional engagement with the club’s romantic side. Ferguson turned United into a brotherhood, a cult. It was never a mechanical exercise in grinding up the field or flat post-match press conferences.
The effect Moyes was straining for was authority – calm, long-term wisdom. The ability to think in years, rather than weeks, was one of his strongest qualifications for the job. But the whirlwind was soon upon him. Clearing out Ferguson’s coaching staff was the first major error. Mick Phelan, Rene Meulensteen and Eric Steele were all popular with the players and knew how the first team operated. They knew their way round Europe‘s biggest haunts.
While friends and colleagues at the club bemoaned their departures, there was bound to be resistance to the Everton-isation of Carrington, not just in personnel but outlook and decision-making.
This unnecessary upheaval might not have been decisive, but soon a pattern emerged on the pitch that is best described as a conviction-deficit. They were hesitant and crab-like. The rhythm and pace drained from their game.
In the autumn, sympathy was largely still with Moyes. He was a long-term appointment with a squad that needed strengthening, especially in midfield. He had coaxed Wayne Rooney back into the tent. The summer transfer blowouts were not all his fault.
But four defeats in January laid the ground for subsequent losses at Stoke and Olympiacos (another death-knell performance), and the calamitous 3-0 wins for Liverpool and Manchester City at Old Trafford. By then, there were rifts between individual players and the manager, and deepening doubts about team selection and tactics.
United played like a group of people who felt they had been sent out with the wrong starting XI and formation and were therefore doomed from the first bell.
Ferguson’s career of 13 Premier League titles and two Champions League crowns has been studied by the Harvard Business School. The short interregnum of Moyes also deserves its own academic treatment. Employed by Glazers, he struck a glass ceiling. Culture shock overwhelmed him. He changed too much, not too little, upsetting the patterns that had served the club so well.
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