David Moyes experiment at Manchester United is going terribly wrong and manager must deliver soon
Choice to overlook Jose Mourinho is looking even more dubious after defeat to Fulham at Old Trafford in Premier League
Perhaps there is a sub-plot to Jose Mourinho’s equine analogies as the
Premier League title race enters the final straight.
Arsenal and Manchester City are the big horses and Chelsea the little horse, but with
Manchester United now limping along in seventh position, have they backed the wrong horse in David Moyes?
Or, more to the point, did Sir Alex Ferguson stumble into his biggest misjudgement since Rock of Gibraltar when urging United’s American owners, the Glazer family, to disregard the qualities of Mourinho in order to hand Moyes the job of succeeding him at Old Trafford?
It only requires a glance at the Premier League table to suggest the experiment has gone terribly wrong.
With Mourinho’s Chelsea now sitting at the top of the table and improving game-by-game, it would not be beyond the Portuguese to aim his barbs with a subtle reminder to Ferguson and the Glazers that, when you want to back a winner, a proven ability to last the course and distance is the primary criteria.
Moyes is a good man and a proven manager in the Premier League following eleven years at Everton, but he has offered little evidence he is the man for Manchester United.
He must deliver something, somehow, in the final thirteen league games of the season to show that next season really will be better.
The Glazers and Ed Woodward, United’s executive vice-chairman, have given no indication of being jolted by the alarm bells that are ringing at Old Trafford and it would be wholly unexpected -- and wrong -- if Moyes was dispensed with now.
Patience and playing the long-game remains the position, but nobody should fall into the trap of second-guessing the Glazers.
United has always been a financial investment, first and foremost, for the Americans and failure is never good for business.
Long-term planning is admirable, but seventh position, out of both domestic cups and relying on an unlikely Champions League success to secure entry to the competition next season is not the best recipe for a robust bottom line.
With United now nine points adrift of fourth-placed Liverpool following Sunday’s 2-2 draw at home to Fulham, it is impossible to argue against the perception that things are getting worse, rather than better, at Old Trafford.
Under Moyes, United are twenty-one points worse off than at the same stage last season and, regardless of injuries, poor form, bad luck and whatever else may be cited as mitigation, it is inexcusable for a team of such talents and track record to be plumbing the depths of seventh position.
Moyes was indisputably dealt a poor hand by Ferguson when he took charge at Old Trafford last July and there can be no hiding from the reality that many of the squad he inherited were too old, injury-prone or simply not good enough.
But the same squad won the league by eleven points and that is the biggest stick with which Moyes is being beaten right now.
One manager -- Ferguson -- was able to motivate the squad to perform beyond its capabilities, yet the other -- Moyes -- is having the opposite effect, with United’s players unquestionably failing to deliver for the Scot.
Those players are the ones who must look themselves in the mirror, but when a manager talks about the buck stopping with him it is because he knows his job is to motivate, organise and deliver.
Moyes is not doing that and by decrying his players as ‘mentally soft‘ following the Fulham game, he is inadvertently pointing the finger at himself, the man charged with ensuring his team has the confidence and belief to perform.
Just as concerning for Moyes is that there is no visible pattern to his team’s play beyond, as Rene Meulensteen suggested on Sunday, ‘get it wide, get it in.’
As for a philosophy or vision for the future, it is shrouded in a fog of confusion.
When Liverpool toiled away under Brendan Rodgers last season and failed to qualify for Europe, the manager earned time and support because there was a clear sense of the team developing and growing.
That has been borne out by Liverpool’s hugely impressive season so far and the exciting football being played at Anfield.
Liverpool’s players bought in the Rodgers ethos, but if Moyes is attempting to get a message across at United, his players are either not listening or not taking it on and again, that is a failing of his management.
Perhaps that is the root of Moyes’s problem.
Big-time players, those who have won titles and cups, know how to win, but Moyes walks into the United dressing-room on a daily basis with a CV bereft of the kind of success his squad once took for granted.
How does Moyes persuade those players that his way is the right way, when he has nothing to show for it beyond cuttings of league tables with Everton positioned just outside the top four?
At Chelsea, there is no such credibility gap with Mourinho and that is a major factor in their success so far this season and the coaches ability to turn a team that was going nowhere into title challengers.
Moyes, for all his efforts, is currently achieving the opposite at Old Trafford, with United performing the biggest and most dramatic collapse since Devon Loch.
This was always going to be a difficult season - anyone who actually thought we'd challenge for the title needed their heads checked back in August. Admittedly, I didn't expect us to do this poorly - I anticipated a tighter challenge for fourth/third place. Then again, I didn't really expect Arsenal or Liverpool or Tottenham to secure the results they've had this season.
