Ah, the Moyes episode. It's still hard to fathom it all and am sure business schools will be using it as a case study for years in how transitions can be messed up even with the best of intentions. Hard to really go back in time but I remember thinking it was both an odd decision but maybe not the worst. There had been talk of Pep coming in or even Jose then, and my feelings at the time were that I did not want United to be the club that had a new manager every three years from the euro roundabout.
Moyes seemed to be a semi-valid option and with the endorsement of SAF it was not too outlandish to imagine he'd rise to the challenge. He was, at the time let us not forget, well-regarded in the game, liked by most people, and his teams always gave us a game. That said, he'd never won anything of note, Everton seemed to sleepwalk into new seasons and take an age to get going, and more ominously, his Everton sides never really seemed to get the better of Liverpool. I also hated that his idea of buying new players immediately seemed to include Baines and Fellaini, neither of whom I felt were good enough. Still....I was prepared to give him another year if only to see how he might shape up given he was expecting enough time to build a new team.
Yep, when the axe fell we were playing crap, the sense was the players had no faith in him (how sinister that this seemed so easy to see) and he himself looked a shadow of his former self. I don't understand some of the vitriol, I hated the fly-past protest and the appearance of the publicity seeking 'grim reaper' behind him in the stands, as it just made headlines for all the wrong reasons and became a personal attack on a man in public who was just trying to do his job. So all told, it was a sad and bad season.
For sure, the subsequent events in his career suggest he was never really qualified for the United job (he's diminished his own reputation with some of those roles) but one has to wonder if it might have been different had he kept the coaching staff in place, tweaked the side slowly and grown into it. Anyway, I have no hard feelings towards the man and hope he finds some success elsewhere.