10 years ago today David Moyes was announced as manager

As much as Moyes was clearly out of his depth at the club ,the way the experienced players just downed tools was quiet telling ,for me.
Lost abit of respect for some of those players during that period.
 
Was 1 of the most underwhelming appointments ever. Bad day for me. I knew it was gonna be a shit show.
 
I think SAF massively underestimated the scale of the difference between managing Everton and Manchester United. Perhaps misjudged just how far the top teams at the time had pulled away from the rest of the pack.

Moyes was destined to fail IMO because his mindset was just to negative too worried about what the other team can do, not about what his team could do. To risk averse and it showed big time.

I think ultimately whoever we got in that summer to replace SAF would of struggled with the combination of the start of the Woodward era and the fact there was no succession plan and a seemingly scattergun approach to transfers and of course following the wake of one of the best managers of all time.
 
It's been 10 years and we still have not got a clinical striker, and a midfield that can control games. We have only recently sorted defence (though it is fragile) and our goalkeeper displays the same issues he had when he was signed.

We have spent a billion dollars and have a poor squad and have no direction as a football club. At least the women's team improves year on year (despite the off the field issues with the club), we should pay them 200k and sack the men's squad.

I love them, but Fergie and Gill let us down bad with Moyes and then we were left with naught but the Glazers incompetence and neglect.
 
The punch in the gut that was Fergie announcing his retirement being swiftly followed by the disappointment of Moyes being announced as his successor was brutal.
 
Sir Erik ten Hag said:
81 crosses. Nuff said.

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I'll never forget that game :lol:

Never wanted Moyes. I wanted Mourinho. We got him in the end and that was awful, too. Hopefully the banter years are coming to an end.
 
There were stories whilst Moyes was at Everton about how in-touch he was with other European leagues, particularly Germany, and had compiled with his scouts this huge database of up and coming players. By all accounts he was keen on Kroos (though hardly the most obscure player or piece of genius spotting) when TK wa still at Munich, and by all accounts had him lined up provisionally before the sacking and Van Gaal's subsequent weird refusal to pursue the deal.

Not sure why he couldn't have suggested a couple of (easier to secure) 2nd choice midfielders or a longer-term forward - Lewandowski at Dortmund we know sadly wasn't for sale at that juncture, but there must have been others: I know there was the whole farrago with supposedly trying to sign Bale and Fabregas that summer.. and overlooking Thiago) but we ended up getting Felliani and then Herrera in following Summer, so it wasn't an exclusively 'Hollywood' approach, shoddy as it ended up being...
 
OnlyTwoDaSilvas said:
As much as I dislike him now, I do think the transition would've been better had it been Mourinho. Who knows how he would have excited the club and what state we'd have been in afterwards, but the 13/14 season would have been better for sure.
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Yeah Jose taking over immediately after Fergie is another sliding doors moment, for both parties. It went off the rails for him at Chelsea and he was sacked with them 10th or something. Does his career slide like it has if he came into united and kept the plates spinning successfully?
MileStolar said:
We were so cushioned in success that we didn't even think about failure, Moyes was a nice prospect because we wanted someone to replicate SAF and his longevity which Moyes at time looked to promise by being 10 years at Everton.
We thought we were too big to fail.

A nightmare that woke us from a beautiful dream into a cold and dark reality...
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It was definitely a bit of an arrogant appointment. Thinking we were smart for putting longevity above every other criteria and assuming it would go well.
 
Come on David Moyes
Play like Fergie's boys
We'll get wild wild wild
Wild wild wild

Was the best thing to come out of that era.
 
My 1st thoughts were this will be a disaster, mainly because I thought he wouldn't inspire much in the players because they had won everything pretty much and he'd won nothing and it turned into the truth pretty much.
 
I don’t think anyone really appreciated how much of a mess we were behind the scenes. We prided ourselves on the winning culture that had been created at the club over many years, that it was the next managers job to continue that and be the custodian of that winning culture. We knew Fergie would be impossible to replace, but I don’t think anyone realised the entire operation was a house or cards built on the man.
 
I can't remember being disappointed but I can't remember being excited either. Probably sums it up as the "meh" appointment it was.

Moyes had done a solid, if unspectacular job at Everton and he was seen as a "safe pair of hands". But that's the problem. It was just too safe. Too unambitious, too unimaginative. Totally against the grain of the history and ethos of the club.

I don't blame Moyes at all for the 10 years that followed. It's clear there were major structural problems behind the scenes at the club that the success of Fergie was papering over.
 
This is exactly what I tweeted upon hearing this news

"This is some horrible nightmare. David Moyes as the next United manager. It beggars belief."
 
In retrospect it was like pushing the club off a cliff. Weve been trying to climb back since. I think we'd have always dropped off but with another manager not nearly as much damage would have occurred
 
I was reasonably happy. I can’t think that there was anyone I really wish we got apart from Pep, maybe. Because SAF endorsed him, I trusted it was a steady but sure long term choice. Ten months later he’d crashed and burned.

He made lots of mistakes but the main one seems to be he didn’t get the balance right with the players between respecting them and demanding they toe the new line. Very tough but it’s the one thing that he had to get right.

He only got one shit transfer window. Half the “problem” players were let go by Van Gaal if I’m not mistaken. Maybe Moyes could have battled through and turned it around. But I certainly had my doubts from about Week 3.
 
jm99 said:
It was ridiculous that mourinho and guardiola both joined new clubs that season and we got David Moyes, replacing fergie was something you'd imagine either of them would have jumped at.

I'll never forget how unbearable the top reds were that season, after every home defeat, after every moyes "we'll try and make it difficult for them," after the 80 crosses game against Fulham, they were tripping over themselves to post

"Your job now is to stand by our new manager"

Smug cnuts
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Tom Van Persie said:
Mourinho was never a realistic option. SAF and Sir Bobby would never have allowed him to be the successor.

Pep and Ancelotti seemed to be the realistic options other than Moyes but I believe Pep had already verbally agreed to be Bayern manager well before Fergie announced his retirement and Ancelotti claimed in his book that Fergie spoke to him but he was close to accepting the Madrid job and rejected.
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Yes it's weird it's never discussed that Moyes wasn't truly the chosen one. I'm convinced we offered the job to others before Moyes. Pep had already publicly joined Bayern in December before SAF was retiring, Mourinho turned us down for Chelsea and Ancelotti turned us down for Madrid.

I made a thread about it a while ago - https://www.redcafe.net/threads/was-moyes-really-our-first-choice-to-replace-ferguson.404963/
Ancelotti since admitted he was offered the job but was already on his way to Madrid https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/football/13558418/carlo-ancelotti-man-utd-manager-alex-ferguson/
 
Surely has to be one of the top ten worst decisions ever made in football to appoint him.
 
In hindsight, Woodward was a far more disastrous appointment for the club than Moyes. Doesn't mean Moyes was right for the job, of course - far from it.
 
As I remember it then I trusted that the club knew what it was doing, and was therefore excited to watch the next great United manager build his legacy.

Well he certainly built a legacy I guess...
 
The club really blew planning SAF's successor.

The entire mystique of the club in the Premier League fell off the wagon that season and we've never really recovered.
 
The 10th anniversary lasted 26 hours for me due to travelling through time zones, horrendous.
Definitely a very good manager who deserved to step up from Everton but not to a club like ours. Way above him
 
Vidyoyo said:
Minor point but it bothers me how this clip was photoshopped to make it look like he's celebrating a draw. We actually took the lead through Carrick in the 80th min (hence the celebration) and Darrent Bent equalised in stoppage time to make it 2-2.

Moyes was shite of course.
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Possibly the most obvious goal ever scored at a match I've been to at OT - as soon as we took the lead then the players just seemed to stop despite Fulham pushing forward at will because of it. Our section even desperately started the "Attack!" chant as they built their pressure against us (I think they even had a good chance before they actually did score?) but still the players just seemed to have zero ambition to do anything but try to see out the last few minutes, despite the inevitable disaster being plain to see coming :mad:

Probably the most frustrating game I've ever been to.
 
I got thrown out from the Melbourne Utd Supporters Facebook page for stating the obvious that he was woefully out of his depth.

Dude at that point had not won away at a top 4 side for 12 years running or sth like that, with a top 8 club. That tells you all you need to know about his mentality, it was a wrong fit from the off.
 
I thought he would've stayed for years and won a lot of trophies.
 
I remember being disappointed but willing to give him a chance because Fergie said to. It was just the least ambitious or inspiring appointment they could have made.

That whole season exposed a bunch of myths and buzzwords surrounding United that thankfully have gone away:

1) "Loyalty/longevity", That it was a good idea to appoint a manager who we could guarantee would be here a long time instead of a "short-termist" like Mourinho or Guardiola. Ignoring the fact that longevity for its own sake isn't actually the point. A manager should earn longevity with his results. Nobody wants a longstanding manager with middling results or else you're just Everton 2002-13.

2) "United aren't a sacking club so we should give a struggling manager more time"...pure recency bias. Not a sacking club based on what evidence? In 2013 we simply hadn't needed to fire a manager in decades, but that had no bearing on what would happen when we were faced with a manager deserving of the sack. Outside of a couple of notable exceptions we've historically axed underperforming managers just like the rest.

3) "He's an honest, hardworking manager". He rolls into Carrington after his beach vacation not having done a day of prep-work, not even bothering to familiarize himself with this unknown "Thiago" fella (he couldn't have watched a few YouTube highlights on the beach?) and goes into the summer without a solid idea of who he actually wants to implement his style of play. Oh and "honest"? The man's never met an excuse he couldn't use or encountered blame he couldn't shift. I'm convinced he only got called honest and hardworking because he's not one of those shifty continental types.
 
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I actually thought it was a reasonable appointment but that didn't last long!

TBH whoever followed SAF was going to fail and at the time none of us knew how bad it was behind the scenes
 
The day I learned being Scottish wasn't the only qualification necessary to become a good manager.
 
SAFMUTD said:
I never imagined it was going to turn out this bad. 10 years of suffering and very very little joy.
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I was at the parade with my son a few days later, he was 13 then, and I remember saying to him that he needed to make the most of it because it’d be a long time before we had the opportunity again.
Didn’t think it’d be this long though.
 
I remember being so apprehensive about this appointment. I knew at the time objectively he had been doing a good job at Everton but I hated the football they played. I knew the minute Fellaini was purchased that we were going in the wrong direction. I always felt he was brought in because his contract was expired and he was British. I felt Ferguson underestimated his own abilities as a manager almost. As if he thought his success was only due to hard work and Moyes is also a hard worker, so hire him etc....
 
Seemed a ludicrous decision at the time, seemingly based totally on nationality and Fergie assuming all it took was a good hard working Scottish lad given enough time.

It didn't even match the brief the club had put out not long before, about having a trophy history and European pedigree.

The amount of people on here trying to make out it was a good move was a truly sad period in our time.
 
Even though I've been a United fan in total for nearly 35 years (inc. having a season ticket for about 8 years) I'd gone through a spell of losing interest in football in general between about 2003 and 2013, but Fergie stepping down piqued my interest again... safe to say I think I might have enjoyed myself a bit more having had it the other way round.

Was all in for Mourinho despite him being a bit of a knob, and was gutted when it was looking increasingly unlikely we'd hire him as the week panned out. I eventually talked myself round that Moyes might be okay. That feeling didn't last long.

Anyway, the real disaster was the Glazers taking over and not properly investing in the squad or infrastructure for years, then hiring their stooge Woodward to run everything.

Moyes was a symptom of the disease rather than the cause, and while it's taken me a while to get there I'm actually pleased for him to see him on the cusp of winning his first proper trophy. Same applies to all our previous managers, apart from possibly Rangnick who had an annoying combination of being utter dog shit while at the same time thinking he was a genius (as did all his fanboys, who were the worst of all the managerial appointments we've had since Fergie)

Moyes made some terrible mistakes but he shouldn't have been allowed such freedom, you can say that about every manager since. It's even happening under ETH now, and I say that as a big fan.
 
I know he had more important reasons for leaving, but as soon as it was evident we weren't getting a Pep or Jose type, I was SAF would have agreed to have stayed for a final season to help with the transition.

Having to make a his successor decision so quickly, whilst having David Gill moving on at the same time, it was a perfect storm for the relative shite-show the past decade has been.

Nothing new in this post, but it was a messy transition exacerbated by having such terrible owners.
 
10 years ago today was the beginning of the end of Utd as a big trophy winning team.
 
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