In the end, it is always about the players. And for a long time now the jungle drums have been sounding, telling us Manchester United’s stars simply weren’t having David Moyes.
You can groan until the cows come home about the evils of ‘player power’, but the realities of top-end Premier League football is that a successful boss must cunningly man-manage twenty-odd PLCs, with their own egos and multi-million pound annual turnovers.
Sir Alex Ferguson came to understand this, but fellow Scot Moyes never could.
United’s players were aware of their manager’s imminent departure before Sunday’s defeat at Everton. But while that pitiful performance had no bearing on Moyes’ demise, it was indicative of everything which caused it.
Gone was the buccaneering spirit and breakneck attacking of Ferguson’s teams. The difference in the pace of play and speed of thought between the sides was so startling, it appeared that Moyes was playing a 45rpm record at 33rpm.
And this against an Everton side which Moyes had the nous to assemble, but never the nerve to unleash.
It was a humiliating afternoon in this age of instant ridicule.
A stooge from a publicity-hungry bookmaker was dressed as a Grim Reaper near the visitors’ dugout, waving an inflatable scythe at Moyes.
A decent, hard-working man deserved better. But perhaps he never deserved to be manager of Manchester United. And perhaps he always feared as much, deep inside.
Before the final whistle at Goodison, Twitter users were sniggering at an image of Moyes and assistant Steve Round perusing a dossier on set-pieces, while Roberto Martinez’s devil-may-care side were putting their team through the shredder - playing like Fergie Boys, as United’s fans always urged Moyes to do.
But that photo of Moyes and Round was telling, especially as the manager’s decision to sweep away Ferguson’s backroom staff and appoint his own men was unpopular among players.
And the dressing-room whispers said that these champions were unimpressed at having to pore over DVDs of opposition teams and by being over-burdened with information when they felt fully able to think on their feet.
To develop the terrace chant from the Ferguson glory days, their attitude is ‘We’re Man United, we play how we want’.
They wondered how they could romp to the title one season and be seventh the next. They noted that the playing squad had been moderately enhanced and only the coaching staff significantly altered.
Moyes’s schoolmasterly man-management was also increasingly unpopular.
There had, for example, been talk of an extremely lengthy explanation delivered by the Scot to his players about next season’s club blazer and tie.
And when Ashley Young, Danny Welbeck and Tom Cleverley were ordered to train apart with the fitness coach and the reserves, as punishment for a drinking session when they had three days off and were not due to play for 10 days, team-mates were, rightly or wrongly, shocked by the severity.
Welbeck’s desire for a move soon became public.
Since player-coach Ryan Giggs was rumoured to be distancing himself from Moyes, the writing had been on the wall. The epitome of the Ferguson old guard had, in his understated way, turned against the new regime.
Holland boss Louis van Gaal – a potential successor to Moyes – suggested Robin van Persie was unhappy at United.
And would captain Nemanja Vidic have handed in his notice and agreed a summer move to Inter Milan had he been inspired by his United manager?
Wayne Rooney was perhaps an exception to the dissenters. Despite a previous legal dispute, Moyes kept him out of Chelsea’s clutches and engineered a vast new contract.
Had Ferguson not retired, though, Rooney was going the way of David Beckham, Ruud Van Nistelrooy and Roy Keane – in one of those mafia-style hits from the Knight of the Living Dread. Gone before any mere mortal had suspected their best days were over.
Moyes took the opposite view to Ferguson – which usually puts any football man in the wrong.
And while Rooney’s strike-rate remains decent, he has not scored a single significant goal against a major club this season – merely a late consolation in the 4-1 drubbing at Manchester City.
Much sentimental guff has been written that United were a club apart, willing to show loyalty to any manager simply because they had once afforded loyalty to the greatest of them all.
They were certainly more loyal than most. Had Moyes endured the same results at Chelsea, he’d have been gone in half this time.
But it is odd that so many seasoned observers seemed to mistake the Glazer family for the Brady Bunch.
They obviously hadn’t been listening to the dressing-room whispers.
Or perhaps they underestimated the power of elite modern players
Don't do this to yourself. It won't be announced tonight.
