Neither.
This is one of those times where the modern media really fails us as football fans in explaining exactly what has happened at Manchester United. I often complain that they focus too much on irrelevance and not enough on the actual business of football behind the scenes and this is an example of where it could have helped.
I'm not sure what anybody else was expecting here but Man United are right about where I thought they would be. I think they'll finish higher than this but their form is somewhat predictable.
United as a Club has completely fell apart and it is the job of David Moyes to rebuild it. It has fell apart because the Club in the modern era was built entirely to Ferguson's exacting standards and methods. Every single person in every department of the Club knew what they were doing every day and what the ultimate point was.
Clubs falling apart after the movement of a Czar isn't new. United fell apart after Busby left, Liverpool got worse the more contrived the boot room system became. It's natural.
I think United fans should remember the words of Ferguson before he left. He's a proper football man, as is David Moyes, and they both know the scale of the task Moyes has undertaken and the time it will take to bear fruit. United can either studiously water their crops over time to create a vast sustainable empire once again that will provide riches for generations or they can dump nuclear waste on their land and grow tomacco.
For me, the real test of the Glazers as owners starts today. You can talk about money and whatever but to most people it's an irrelevance, United have been ultra successful and the manager has been given what he wanted. So far so good for the Glazers. The test starts right now because we discover whether they are the seasoned and patient businessmen that the Edwards family were or just another kneejerk bunch of twats who are sacking managers on ridiculous timescales.
I think Moyes has certainly made mistakes, or rather a single mistake. I think he tried to transition too quickly from Ferguson's staff to his own staff in the first team which created unneccesary pressure on himself. This can be forgiven however as I see what he was trying to accomplish. He knew that this would be a difficult period of transition and he wants to snap it as quickly as possible rather than do it piece by piece. Managers often do lack patience in transition, AVB had the same problem at Chelsea. Funnily, Ferguson did the same mistake when he first joined too.
I see people who have called Moyes unambitious because he has said that United played well when they didn't. This is a man who had a job for life in a stable Premier League team where he was beloved and he decided to pack that in and move to the most famous Club in the world and succeed the best ever manager in the game, to take on a rebuilding job the like of which has never been done in the modern era of football. Unambitious? Do me a favour.
You see, Manchester United was a club built in Ferguson's own image and everybody took their lead from him. He was an imposing figure yet if you meet him he had this working class charm that made you want to fight for him. David Moyes is a similar figure but doesn't yet covet the same respect and loyalty from everybody at Manchester United. There's no possible way that he could, that anybody could, most of the people at United were directly employed by Ferguson or employed whilst he was the manager. In time, Moyes will have the same respect bestowed on him, that's all that it needs at the minute, just some time for him to get his feet under the table.
Some fans believe that David Moyes isn't the man for United. I challenge the idea that they even understand what United is as a Club. David Moyes is pretty much the prototypical Manchester United manager, if you had to walk away and design a man who would manage them, it is him. He's fierce, he's tactically well versed, he has a superhuman work ethic, he believes in youth promotion, he plays with wingers, he inspires loyalty and fight from everybody around him. Those who don't see this have never been to Everton away under his tenure there. Moyes managed to turn that place into a lion's den in how ferocious the atmosphere was and how the team played, and make no mistake this developed under him and will wane without him, managers have a major effect on atmospheres as any United fan will tell you (or City fan for that matter), he will do the same to Old Trafford given time.
So I suppose the problem here is that fans have underestimated the mammoth of a task that Moyes has to accomplish and pundits have over-simplified it. It will take Moyes several years to get United built in his own image and it will be better off for it rather than start some roundabout of managerial changes. And I warn United fans, I'm a fan of a Club that has had probably 30 managers in the past 30 years. Once you start down this path of swapping in and out managers, you can never come back from it.
One last thing to note. I find it interesting how many people when this was announced said things like "Moyes will need a transition time" but have now decided that he should be gone in January. Transition time is a term used to denote the time it takes to sweep away the mentality of the old regime and bring in your own mentality. Essentially, how long it takes to forget the old manager and buy into the thoughts of the new even if it conflicts with what the old manager would say. For a manager who casts the shadow of Ferguson, this will take 3 or 4 years, not 3 or 4 months. Bobby Charlton, Alex Ferguson and others at United understand this so appointed a manager who can rebuild United and have the wide shoulders it requires to bear the load of expectation from the fans and media. They think they found their right man in David Moyes and all piss taking aside, so do I. I hope that they both fight his corner in the boardroom and I'm sure they will. These people understand United as a Club, understand what makes it successful and understand what makes it special.
Moyes will be fine if the fans just shut up and let him do his job.
Now, back to pissing taking.
