Bring The Moyes
As someone in the Mailbox pointed out this morning, it lacked something by way of pizzazz. There was no Trappatoni-style unintelligible screaming. There was no piece of paper and big list of grievances. There was no swearing. But Davie Moyes' press conference meltdown on Tuesday still had a number of fine, fine moments.
The decision to stare down a Sky reporter at the beginning was a cunning tactical move on the part of the Manchester United manager, and a completely proportionate reaction to the question asked. After all, the opening gambit "Good afternoon," is a well-known journalistic tactic to lower the interviewee's guard, to relax him or her and get them to say something unwise. Smart move Davie - you show them who's boss.
Once that marker was laid down, Moyes was asked to explain why United are currently 21 points worse off than last season. He could have made a point of comparing the relevant fixtures in the two time periods. He could have explained that it takes time for a new manager's methods to take hold. He could even have pointed out that the previous manager left him a woefully inadequate squad with more holes in it than Sonny Corleone. But no. Instead, he chose to say:
"Well, I was at Everton so I wasn't 21 points worse off. I was at Everton."
Moyes has done this a couple of times, and Mediawatch can't quite wrap our head around the logic of him actively pointing out that the only real difference in personnel between this and last season is the chap sitting in the dugout who looks like a little boy who's lost his mum in Tesco.
He compounded this by saying: "I think the players are doing great. I think I've got a great group of players. I'm very fortunate I took over the champions and I think the players have been terrific."
Of course, one wouldn't expect him to say 'That lot are a bunch of useless sh*thouses', even though he has basically already said that, in so many words, by making it very clear that he wants to chuck the current squad in a big metal bin and set them all on fire in the Old Trafford car park come the summer. But again, by saying the players are doing fine, it does somewhat limit the targets for the big blunderbuss of blame.
It's also worth pointing out that Everton, where Davie so helpfully reminded us he was last year, are currently three points better off than they were after 25 games last term (and will be six better after 26 if they beat Crystal Palace tonight), after selling Marouane Fellaini, their best midfielder and arguably their best player, in the summer. Remind us where he went again?
Still, we can understand why someone under that amount of pressure might be tetchy with the press. However, it probably isn't a good move, with many of United's fans at tipping point when it comes to their support of Moyes, to basically call anyone who thought simply slinging in 82 crosses against Fulham with little or no variation a moronic nonsense. A sort of 'Yous are all f*cking idiots' aimed at the entire nation, rather than just the press.
"You need to have a football intelligence, a football brain, to understand first of all," he said.
Sit down, everyone. Shut up and just take this sh*t being shovelled into your eyes. Don't agree with what's happening? Sorry, you don't have a football brain, so pipe down.
Moyes is a man promoted above his abilities into a job he couldn't turn down, he has a colossal weight of expectation on his shoulders and the eyes of the man who left him a deficient squad burning into the back of his skull every Saturday. It's for those reasons that Mediawatch often feels sorry for Davie Moyes, but by f*ck he makes it difficult for us sometimes.