David Moyes humiliated while Danny Welbeck seeks United exit
David Moyes was expecting the boos. The last time the Manchester United manager was here, he was given a guard of honour, recognition of the 11 years he served Everton with such distinction. He knew this would be different. He might have felt the fury and the venom was unwarranted, he might have been surprised to see one fan, at the behest of a bookmaker, dressed as the Grim Reaper, and it might still have hurt, but he knew he would have to endure a line of fire. He could, at least, steel himself.
What the Scot will not have been expecting, what will have hurt all the more, was the chant that went up with a quarter of an hour to play. Everton were leading by two goals to nil, and had been since half-time. Their visitors never gave so much as a hint that their lead might be in any peril whatsoever. The home side would have the win they required in their chase for the Champions League; United’s gossamer hopes of beating them to fourth place had long since been shredded. The game was meandering towards its inevitable conclusion.
And so, at a break in play, Everton’s supporters started serenading their former manager. It started in the Gwladys Street End, but soon it was booming out from the Park End, too. It was not a song, in truth, that they proffered regularly when he was here, but now they could not resist.
“Moyesie, give us a wave,” they chanted, gleefully. It was mocking, it was crowing. In fewer than 90 minutes, Moyes had gone from a target of hate to a figure of fun. There is nothing more damning than that.
He tried, as always, to put a positive spin on it after the game, to suggest they did not deserve to be two down — thanks to a Leighton Baines penalty and a wonderful, deft finish from Kevin Mirallas — at half-time. He believed it so much that he repeated the same sentence three times. He focused on how United “had the bulk of the ball” and “played very well” in the opening period, his only concession to stark truth that his team “did not create enough chances”.
The manager’s desire to paint an upbeat picture, his refusal to criticise his players in public after every gut-wrenching setback, is understandable; it could even be described as admirable. It is not, though, realistic. The veneer has long since worn off. His stance is designed not to erode the sanctity of the dressing room, to keep problems private. Things are beyond that. He is starting to erode the values of the club.
If Moyes genuinely believes United played well here, then the question of whether his standards dovetail with those of a success-soaked club has to be raised.
There were occasional flashes of hope for the visiting team — Juan Mata and Shinji Kagawa appear to be broadly on the same wavelength — but that is not enough for United. Seeing a lot of the ball and doing nothing with it and playing a plodding, predictable style of football, likewise.
The strain is starting to tell. Stories emerged on the morning of the game that Danny Welbeck, a substitute here, is considering leaving Old Trafford, departing the club he supported as a boy in Longsight, frustrated at his lack of opportunities.
All Moyes could do was reiterate that the England forward “is important to me and to the club” and claim that there are “changes to be made” in the summer, ones to improve things.
It is interesting enough that the story emerged — such things tend to happen at unhappy clubs, not ones where players and management are in sync — but it is more important still that the stories are true.
Welbeck does want to go. It is not hard to understand his motivation. What, precisely, is keeping him, beyond vague promises that things at the club will get better? In the immediate future, there is scant reason to believe they will.
The gulf between Moyes’s new team and his old team was staggering, humiliating. The Scot left Goodison Park last summer believing he could take the club no farther. What became clear here is that he had taken himself as far as he could. Those are not the same thing. Not at all.
Everton were brimming with energy and invention from the start. They should have taken the lead through Steven Naismith, the Scot ballooning over after Romelu Lukaku had nodded a long ball from Sylvain Distin into his path, before Baines converted from the penalty spot after Phil Jones had handled the Belgian’s shot. Lukaku and Naismith spurned chances to extend the lead before the outstanding Séamus Coleman slipped Mirallas through to double the advantage.
They did not extend their lead in the second half, but not through lack of chances: Lukaku and, twice, Naismith, went close.
What was more eye-catching was the ease with which Everton swatted United aside. There was no fight, no gumption, no wit, no belief. They crumbled. It was, put bluntly, pathetic.
It is futile to try to single out a low point from this season of unending nadirs, but, for Moyes at least, this will have been as agonising as anything.
He left Everton believing he was going on to better things. Instead, he finds himself locked in a never-ending spiral of despair, while his former charges race ever onwards.
After he finished his Panglossian analysis of the match in the press lounge at Goodison Park, he stood up to leave. He walked through the wrong door. It felt entirely apposite. @RorySmithTimes