Moyes Was Sacked One Year Ago

One year on, what do you think about Moyes now?


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Moyes got the gig based on his honesty and work ethic and the man is obviously a brilliant human being. But tactically he is a championship level manager that found himself in the right place at the right time who got job by pure fluke. He was never qualified for the job and in hindsight it was utter madness to appoint him. Last season he was so bad that it was on a par with the Graham Souness years at Liverpool. It was that bad. He had no idea what he was doing and his only specialty as a manager before being appointed was in making mid-table teams hard to beat. Thank God for Louise Van Gaal because honestly - Moyes did so much damage last season that I actually was starting to believe that the days of Man Utd being a top 4 club were but a distant dream
 
Glad he got the bullet. Some people think he would have gotten top four by spending even more than what he'd already spent on 2 players (£60M), but I sincerely do not believe this. His negativity would have taken us down even more. He is what he is - and was never willing to adapt. Should not have been hired etc etc but everyone makes mistakes.

Sorry to say but it was the best day of last season when the club sacked him. I was still buzzing long after.
 
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Easter Monday last year. :drool:
 
Moyes got the gig based on his honesty and work ethic and the man is obviously a brilliant human being. But tactically he is a championship level manager that found himself in the right place at the right time who got job by pure fluke. He was never qualified for the job and in hindsight it was utter madness to appoint him. Last season he was so bad that it was on a par with the Graham Souness years at Liverpool. It was that bad. He had no idea what he was doing and his only specialty as a manager before being appointed was in making mid-table teams hard to beat. Thank God for Louise Van Gaal because honestly - Moyes did so much damage last season that I actually was starting to believe that the days of Man Utd being a top 4 club were but a distant dream
Can I ask why people think this? I honestly want to know because truthfully I never paid too much attention to him before he got the job, but listening to him, he gave the impression of being arrogant, willing to throw players, club, Sir Alex etc under the bus in order to absolve himself of any blame. There was even an article the other day (can't remember which paper), where he's almost taking credit for the change in our fortunes - referring to Fellaini and Mata - players who underachieved under his stewardship.
 
Only a few months into his tenure and there was a constant state of pessimism. I genuinely feared he would be given 'til at least December of this season, and it would have proven another wasted year resulting in a massively depleted squad.
 
This was my biggest fear when he was appointed. He would do just enough to keep himself from getting sacked and we would slide into mediocrity, all while playing his boring brand of percentage football and 4-4-2. Several years of football, completely devoid of imagination while just making it into the CL every year (and the odd cup run) would have made be doubt my faith in football. Buying some of the best players in the world, only to then have them play percentage football would have made me cry. I firmly believe we dodged a bullet when he got sacked, otherwise he would have been our Souness.

Same here mate, i never liked Moyes even though i thought he was actually a good manager. I always cringed when he was linked to the job and deep down i knew when the great man finally retired that we would appoint Moyes, don't know how i just did.

I thought he would easily get us top 4 every year without ever managing to challenge for the title and the club and most of the fans would be alright with that because many would get caught up in the fairytale that if we just give him another few years he will become as good as Ferguson. He will bring us another 20 years of success, we can't appoint anyone else they might leave after a couple of years yadda yadda (many even thought this last year when things were going tits up).

The idea that a man who has never won so much as a raffle would somehow become as good as the greatest manager ever if only we gave him 4-5 years to grow in to the job was ludicrous and naive, we could have given him 100 years and he would have never been as good as Ferguson.

Luckily for us he somehow managed to spectacularly fail to such an amazing level he got himself sacked before he really got his feet under the table and before the cult of Moyes became entrenched. Otherwise just like you said and i agree he would have plunged us into mediocrity (with dull as dishwater football to boot) just as Souness did to the Scousers.
 
Only a few months into his tenure and there was a constant state of pessimism. I genuinely feared he would be given 'til at least December of this season, and it would have proven another wasted year resulting in a massively depleted squad.
This for sure. After listening to his very negative press conferences I was willing to have Scooby Doo as our manager! Anything to take the pessimism away.
 
Only a few months into his tenure and there was a constant state of pessimism. I genuinely feared he would be given 'til at least December of this season, and it would have proven another wasted year resulting in a massively depleted squad.

Jesus did hearing ''he needs to be given at least until Xmas next year'' get on my tits last season. I don't know how many post i read on here and people i spoke to who all seemed to come up with the same arbitrary cut off point . I have no idea what they imagined he was going to do in 18 months that he got nowhere near achieving in 12.

Moyes got the gig based on his honesty and work ethic and the man is obviously a brilliant human being. But tactically he is a championship level manager that found himself in the right place at the right time who got job by pure fluke. He was never qualified for the job and in hindsight it was utter madness to appoint him. Last season he was so bad that it was on a par with the Graham Souness years at Liverpool. It was that bad. He had no idea what he was doing and his only specialty as a manager before being appointed was in making mid-table teams hard to beat. Thank God for Louise Van Gaal because honestly - Moyes did so much damage last season that I actually was starting to believe that the days of Man Utd being a top 4 club were but a distant dream

People mentioned this all the time and still do, it could be true of course. But given he took a 6 week holiday right after being handed the biggest job of his life and when he should have been preparing for it, it makes you wonder doesn't it?
 
Jesus did hearing ''he needs to be given at least until Xmas next year'' get on my tits last season. I don't know how many post i read on here and people i spoke to who all seemed to come up with the same arbitrary cut off point . I have no idea what they imagined he was going to do in 18 months that he got nowhere near achieving in 12.



People mentioned this all the time and still do, it could be true of course. But given he took a 6 week holiday right after being handed the biggest job of his life and when he should have been preparing for it, it makes you wonder doesn't it?
I believe he does work hard from the few bits I've heard.... I believe him going off was due to over-confidence - a sense that he'd made it, and also a lack of appreciation of just how difficult the job would be. Also, it could be a case of some people work hard - but they don't work smart. If you have no clear sense of direction or you're out of your depth, then you just work hard at causing more confusion for yourself and others - and unfortunately creating even more work.
 
Voted for D (waste of a season).

Voting C is out of the question. That's being way to kind on someone who did the amount of damage that Moyes did. Voting E seems too harsh. Moyes got a few things right, but getting a few things right will never be enough in management.

I think the worst part of the whole debacle was giving a five year contract to a manager who had proven through years and years of managing in the Premier League that he was, is and will always be depressingly mid-table. And that's what we would have been too if he'd been able to stay for his entire contract.

There's no way Moyes was a necessary evil to shake up the foundations after so many years under SAF. The only necessity we've had in the past two seasons has been to get someone as experienced and proven as Van Gaal to clean up the mess Moyes left. I think we'd have been fine with an inexperienced but talented manager from the beginning of the post-SAF era, but I'm glad we've got a behemoth like Van Gaal now. I'm sure he will leave the club in a better state than SAF did when his time is up, and the board will hire someone who's proven themselves worthy of the job. In that sense, hiring Moyes might have been a valuable lesson for the club, and that's as close as I'll ever come to say anything positive about his stint here.
 
I believe he does work hard from the few bits I've heard.... I believe him going off was due to over-confidence - a sense that he'd made it, and also a lack of appreciation of just how difficult the job would be. Also, it could be a case of some people work hard - but they don't work smart. If you have no clear sense of direction or you're out of your depth, then you just work hard at causing more confusion for yourself and others - and unfortunately creating even more work.

You could be right mate, either way that holiday wasn't the smartest in a series of ill advised ideas he had after taking over.
 
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Just had another thought.

Moyes could completely revolutionize Spannish football in much the same way Guardiola did with European football. We now have teams across europe trying to imitate this Tiki Taka stuff as it proved successful.

Spain has never really seen Moyes' brand of percentage football before and he has already beaten Barcelona with it.

Imagine in 5 years time Barcelona and Madrid could be playing 424 with 6ft 6in strikers and centre halves that can lump it great distances. If the long ball isnt on the just punt it to the wingers to whip it in 92 times a game.

Agent Moyes
 
What a clown Jamie Jackson is, if LVG had successded Fergie we would have finished in the top3

Anyway best mems: RVP hattrick in the UCL, what a night that was!

Worse memory: The Newcastle game @ OT and mainly everything else after that
I slept so late the day of that Newcastle game I missed it. It was a better use of my time tbh
 
Just had another thought.

Moyes could completely revolutionize Spannish football in much the same way Guardiola did with European football. We now have teams across europe trying to imitate this Tiki Taka stuff as it proved successful.

Spain has never really seen Moyes' brand of percentage football before and he has already beaten Barcelona with it.

Imagine in 5 years time Barcelona and Madrid could be playing 424 with 6ft 6in strikers and centre halves that can lump it great distances. If the long ball isnt on the just punt it to the wingers to whip it in 92 times a game.

Whoever makes the most crosses, wins! Viva La Revolución!
 
I thought he was a disaster from the beginning to the end, and still can't fathom the decision behind his selection. Fergie should never have been given the job of finding his replacement, especially after just retiring. There was no time for reflection and the euphoria of surrounding his departure was adding to the expectancy of a quick decision. Moyes was every kind of wrong from track record, to experience, and future vision. Those moments when he stood open mouthed and lost for words were testimony to an awful mistake and error of judgement. His horizon was limited to Everton and no higher.

Back in 2013 when Fergie had just retired his realisation of his own achievement was blinkered and he spoke almost in terms of when he first arrived and the kind of job that needed to be done. That wasn't the case. Listen to Fergie today and he has the majesty of a great football man and able to reflect on his achievements with better perspective. In his present mindset I am sure he would not have picked Moyes. I'm not LVG's biggest fan but the difference is chalk and cheese. Goodbye and good riddance.
 
You can tell how bad he was when sacking him the club could only put out a one sentence statement thanking him for his "honesty and integrity"
 
:lol: Someone actually spent time creating that Wikipedia page :lol:

Perhaps we should should start adding a few pages ourselves, this could be fun:
Liverpoolness (he was a rather nice chap, despite his Liverpoolness)
Arsenalness (despite his rampant Arsenalness he realised that he wouldn't be winning the league come May)
Cityness (even with the chance of seeing their team on the biggest stage and the added incentive of 2-for-one ticket pricing, their inherent Cityness meant that the ground was always half empty come Champions League nights)
 
I just went back and looked at that gif in the OP. The one with the shoulder slump. It's the most depressing thing I've ever seen.
 
It's actually hard to believe last season happened. It's unbelievable how much of a blur it is to me. Such a distant memory already! Probably because I usually ignore all reminders of it.. Like this thread.
 
SteveJ said:
Howard Nurse @HowardNurseBBC

David Moyes becomes Manchester United manager

That was gold from @SteveJ in that thread.
 
To claim that he's a good guy and honest hard working man is an insult to every other professional manager, it's as if they don't work as hard as him. Every manager worth their salt have worked hard in the past, and is still working hard. Mourinho was an ex-interpreter, he must have done a harder work to climb from a simple interpreter with no amount of footballing pedigree to rise to the stardom.

And many people cited that he's a nice guy, but from his time at United I fail to see anything nice coming out from him, not his press conference, and the way his smug attitude of me vs. we, how he blame the whole thing but himself, he hasn't even talk about anything nice about us since his sacking. It was a nitemare for him and us, but at the end of the day we gave him the chance, the six year contract, the money, and the job that he failed so badly.

My biggest fear nearing the end of last season was not missing out on top 4, but making the top 4. He would have seen is as mission accomplished and we'll plunge further into the black hole of mediocrity. Thank goodness the Glazer took the sensible and no nonsense approach and do the right thing to do and not taking a punt on Giggs.

Looking back, it was such a relieve that those dark days are over in 3/4 of a season.
 
What is truly frightening about David Moyes is that he was actually one of the highest rated managers in the league. With all those glaring weaknesses, and so far from being capable of handling a top team he was still one of the leagues best managers. After SAF quit he was arguably the best rated manager from the British isles I believe?

That really shows the issues with English football.
 
What is truly frightening about David Moyes is that he was actually one of the highest rated managers in the league. With all those glaring weaknesses, and so far from being capable of handling a top team he was still one of the leagues best managers. After SAF quit he was arguably the best rated manager from the British isles I believe?

That really shows the issues with English football.
I think he was the most highly rated British manager when he was appointed by Ferguson to take charge at United.
 
David Moyes getting sacked was the best news last year as a United fan... that's how bad it was.
 
Facebook reminded me that on this day I have linked a BBC news about United sacking Moyes with the comment - "Its a new dawn."

Also, on this day 2 years ago I had this pic -

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:)
 
It's not based on absolutely nothing.

We're talking top four here – whether Moyes would've managed to get us top four in his second season.

Given Moyes' general qualities as a manager – the same qualities which made him a plausible candidate for the board to begin with – and given our transfer budget, it's surely not unreasonable to think he would've managed top four this season. Look at the feckin' opposition. It's hardly terrifying.

If Moyes had survived, he would've known that top four was an absolute minimum this season. If he had survived, he would've been less timid this season – he would've done much more to make the team his own.

This is an absurdly hypothetical discussion, but if we're giving it a go, let's not get positively stupid – Moyes isn't a terrible manager. He knows how to set up a functional side. That's enough, given our resources, to construct a top four side in today's Premier League. Again, look at the opposition – do you think it requires a genius to make Manchester United finish 4th in the PL? It's what lies beyond this bare minimum which matters. That's where the difference between someone like Moyes and someone like our Aloysius comes into play.

But it is. Does he have history of building top 4 teams? He doesn't, he finished 4th once when Liverpool put all their effort into winning CL.

Has he improved even a bit during his season here? Nope, we actually became much worse with time as he put his stamp on the team.

70 points will likely be necessary to claim top 4 this season, that's 6 more than we got last season and during the second half of it we were on course for less than 60 if I remember correctly.

I don't think there's anything to suggest we'd be top 4 now with him in charge. It's pure speculation when the only facts we have point to the opposite.
 
Was clearly out out of his depth and did not deserve the job, the biggest positive at the time for me was the introduction of Januzaj seeing a young talented player come through gave me some optimism and it had been while since we seen young player come through like that. It's unfortunate how he has not been able to keep up that level this season.
 
But it is. Does he have history of building top 4 teams? He doesn't, he finished 4th once when Liverpool put all their effort into winning CL.

Has he improved even a bit during his season here? Nope, we actually became much worse with time as he put his stamp on the team.

70 points will likely be necessary to claim top 4 this season, that's 6 more than we got last season and during the second half of it we were on course for less than 60 if I remember correctly.

I don't think there's anything to suggest we'd be top 4 now with him in charge. It's pure speculation when the only facts we have point to the opposite.

Have to agree with you. If we speculate about position then there are other issues of speculation such as whether the squad would have remained as it was or changed etc. it's highly unlikely if we had romped home with five wins or even ended up in a lower position that the board would have been keen to stump a lot of money for transfers. His transfer dealing was not up to much even including Mata. One could only envisage a lot of average players for a lot of money - an inflated Scouse scenario!

His continual negative record breaking was also an issue, one can speculate whether the squad would end on a high or low note. On the back of the games he limped out on there is no indication we would have ended the season winning, which would of placed further pressure on getting players for a non-CL season. He also would have had to contend with a World Cup summer and there's yet more speculation over his efforts to find top players would be fruitless.

Moyes was simply a huge mistake, and out of his depth. Ironically it took his failure and sacking for the board to recognise the kind of club we have become and the requisite management necessary to take the club forward.
 
Went for option four. He wasn't cut out for the job at all and his small times defeatist attitude stunk the place out. He left a very sour atmosphere at the club and it took LvG a long time to get our winning mentality back. He's doing an ok job at Sociedad and fair play, but he was never the man for us.
 
He's a midtable manager, with midtable attitude, midtable tactics, midtable mentality, and I don't blame him if we finished 7th, he didn't lie to us nor fergie nor the board, he looks, walks, talks, coach midtable, he gets us midtable.

It's like buying a Hyundai and expecting a BMW performance out of it
 
It was also sort of weird last year when a lot of people said that he'd come good if given time - as if it's a proven fact that all managers will come good if they're given plenty of time.
 
A decent five minute video to remind us of Moyes' year in charge.

 
Just had another thought.

Moyes could completely revolutionize Spannish football in much the same way Guardiola did with European football. We now have teams across europe trying to imitate this Tiki Taka stuff as it proved successful.

Spain has never really seen Moyes' brand of percentage football before and he has already beaten Barcelona with it.

Imagine in 5 years time Barcelona and Madrid could be playing 424 with 6ft 6in strikers and centre halves that can lump it great distances. If the long ball isnt on the just punt it to the wingers to whip it in 92 times a game.

Excuse my ignorance but what does this term mean exactly? My guess would be, the brand of football where you do not have any set plan or long term philosophy to win games. You look to run a tight ship, and then only win games where you manage to get a goal or two from somewhere.
 
What is truly frightening about David Moyes is that he was actually one of the highest rated managers in the league. With all those glaring weaknesses, and so far from being capable of handling a top team he was still one of the leagues best managers. After SAF quit he was arguably the best rated manager from the British isles I believe?

That really shows the issues with English football.

The problem for England is clearly coaching, for example they have Hodgson as national manager. Last year when Moyes lost my faith (after his first press conference), I made a list of managers who were better than Moyes, I found at least 30 managers and half of them weren't good enough to manage United.
 
Excuse my ignorance but what does this term mean exactly? My guess would be, the brand of football where you do not have any set plan or long term philosophy to win games. You look to run a tight ship, and then only win games where you manage to get a goal or two from somewhere.


Percentage football would be playing to percentages

Example; Cross the ball into the box 90 times per game and its going to lead to 5 or 6 chances by law of percentages.

So yeah, like you say, not real plan as such. Basically no deliberation in how we play, more a case of if we excersize X so many times it will lead to result in so many Y's