Rio hits out at Moyes

[Sam]

It's inevitable. Put someone clueless in charge of a big and successful organisation and there will be discontent. It's the way the world works.

Spot on.

 

[mu4c_20le]

I never liked Moyes. I was against his appointment from day 1. At Everton he was dull and there was nothing to justify his role at United.

However what Rio did was unforgivable. You see, a player is payed 60-300 grand a week to do what the manager tells him without any discussion. There are other people who are appointed to judge the manager and that is not the players role. Mind some of the things he said made sense while others 'the chipsgate' is purely moronic. Anyway, if United wanted Rio to have a greater role then that of a player then they would have appointed him as a manager. Since he was not the manager then he should shut up and do what he's being told.

I agree with this. I don't hate Rio and I will read his autobiography. But his attitude during Moyes' tenure made things worse. Every few weeks there'd be a tweet from him throwing fuel into the fire. I lost a lot of respect for him when he hinted about Moyes getting the sack before it happened. When I read it it immediately killed the mood for me because I was more worried that there is a guy in the dressing room actively cheering against his manager and has probably been doing it all season. I don't blame anyone for jumping to conclusions or assuming he was responsible for the leaks because his conduct and attitude has not done him any favors last season. If there was ever any mutiny in the dressing room last year he would most certainly have been amongst the leaders.

 

[Fully Fledged]

Is it really as damning? You earn respect in every walk of life. It's not something that is handed to you. That Moyes couldn't earn it is evidence of why he is no longer here.

Not when your paid £60,000-£300,000 a week. You are being paid large amounts of money to be professional. If you can't do that than I want no part of you at my club.

SAF asked them to give him a chance, not only were they walking all over the honor of the greatest club in the world, they were spitting in SAF's face. I for one am glad they have gone.

 

[amolbhatia50k]

Moyes was not clueless, he was just not respected. Without respect, it will always end in chaos

No one has the divine right to be respected. They earn it through their actions and abilities.

I do think the players, like the fans, got behind the manager at the start. But over time, as with the fans, they probably got fed up with his pointlessness.

 

[acnumber9]

Depends on whether you value showing professional pride, I suppose. Undermining a manager - whatever his failings - isn't something to be proud of.

Ultimately not a person here knows whether they undermined him or not. I think any person who has ever been employed will know the difference between a good boss and a bad one and the effect it can have on performance.

 

[Brophs]

Why's it damming of the players? You can't make yourself respect someone, you either do or you don't.

Implicit in that - for me at least - is not that they didn't respect him or like him or whatever, but that they weren't acting professionally. Something which was pretty apparent to a lot of people last season. The players have gotten off incredibly lightly for what went on last season, even though there were mitigating factors.

 

[Blue always red]

If that's true about him never having the dressing room, that's fecking disgraceful on the players behalf. What a bunch of Prima Donnas, I don't care if you're the queen of Sheba, you at least try to make it work even more so if your previous manager recommended him.

 

[MikeUpNorth]

Implicit in that - for me at least - is not that they didn't respect him or like him or whatever, but that they weren't acting professionally. Something which was pretty apparent to a lot of people last season. The players have gotten off incredibly lightly for what went on last season, even though there were mitigating factors.

I was actually surprised how little public discontent was shown by the players given Moyes' shenanigans. Did any of the players actually come out and publicly question him or say they weren't happy?

 

[acnumber9]

Not when players did not really want to play for Moyes, that makes getting the big players harder, that is problem A. The board would have caught onto this, let this ride especially when it was getting bad to worse, and sack him. If MUFC players did not want to play for Moyes, what hope did we have of signing better players? like we have seen this season, it was a deadman walking

All those things are the fault of David Moyes though.

 

[stevoc]

I'd love to think so too. I've been turned cynical after looking at some of the stuff that all footballers do. I accept, there are players with old school values, but you look at players biting, racial abuse and the like...

Fair enough mate ive gotten a bit cynical myself over the years but i still can't see a player of Ferdinands stature and experience leaking line-ups of his own team.

It will have been a disgruntled staff member or a young player in my opinion.

 

[Oneunited26]

All those things are the fault of David Moyes though.

How was it his fault? if the players did not want him there before he arrived, then it was nothing he could do. That is the players fault, not david moyes, who have got away with murder last season

 

[SteveJ]

Translation: There's more click-potential in the 'United in Crisis' line.

 

[jojojo]

Wait, is there such a thing as low fat chips? Where can I buy them?

http://www.slimmingworld.com/recipes/syn-free-chips.aspx

 

[Fully Fledged]

Why's it damming of the players? You can't make yourself respect someone, you either do or you don't.

You don't need to respect someone to work for them. At the end of the day it was not DM they let down it was us. With all the support with have given them that is unforgivable.

 

[Brophs]

I was actually surprised how little public discontent was shown by the players given Moyes' shenanigans. Did any of the players actually come out and publicly question him or say they weren't happy?

Come on, Mike, you know that's not how it works. That's the equivalent of saying "Bullshit article, no quotes." Instead you had every cnut in Holland criticising Moyes while RvP was over there doing whatever the feck he was pretending to. You had players leaking stuff from within the dressing room to the Mirror. You had Anderson giving interviews when he left about Nani (from memory) not being happy.

 

[Oneunited26]

You don't need to respect someone to work for them. At the end of the day it was not DM they let down it was us. With all the support with have given them that is unforgivable.

They could not sack him in February, because of the stupid long contract they give him. The only fault for seeing Moyes get the job, was MUFC. But the players were a complete disgrace last season, the behaviour of RVP was a joke which summed that dressing room up. Moyes was beaten before his first pre season game

 

[Boycott]

There are 2 sides to every story. For confidentiality reasons as part of his severence package Moyes will have to wait a while to tell his. Probably the duration of his contract. So 5 years.

Would have preferred Rio to have waited til he retired too.

 

[MikeUpNorth]

Come on, Mike, you know that's not how it works. That's the equivalent of saying "Bullshit article, no quotes." Instead you had every cnut in Holland criticising Moyes while RvP was over there doing whatever the feck he was pretending to. You had players leaking stuff from within the dressing room to the Mirror. You had Anderson giving interviews when he left about Nani (from memory) not being happy.

So how would you rather the players express their discontent and lack of respect for the manager?

I guess an official complaint to the board by the captain or something is the most professional, but I don't think the players behaved too badly. They managed to force him out (he'd have managed it on his own in time anyway) without a public fallout between the players and the coaching staff.

 

[acnumber9]

Not when your paid £60,000-£300,000 a week. You are being paid large amounts of money to be professional. If you can't do that than I want no part of you at my club.

SAF asked them to give him a chance, not only were they walking all over the honor of the greatest club in the world, they were spitting in SAF's face. I for one am glad they have gone.

People have this notion that earning a lot of money stops you from being a human being. It doesn't. These were professionals at the top of their game who had went from playing and winning under the greatest manager around to playing for a man who seemed out of his depth. They have far greater knowledge of the difference than we have. We seem to have a lot of angels here who have never disliked a boss or had bad days at work. I suspect a lot are talking sanctimonious shite.

Where was Alex Ferguson when Moyes was being sacked? I think he'd long since given up on him too.

 

[acnumber9]

How was it his fault? if the players did not want him there before he arrived, then it was nothing he could do. That is the players fault, not david moyes, who have got away with murder last season

Do you think they just took an irrational dislike to the man? They got tired of winning things and thought they'd put their careers in jeopardy and open themselves up to ridicule all season? If they didn't want him and it was more than just a few then something was wrong.

 

[Brophs]

So how would you rather the players express their discontent and lack of respect for the manager?

I guess an official complaint to the board by the captain or something is the most professional, but I don't think the players behaved too badly. They managed to force him out (he'd have managed it on his own in time anyway) without a public fallout between the players and the coaching staff.

Where have I said that? My point is that it's very rare to have players come out and criticise a manager like that publicly, much less one that was anointed by Fergie.

I don't think they behaved that badly either, in relative terms, but I think they could have shown a lot more pride in the shirt at a time when we needed it. To me the bottom line is that as bad as the performances were, I don't buy for a second that it was all down to Moyes. A large part, yes, but plenty of players let the club down last season and I find it pretty galling that they get a free pass on that.

 

[Rednotdead]

It appears to me that the players didn't want Moyes and made no attempt whatsoever to help him settle into the job. We've all heard the rumours about the playground name-calling behind the backs of Moyes and his staff and I would think they're largely true. This was just blatant player-power at its worst.

I'd love to hear Moyes' side of the story as I think it would be fairly damning of the players' behaviour. Unlike Ferdinand though, perhaps Moyes has too much dignity to engage in the public airing of dirty washing.

 

[jojojo]

Does anyone think that Moyes would have gone to another big club and been fully supported despite looking clearly out of his depth? It simply won't happen. Big clubs have big players and strong personalities who are used to winning. Some are bound to react badly to having to play under someone not good enough.

It's hard to imagine him making it to Christmas at Chelsea, or City, or most of the European giants. There were really very few stories fed to the mainstream press from the dressing room in those early months. Whatever the players said to each other, they kept it in house.

 

[stevoc]

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/rio-ferdinand-criticises-manchester-united-2897769

That was one of his nicer jabs. Countless oh-so-cleverly-cryptic tweets over the past year, some mocked by our rivals and ABUs.

The point is that Rio was made captain because he's respected in the dressing room and he's a 'lovable' figure when things are going well, when he is happy and isn't shit stirring. But by no means is he a role model.

Well fair enough i could see how some view that as a jab, while i admit it wasn't the most clever thing to say i think it was blown out of proportion personally. Twitter bollocks is irrelevant people take what they want from cryptic tweets, which is what seems to be the case with Rio last season. He never openly criticized Moyes on twitter or we would have heard about it in the media.

But those things are a million miles away from sabotaging your own team, no player who SAF deemed the right type of character to keep for over a decade and make captain would be leaking his own teams line up before the game just wouldn't happen.

The leak within the club was found as the line ups stopped being leaked had it been a first team player he would have been out the door at the first opportunity, his position being untenable. Seeing as Rio stayed until june i think its safe to say it wasn't Ferdinand.

 

[MikeUpNorth]

Where have I said that? My point is that it's very rare to have players come out and criticise a manager like that publicly, much less one that was anointed by Fergie.

I don't think they behaved that badly either, in relative terms, but I think they could have shown a lot more pride in the shirt at a time when we needed it. To me the bottom line is that as bad as the performances were, I don't buy for a second that it was all down to Moyes. A large part, yes, but plenty of players let the club down last season and I find it pretty galling that they get a free pass on that.

You found the fact that Moyes never had the dressing room implied the players acted unprofessionally. Why would that follow?

 

[Manucho the boss]

If we were so focused on making it difficult for the opposition and defensive in our approach then why were we so sh*te at the back? Sounds like Rio is trying to pass the buck. Watching him yesterday he's fallen so far, we should have had this clear out last Summer.

 

[redindian1987]

@Invictus,

I agree, not everybody is a Giggsy with regards to professionalism on the pitch, but I'd like to hold some of our players to higher standards than the rest. Players who have been with us for a long time, won a lot and gave us a lot of happy memories. Of course, not all will live up to it, but that's what makes them human. Maybe I did take it a bit too far with my original comment, that was a bit uncalled for.

I thought Scholes came from the right place. You could see that his criticism wasn't about having a pop or proving a point, he said that it pained him to talk that way, didn't he? At least, it wasn't as ridiculous as Gary Neville on British managers, foreign fans and wingers.

 

[204Red]

As I watched Dailey Blind play with such confidence I turned to my brother and said... "we spent 2 x as much on a Q-tip who won't even see the pitch this season"

The difference between Moyes and LVG can be summed up in that signing alone. LVG recognized that club was screaming for a player who could perform this role and he signed Blind. Moyse signed a player who had been good for him at a smaller club and attempted to fit him into our system (completely unsuccessfully). It has yet to be determined that our other big money signing under Moyes (Mata) fits in - but I think he may come good, he is after all a much better footballer than Steel wool head.

 

[RoadTrip]

It's clear the players didn't respect Moyes at all. It's a bit unprofessional but maybe understandable given his lack of qualifications and apparent lack of knowledge of what he was doing.

I think the players could have given him more of a chance though. It appears he was judged before an action. Naturally then anything is seen in a bad light.

I backed Moyes for a while but didn't realise he was this bad.

This is what happens when you pick someone without the necessary experience to manage a big club.

 

[acnumber9]

@Invictus,

I agree, not everybody is a Giggsy with regards to professionalism on the pitch, but I'd like to hold some of our players to higher standards than the rest. Players who have been with us for a long time, won a lot and gave us a lot of happy memories. Of course, not all will live up to it, but that's what makes them human. Maybe I did take it a bit too far with my original comment, that was a bit uncalled for.

I thought Scholes came from the right place. You could see that his criticism wasn't about having a pop or proving a point, he said that it pained him to talk that way, didn't he? At least, it wasn't as ridiculous as Gary Neville on British managers, foreign fans and wingers.

What did Gary Neville say about foreign fans? I think the performance of Di Maria on the wing yesterday shows he wasn't far wrong with saying United needed pace out wide.

 

[Oneunited26]

Do you think they just took an irrational dislike to the man? They got tired of winning things and thought they'd put their careers in jeopardy and open themselves up to ridicule all season? If they didn't want him and it was more than just a few then something was wrong.

I am glad he has gone, but I understand that were major problems with the squad that was too much work for David Moyes to fix. To be honest the club needed the season they had last season, too long has the club and some fans been living a lie that the squad was good enough, it needed a david moyes to feck things up to truly open our eyes, that these passengers needed to go. And now we have a more aggressive transfer policy, outstanding quality has come in, and now we are fielding possibly 7 or 8 world class players in one starting 11. Gone of the days of players past their prime and the likes of cleverley valencia young nani kagwa anderson fletcher filling up the dross in our squad

All I am hoping is the rest of the passengers leave the club, like fellaini anderson young leave, while loan players cleverley zaha nani and hernandez are the final remaining dross that depart this club

 

[Mockney]

The chips stuff is bullshit, but the rest of it is fair game.

 

[amolbhatia50k]

It's hard to imagine him making it to Christmas at Chelsea, or City, or most of the European giants. There were really very few stories fed to the mainstream press from the dressing room in those early months. Whatever the players said to each other, they kept it in house.

Absolutely. I think that as a club we handled it well. Journalists protected him, players stayed fairly quiet, the fans got right behind him and tried to hand on to everything they could, and the hierarchy never raised my questions. Different people lost faith at different points and that was always going to happen.

There was discontent the scenes among fans (away from games) and players (away from the media) but that's what happens at big clubs with high standards.

Those that expected everyone to unanimously love and respect him blindly are clearly expecting way too much.

 

[204Red]

I think we all wanted Moyes to succeed... after all this is United and we want to win everything.

But for me I began to realize he should go when he criticized the squad and claimed SAF would have a hard time winning with the squad he had been left (forgetting of course that the same squad had run away with the league the season before and was a shoddy red card and 1-2 players away from being a real contender for the CL... under a different manager)

 

[itso 7]

It was not Moyes fault he went into a club with allot of the squad not good enough, or past their prime, with a group of players that were together for far too long. If we group the squad, you can see it was not all his fault, the squad was just a ticking time bomb waiting to go off and that is what happened

Players coming to an end of the MUFC career - ferdinand vidic evra giggs

Players not good enough - butner, anderson, fellaini Moyes own fault on that signing, fletcher, cleverley, valencia, nani, young, zaha, kagwa, now welbeck and hernandez

players who kept picking up injury's - smalling jones evans rafeal RVP fellaini anderson nani, and probably many more

Key players below par - Rafeal ferdinand vidic smalling evra carrick giggs rooney RVP

Form players - DDG Janazaj and jones at times

So when you group the players together, this was not all Moyes fault, it was just a squads lifespan was 2 years out of date. And that is what happens in football cycles, certain seasons things like this happens, we just hit the biggest wall of all

Whilst that has been proven to be true the fact is Moyes had time to shape the squad the way he wanted it to be just as Van Gaal has. The fact is Moyes didn't see the tell tale signs of a squad on the edge of implosion because he hasn't operated atthis level, with these expectations and everyone gunning for your scalp, Van Gaal has and has approached his task with the necessary ruthlessness. The squad he inherited, whilst past it's sell-by date, would have performed if he had made three good signings and was clued up tactically.

 

[Americano]

At least now we can be certain why there was such a long delay in confirming Van Gaal's appointment - he and Woodward were discussing the chips issue.

 

[stevoc]

Come on, Mike, you know that's not how it works. That's the equivalent of saying "Bullshit article, no quotes." Instead you had every cnut in Holland criticising Moyes while RvP was over there doing whatever the feck he was pretending to. You had players leaking stuff from within the dressing room to the Mirror. You had Anderson giving interviews when he left about Nani (from memory) not being happy.

For what its worth mate i think it turned out that Anderson interview when he went to italy was a fake.

There's nothing dignified in the club captain posing with another club's jersey in the middle of the club's worst season in decades.

Did that actually happen mate?

If it did and i had seen it at the time i would have been pissed.

 

[redindian1987]

What did Gary Neville say about foreign fans? I think the performance of Di Maria on the wing yesterday shows he wasn't far wrong with saying United needed pace out wide.

Don't quite remember the exact statement, but I remember posting about it when I was in the newbies forum. Something along the lines of foreigners won't get what Manchester United is about or something which alluded to that.

Yes, we did need pace. It was the whole way he went about the "United way" last season. Maybe it was because Phil Neville was a member of Moyes' staff but it was a bit weird. Doesn't mean that he isn't an excellent pundit, mind.

 

[acnumber9]

Don't quite remember the exact statement, but I remember posting about it when I was in the newbies forum. Something along the lines of foreigners won't get what Manchester United is about or something which alluded to that.

Yes, we did need pace. It was the whole way he went about the "United way" last season. Maybe it was because Phil Neville was a member of Moyes' staff but it was a bit weird. Doesn't mean that he isn't an excellent pundit, mind.

My understanding of what he meant by playing the United way was attacking with pace. It was greatly needed and it's what we saw yesterday thankfully.

 

[itso 7]

Exactly what I was thinking, it made the job even harder to move players on, when 95% of the squad did not want him here before july the 1st. So really we were stuck with the dross for one year too many because he never had the support, so rebuilding the team was never going to happen under Moyes

We are talking about the Manchester United Manager here not some volunteer at a village show, he was the post powerful man at Carrington and he failed to utilize that power. When you are that powerful you demand respect and support, if it's not forthcoming people pay, there and then. Look at Sir Alex, Mourinho or any other successful manager, you cross paths with them and next week you are having a medical at Dortmund taking a pay cut along the way. That's power and if Moyes had ahown that he doesn't stand for shit with one example, especially Rio who appears like he never looked up to him, then the rest would have fallen in line. But if you show weaknesses then everyone will walk all over you.