Sentimentalism and revisionism are of little use. Portraying David Moyes as a ‘United-DNA’ move takes a lot of active misremembering and hyperbolics, I would say. It smacks of fancifulness: Ignoring all the rumours that Ferguson had five other names above Moyes on his recommendation-list, that asking the worlds best manager for managerial advice is perhaps best construed as exactly that, rather than some fascination with DNA. The idea of ‘leaving it to Ed Woodward alone’ is perhaps what exactly noone would suggest in hindsight.
It’s also very peculiar to try to angle Moyes as obsessed with United DNA, as he distanced himself fairly clearly from Ferguson, from his advice (sell Rooney), from his staff (botched them all, to the grand critique of many, favoring Lumsden and his own Everyon-DNA-team, only admitting Giggs for a Phelan-like role and later Phil Neville to carry cones). Moyes and the club were heavily criticized at the time for cutting too much with a team that were run-away-champions the previous year. Moyes had exactly 0 % of anything reminiscent of ‘United DNA’. Then Van Gaal, with his Ajax and Barca ‘DNA’, nothing to do with United. Then Mourinho, The Anti United RNA-converter. Players came and went. The only aspect of continuity from the era of Ferguson, where Ryan Giggs standing on the sidelines of the sidelines. He got four games. That’s the extent of this obsession with United way you allude to. It was almost clean break after clean break, until Ole. That came after five years and the disillusion was huge among vast amount of fans at that point - not just the trolls.
It was identified that most clubs who have repeated success over decades actually do have a lot of so called ‘DNA’, that is continuity in staff, in methods, in style, in identity. Real Madrid, Ajax, Bayern München, Liverpool, Juventus, Barca have all demonstrated this for long spells.
The effects of a cultural ‘DNA’ normally don’t show over a couple of years necessarily, but in the longer run. Ralf Rangnik is an expert in this, as he has built three clubs with that as one of his three core themes.
