There has been an enormous amount of talk so far this season amongst Manchester United fans that David Moyes is not the right man for the job and that he must be dismissed from his post immediately before things get any worse. Or if you are more of a moderate, that he must be dismissed at the end of the season and someone who knows what they are doing be brought in.
From some of the goings on during games this season I can see why. Manchester United have put in some desperate, dismal performances against opposition of the calibre that we would have steamrollered at almost any point in the last twenty years. The players look disinterested, low on confidence and a shadow of their former selves.
Clearly all of this is Moyes' fault and he has to go. I mean he didn't win a tap at Everton did he? That record speaks for itself. Or does it? And further more is all of the goings on at United this season Moyes' fault or is some of it an inevitable consequence of arguably football's greatest ever manager finally putting his watch and chewing gum in his pocket and calling it a day? Would any other managers have fared any better? What does the future hold for Manchester United, regardless of who ends up managing them for the next five to ten years?
Lets break this argument down into it's component parts then. Firstly, the trend when even just a very good manager moves on, never mind a truly great one, is that unless the team he leaves behind is without question the best in the league and the club has that elusive 'winning mentality' then things will usually start to slide quite quickly. An example of a club that was able to survive several changes of manager and keep on winning was the Liverpool side of the late 70's and all of the 1980's. The baton was passed from Shankley, to Paisley, to Fagan and to Dalglish yet Liverpool kept on winning. That as much as anything was because they had great players. Players who not just had the ability to win but the desire to as well.
By the time Dalglish passed the flame onto Souness the club had been destablised by the tragic events at Hilsborough and the team was probably a couple of seasons past it's best. Cue the arrival of the madman with the moustache. Souness may or may not have been as good a manager as Dalglish, that is somewhat irrelevant, but at the time it seemed like fifteen years of constant success had evaporated in half a season. Maybe in trying to correct the problem, Souness made too many changes too quickly and bought badly, but the problem already existed, it was just made worse by the departure of the previous manager. The very changing of the guard was as much of an issue as who it changed to.
The Liverpool of 1991 is a classic case of the fans not wanting to blame anything on the club legend who won silverware as both player and manager and instead blaming it on all on the new guy, when in reality he was only partly to blame.
The group of players that Moyes has inherited from Ferguson when shorn of Van Persie, Rooney and Carrick are a mid table bunch at best. I think a lot Manchester United fans have gotten so used to Ferguson achieving miracles over the years that they have lost all perspective about just how great an achievement the period 2011 to 2013 was. In fact it could be argued it was the greatest during his career bar the treble. Getting that team to a Champions League final and Premier League victory was virtually impossible, yet he found a way to do it.
Towards the end Manchester United had become the Sir Alex Ferguson show. His reputation and Manchester United's reputation under his management probably accounted for twenty points a season in that time frame. So many times I watched teams sitting back and hoping not to get thrashed against a United side that to my eyes looked so weak that on the rare occasions opposition managers did decide to go for it they often got 'surprise' results.
This combined with Chelsea and Manchester City frequently under performing due to chaotic management structures, along with Ferguson's second to none ability to get 110% out of his teams carried us to those achievements, not the players. He even managed to get his side in with the score 1-1 at half time against a Barcelona team who were then tearing anyone and everyone to shreds with ease.
With that almost supernatural influence gone, suddenly the Manchester United of this season look like what they really are, a top ten team.
Enter Moyes then. A manager who barring one season where Everton were down in a relegation dogfight were always worth a 5th to 8th place finish. "Cobblers!" say the Everton fans unhappy with the manner of his departure and the United fans unhappy with his arrival. "After all look at the football they are playing this season under Martinez. Look how much better they are performing in the league. AND MOYES NEVER WON A TROPHY THERE!!!"
Well for starters Everton are one place higher because United are below them (on Moyes's watch admittedly, but we will come back to that in a minute). Also this season they have Ross Barkley back and fully fit most of the time. They also have the addition of Gareth Barry and Romelu Lukaku on loan. Barry came from the best team in the league, Manchester City whilst still at his very peak. Lukaku was the difference at West Brom ultimately, between a side that were in the Champions League places at one point last season to one which is now down there flirting with relegation.
For all that they aren't even doing that differently from the Moyes era in terms of league position or points. Despite revisionist attempts to claim Moyes was a lucky chancer at Everton who knew nothing, he took an old team, full of too big for their boots senior pros that were on the verge of relegation every year, for ten years or more and made them into a solid top eight team. He might have played dreadful football doing it, but he developed a system that worked with the budget and the size of squad he had.
There were limitations to it. A combative approach meant Everton's small squad always creaked under injuries and a lack of ambition was often shown against bigger teams, but he got the results that kept Everton free from relegation every year. I don't remember hearing a great deal of complaint about that from the majority of Toffees fans at the time.
Looking at the "...ah, but he never won a trophy..." argument, look at everyone else of Everton's ilk that has won a trophy against the odds unexpectedly in the Premier League era. Teams with small budgets, players that aren't in the main good enough for the top four and that are often part of a smaller than average squad.
Teams like Middlesbrough who reached the finals of both cups in 1997 and had a team with Juninho and Ravanelli in it, yet were still relegated. Look at the some of the depressed league form of Stoke and Fulham when they went on their Europa league runs, or Swansea this year. Both Birmingham and Wigan were relegated in recent years, the same season as they won a domestic trophy. You could argue in both cases the cup run was probably the deciding factor between staying up and going down.
In the modern era, with the speed and intensity of English league football and the rock hard pitches that the game is played on, if you don't have strength in depth you cannot maintain your league form whilst going on a cup run. With money being the way it is these days in the game, if you manage an Everton or a Wigan or a Stoke, staying in the Premier League is everything. Not winning silverware at clubs like that will not often get you the sack, but relegation almost certainly will.
In Everton's case they are a club that only manages to survive on TV money and selling the odd player on for twenty million pounds plus to a United or a City or Chelsea. If the league campaigns weren't Moyes' and Kenwright's priorities then they would be foolish under those circumstances.
So back to the United team that are now below Everton under Moyes' stewardship. Surely that's all his fault isn't it? Well again, I would argue no, it isn't. He has made tactical mistakes in games, but so did Ferguson and sometimes those mistakes cost United. For example for the past few years (since around 2009) United have suddenly started racking up massive injury lists during the Christmas period. The people who seem to think this is a new phenomenon under Moyes' dinosaur football methods have very short memories indeed. These bad runs with injury under Ferguson were the result of a progressively weakening team having to fight harder and harder for every victory as match winners like Tevez and Ronaldo moved on and the clubs core players, such as Ferdinand, Vidic and Evra got further and further past their best.
The formation Ferguson put out against Blackburn on Boxing Day 2011 has often been sited as the game, along with the 4-4 draw against Moyes' Everton that cost United the league in 2011-12. In the match against the Rovers, faced with the same Hobson's Choice as Moyes has had this season Fergie picked the wrong team and it lost. There were multiple instances over the last few seasons where Ferguson's tactical decisions have been questioned yet in lots of cases he got away with them because of the 'Fergie Factor'.
The idea that some United fans seem to have got into their head that the Red Devils playing dreadful football in general, regardless of tactics is a new a thing as well, also have short memories. For most of Ferguson's reign United doggedly stuck with an antiquated 4-4-2 system with wingers who stayed wide and got crosses into the box. Occasionally in Europe a more progressive 4-3-3 system was used, but in the league Ferguson stuck to the formula that had served him well all those years, During the treble period or the Ronaldo era no one cared because United were still exciting to watch and were winning trophies. But Ferguson's philosophy that worked so well in the league was arguably the biggest factor in why United didn't win more European Cups under his management. From 2010 onwards, with Ronaldo gone and the likes of Valencia and Nani labouring where Giggs, Beckham and the Portuguese had thrilled, the dreadful football United were playing suddenly became more of an issue. Frustrations however were kept suppressed by continued silverware.
With Fergie gone those games that were wins are becoming draws, or even worse defeats. The lack of the 'Fergie Factor' is being compounded by the fact that a lot of the players who were forced to work there sock off under Sir Alex's unquestioned authority are now starting to show signs that they think that they are too good to be playing for Moyes and are shirking their responsibilities.
A similar thing happened at Arsenal when George Graham left the club and is mentioned in Paul Merson's autobiography. Too many players stopped giving that extra 5% with Graham's shadow no longer looming over them and results went on the slide. A team that had won the league in 1991 had by Wenger's arrival in 1996 drifted to a top eight side. With the benefit of hindsight Stewart Houston and Bruce Rioch weren't the men to take Arsenal forward and you could perhaps draw comparisons between them and David Moyes, but the difference there is that they took over what had been a very good team, in it's prime, yet results still dropped off.
This United side, despite winning the league last year is not a very good team and has not been for some time.
Another common argument you hear thrown at Moyes is that his negative brand of football is all that he knows and that he is incapable of doing anything else. However looking at the group of players at his disposal for the start of this season, I really can't see anyone other than Ferguson being able to, or even having the neck to think about trying to play 'The United Way' with this lot. Not even Mourinho would attempt such a thing.
So it seems we are trapped in a vicious circle. United don't win as many games as last season because we don't play the United way, yet we no longer have the players to play the United way as many of them are now looking for an easy ride.
To varying degrees no matter who United's manager was this season results would have fallen away from the Ferguson era. Despite all the injury worries United had in Sir Alex's last few years he still had Ronaldo or Rooney or Van Persie available most of the time and scoring enough goals in those seasons to balance the books. This year United have been relying on Hernandez and Welbeck, who despite both being good players are not good enough to carry a weak team to the title.
Just how would some of the other managers out there have fared if they had been appointed instead of Moyes? There are some far better qualified people knocking about than the Scot, but there are significant drawbacks with all of them. The Capello, Hiddink, Van Gaal, Advocaat bracket of manager despite their faultless track records are all old men themselves. All have been great managers over the years, but none have a record comparable to Ferguson when consistency, durability and success are factored in. We may be higher than seventh in the league under any of them but we wouldn't be top by 11 points as some people are suggesting this season.
Bringing them in would be in some ways just delaying the inevitable even if, in my view the unlikely event happened that we were somehow top of the league. In two or three seasons at best another manager would be required as they each hung it up. All would be short term appointments to insulate United fans from the reality of football, post Ferguson.
Then there are the likes of Mourinho and Ancelotti. They are both younger than those listed above, but Ancelotti was already on his way to Madrid by the time Ferguson's retirement was announced, even to the Glazers, never mind the rest of the world. Mourinho despite his status as one of the all time greats of football management is also someone who never stays anywhere for very long. He either gets bored or talks his way into trouble and is shown the exit door. Again he would have been just another short term appointment.
Jurgen Klopp is yet another name mentioned a lot, but he is relatively inexperienced at top level management, has never managed outside of Germany and is already starting to look like a good manager who had a couple of great seasons. Building a good team is one thing, but keeping that team renewed is another and stopping your best players leaving for bigger clubs, yet another. He may prove me wrong but he hasn't been particularly successful on the last two counts so far.
When I say 'the realities of football, post Ferguson', I think a lot of United fans have convinced themselves that if any of those other managers had been given the job instead of Moyes, that the Ferguson juggernaut would keep on rolling on without him and United would continue cruising to league titles with players that would in the main struggle to get a game at Everton. In my view that is utter nonsense. There was only one man who could do that and that was Ferguson. Whoever came in would have, to some degree floundered in the situation that Moyes has found himself. This is a situation that is going to take an enormous amount of money and time to fix.
All United's rivals have strengthened this season in one way or another, whereas United have lost Ferguson and David Gill. Also, due to the inexperience and naivety of new chairman, Edward Woodward, when combined with David Moyes' late arrival to the job, led to the club failing to secure any meaningful signings on the road towards recovery that might have taken some of the sting out of this season.
Its been argued in some quarters that Moyes should have done more during the summer to start transfer moves before Ferguson had even retired. To do so however he would have had to have gone through Ferguson and Gill, who I think would likely have been a significant obstacle to this. Their collective sense of pride would perhaps have told them that the club was still their lookout until the end of the season and that Moyes should mind his own business. Maybe this is what happened, we will never know. Moyes could have tried making moves for players independently of the club, but if he only found out in late April or early May, several weeks before anyone else he would hardly have been in a position to start sounding out Europe's elite players about whether they fancied wearing a red shirt next season. Even if he was, by then it was already far too late to sign any of the players of the calibre United required.
Deals of that sort are often ongoing for six to twelve months before hand. Look at some of the people United have been linked with during the January transfer window this year. You can bet your last pound United will be in for some of those players again this summer and will make a better fist of it than they did during the summer of 2013. They will have had the time to put the deals together rather than trying to rush them through at the last minute.
If Manchester United could afford to put a £90 million pound bid in for Gareth Bale, why did they wait until transfer deadline day to do it when it was rumoured that Real Madrid were struggling to raise the money? What were Ferguson and Gill doing for the first half of 2013 if he was a genuine transfer target?
Maybe, with both men having one eye on leaving the club, deals were not pursued with the vigour that they should have been which conspired to leave Moyes up the creek without a paddle.
So what for the future? Well you don't need to be a chartered accountant to follow the finances of a football club. With a bit of basic research you can soon find out how much cash a club has available to spend on players if that club is listed on the stock market and thus legally bound to issue quarterly financial statements.
By trawling through a combination of financial reporting made public since the Glazer's arrived you can see that what little money was available for players was spent, even during the years when we were buying the likes of Chris Smalling and Bebe. The sole exception to this was the money made on Cristiano Ronaldo's sale to Real Madrid. This kept the club financially secure in the short term whilst it's debt was restructured into a more sustainable package.
Without boring you with the details of the Manchester United balance sheet of 2014, it is light years away from that of 2005-2010. Despite the gross debt the club holds still being at the fat end of £300 odd million, this is still down significantly from the £700 million plus it reached at it's peak in early 2010.
Clever financial management during one of the world's worst ever financial crashes, combined with a legend of a manager has enabled United to drastically reduce the amount they owe and the rate at which they pay interest on it. What the Glazer's did to United was dreadful, but they have gotten away with it.
In fact they have done more than get away with it, they have positively flourished. Both gross and net revenue have continued to rise and rise as ever more lucrative commercial deals are signed by the club. This season, in the now unlikely event that United finish third and reach the quarter finals of the Champions League the club will make £430 million gross profit. Once deductions are taken into account, this will leave United with about £100 million to spend on players. Even if they don't make those performance targets the effect on the club will be far less than it would be on a club with a financial position like Liverpool or Tottenham.
Bearing in mind that player transfers are often paid for in two installments that in effect leaves United with up to £200 million to spend on players. Whether all of that is spent by the Glazer's remains to be seen, but it makes financial sense for them to.
The fat commercial deals United have been signing are only based on the premise of further glory. On the next Ronaldo, Rooney and Tevez leading United to glory and having their faces plastered all over advertising hoardings for the club's "commercial partners". Despite the fact they strike me as penny pinchers the Glazer's will have a lot of experienced financial people around them telling them that Manchester United is not the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and that the way to make money with a club like the Red Devils is to spend it.
Improved results and stability under a long term manager will see confidence on the markets about the club return and it's share price reach or exceed the peak it reached under Ferguson. The higher the share price, the bigger the profit the Glazer's will make on the club when, or perhaps if they ever find anyone willing to pay them what they think United is worth. The hope that Moyes would be a success and stay with the club for ten to fifteen years would have been an enormous factor in why United's American owners did not override Ferguson and go for Mourinho instead.
And things are only going to get better next season. United have the Chevrolet deal starting then along with a new agreement with Nike, which is rumoured to be worth £70 million a year. Total cash available for players every season could be nudging the £150 million mark by then.
Moyes will get this season, no matter how bad it gets and in the summer he will be backed significantly. Maybe then he will have the tools to win. With some of Ferguson's players moved on and a good run of victories under his belt, Moyes' stature within the dressing room will grow and he will start being able to exert some authority over his players. In time maybe he will develop the confidence in them that they won't let him down trying to play the United way.
Until Moyes has had his twenty four months or so, calling for his head now will leave the club with, at best Steve Round as United's caretaker manager. Or if his backroom staff walk, Ryan Giggs, until a more permanent replacement can be found. Giggs doesn't even have his pro licence yet. The club would be thrown into outright chaos.
Even getting rid of Moyes in the summer is not the right thing to do. No fully credible, ready made replacement for Ferguson is out there. Yet another new manager coming in, more player moves than is ideal in any single window being required and a whole new set of backroom staff risk the very essence of what Manchester United is about being lost for a very long time and a return to the glory years of Ferguson ever less likely...
