As neutral observers we have been watching Manchester United for the last few months and praying for that press conference which tells us that David Moyes has been sacked as the manager of the club.
He’s such a tenacious and decent man that, given the choice, he would have probably carried on at Manchester United ad infinitum, however bad things got on the field.
But he took such a beating in the last few months in charge of Manchester United, stumbling from one cuffing to another, that you just felt it would be better to put him out of his misery. We felt sorry for Moyes.
We initially thought that he would be an excellent manager for Manchester United.
But time has arguably illustrated that he lacks the vision, the strong footballing philosophy and some would say the intelligence to maintain Manchester United as winning machine.
It wasn’t as if he really needed to do that much as the new manager of Manchester United. He could have sat back, slippers and pipe on, and watched the team win whilst he just tweaked a few things here and there over the next few years. All he really had to do was keep this super squad of players on side and add a couple to replace the elderly – we don’t subscribe at all to the idea that this squad is on its last legs. Just see how Giggsy gets them playing in the next few weeks.
But Moyes seemed too keen to make his own immediate mark on Manchester United and that appears to have contributed to his downfall. In retrospect it will probably be seen as a defining moment in his career à la Graham Taylor for England.
It’s a sad tale for Moyes himself but we do think that for Manchester United’s sake it was better that he went sooner rather than later. Moyes and Manchester United, as it turned out, was a very bad fit.