Man Utd: Rising out of the ashes?

Moyes was left with a good squad and loads of money to spend. He mismanaged it.

 

This is such a hard topic to discuss on an internet forum as there is so much that can be said (written, I suppose) but we have these little boxes to write them in. I'll try to be brief.

Moyes was handed a champion squad, but one that needed substantial retooling immediately. He simply did not have the tools or the credibility to make the player changes that needed to be made that summer. He dithered and then panicked with the Fellaini buy -- his one shining buy. Then he mismanaged the players that he had and we broke all kinds of obscure records for futility. 81 crosses against Fulham. It was evident by the first week of December that he could not last the entire season. And so it happened.

 

Fergie built his success on a very solid defence and some killer attacking players. In the later years to the point of neglecting midfield. But he found a way.

Moyes didnt have the smarts of SAF and didnt address the obvious issues of an ageing defence and an incomplete midfield (he and Woody did f all in the transfer window). His GWAC tactics were not suited to the team ethos or players. He also killed the functional backroom that SAF had assembled.

LVG / Woody partially addressed this first summer and are nearer to fully addressing the defensive/midfield issues.

I dont think anyone who saw our recent (including SAF) performances against top teams domestically and in CL will argue that we need(ed) to tranition to a more modern posession style of football. However LVG is doing this in a very dogmatic way that means we compete well against the bigger teams but can be caught out by teams that bunker.

In short SAF was a genius to do what he did, but left us deficient in some areas, Moyes took us backward and LVG misread the smaller teams in the league and has had to splash the cash to rebuild. Will see next season if he has got it right

 

Mos did a brilliant job. The truth is, whoever followed Fergie would have had an impossible task. Following Moyes is considerably easier.

Final act of Darth Ferguson was a mind trick.

 

One of the classic war games conducted at Annapolis is cadets reproducing the Battle of Midway...and invariably LOSING when they play as the US Navy.

Players, like resources in a war game, can be "gamed" in a scenario but it's VERY difficult to reproduce genuine leadership and the human element (I train leadership and exec coach for Australia's largest employer, trust me, you KNOW leadership when you see it).

Moyes just didn't have what Fergie had.

There's a lot of other factors, too, but at its very basic United got an inferior man-manager and leader in David Moyes.

 

Would Jose Mourinho have found it impossible to succeed where Moyes failed? Of course not.

Keep in mind no one expected Moyes to retain the league trophy. The measure of success was keeping United in the top four, which of course he failed to do. Jose would not have failed at this one non-negotiable task.

Jose took a side which finished below United (obviously) at the point in time he and Moyes took over their respective clubs and in 24 months lifted the prem trophy.

Jose would not have taken that stupid vacation and would have begun the squad retooling immediately. He would never have bought Fellaini. He may have even put Rooney on notice that he is not undroppable. He would likely have sorted out Rafael. Above all, he would have brought credibility with him and instantly won the respect of his players.

The notion that succeeding Ferguson would have been an impossible task for anyone will endure forever as a myth, but it is a myth. Difficult, of course. But for a highly accomplished manager such as Mourinho or Ancelotti, it would not have been impossible.

 

No 'highly accomplished' manager would have taken the risk.

 

Mourinho wanted the United job,badly. He all but campaigned for it when Real came to OT and beat United in the CL. The higher ups and Sir Bobby Charlton in particular made it clear that he was persona non grata at the club bc of his antics, especially when he put his hands on Villanueva during a Clasico.

 

Jose Mourinho was, in May of 2013, a highly accomplished manager. He not only would have taken the job, it was well known he wanted the job.

 

In my eyes the reality is that people exaggerated the extent of the crisis at the time of Moyes departure. He didn't wreck the club. Nobody can wreck United in 9 months. The first team was in bad shape and the overall trajectory was not good at all, but we were still a financial behemoth with a reasonably talented squad, a quality academy, and the kind of assets, both tangible and intangible, that it takes decades to build. The "turnaround" is hardly even worthy of the name, let alone anything as dramatic as "rising out of the ashes".

There's no reason to think it will be looked back on as anything other than a blip once we get a bit of perspective on it. They hired the wrong manager, had a bad season, fired him, and got back on track. There's nothing particularly remarkable about that story.

 

There may not be anything remarkable about a failed manager and there's no doubt that it takes more than one bad season to become a broken club, but we apparently need to restate for the benefit of some what a bonehead decision it was to go with Moyes.

It was a petulant decision to overlook Mourinho that could have cost the club dearly had we not sacked Moyes before season's end. Back on the forum some of us were on at the time there was a constituency for allowing Moyes to hang on until the following Christmas. Lest anyone think that's an indictment of onenil as a forum I can tell you were there some who felt the same way on RedCafe, though on RedIssue I don't recall a single poster calling for Moyes to be given another season or even half-season.

For better or worse, the game has moved on. There will be no Fergusons or Wengers at the biggest clubs ever again. Moyes was the wrong man for the job and had he been given another half-season we would have become the next Liverpool, though definitely not the next Leeds or Forest.

 

oh, okay then.

 

I said at the time that perhaps Moyes was hired as an intentional punt to get the "successor of SAF" stigma and resultant lack of patience put to bed before hiring a more reputable long term coach.

Am I the only one who finds the title "rising from the ashes" in relation to recovering from a couple of mediocre seasons, a bit heavy handed? We once went from losing players and staff in a terrible tragedy, to winning the biggest prize a decade later with a player and manager that had lived through it all.

 

I agree. Recovering from the Munich air tragedy to rebuild a European Cup winning side is more fitting to that title. We had a bad season after SAF left but management stopped the bleeding before it got out of hand. As someone else suggested, in the long term, what happened that season will be considered a blip, nothing more really.

 

The key to LVGs big spending for me is not down to the Moyes year but due to the makeover the 12/13 squad needed.

Whilst they were champions, the stars of the future like Jones, Smalling etc. had not developed as was hoped and were not of the quality to replace the ageing talents of Rio, Vidic, Evra etc.

That in itself has left a gap in the overall squad of ready made quality, who can maintain that performance for a number of years whilst these players catch up.

Then there was also a distinct lack of a decent CM in the midfield - which was the case under Fergie.

Moyes was let down by Woodward in his first window as manager. Too long was spent pursuing Fabregas and unachievable targets hence why he ended up with an overpriced Fellaini on deadline day.

Though Moyes' management took this squad to an unthinkable and underachieving 7th place, I think it was only after his failings such a gulf in class was missing and how MU would invest to ensure such a thing didn't happen again with a manager who could handle the pressure of such a big club.

Bar Shaw and maybe Herrera, the rest of LVGs signing are pretty much established for their country or in European football.

If this squad was so desperate for a make over though, how did it win the title in 12/13? That for me is simple, it's down to the genius that was Sir Alex Ferguson. He made them players, believe and play above themselves. They competed and normally outwitted the millions and talent of Chelsea and City.

 

The thread title is a bit rich but there can't be any doubt that the club was at risk of becoming the next Liverpool and that returning to the CL just one season after falling out of it we've averted that calamity. Even now, we're not out of the proverbial woods white yet, although our sponsorship agreements guarantee gobs of revenue to enable us to compete for trophies.

Sir Bobby believed Moyes was the right man for the job, not a stooge to get us through to the next manager. As I recall, Moyes was given a 7 year contract so it's hard to imagine that he was thought of by the powers that be as anything other than the right man to sustain the legacy established by Ferguson.

 

I'm judging you for the phrase 'hence why.' What do you think hence means?

 

I get that but not only was I responding to Barroldino's post but my point in regards to this discussion still stands.
We had one bad season, born from an equally big mistake from SAF in naming his successor so hastily. It happens and other clubs went thru the same problems. And ultimately, we were fortunate that upper management did something about things before they got out of hands.
We're fortunate we're not looking at a Pool like tumble or fall from grace (fingers crossed)

 

Odd question. Hence do you ask?

 

well I am wondering how some people will feel when after spending 300mil in a year and half, you are bounced out the Cl and don't win the prem? I recall a few United fans screaming for LVG's head halfway thru last year.

 

Would still be more concerned with my own team, Dodge, before talking sh!te about others! Plenty there, and I do mean plenty to keep you guys busy. As a friendly reminder, how much have you guys spent in the past 2 summers, that is after you managed to alienate and lose your 2 best players 2 years in a row?