David Moyes’ Manchester United: A Generational Disaster

[Music] 30th of June 2019 David Moyes who was contracted by Manchester United in 2013 to lead them into the future had reached the end of his six-year contract after being handpicked by Sir Alex Ferguson winning the hearts of millions and years of excellent service it was time to hang up his boots except for the fact that that didn't happen the excellent service part at least he didn't lost the full six-year contract he didn't even lost one of those years the collapse of Manchester United under David Moyes has been studied deeply by academics of the game

it's been analyzed it's been dissected it's been ridiculed we had a lot of discussions about tactics and it was clear that there was a lack of clarity in what we were trying to achieve said Wayne Rooney he tried to impose a vision but never seemed to be completely clear what that Vision should be said Rio Ferdinand there was a lot of uncertainty in the dressing room about what was expected of us Chris Smalling it was the best 10 months of my entire life said Roger a Liverpool fan this appointment kicked off an unprecedented downfall for

the Red Devils however with the gift of hindsight I can't help but Ponder was it really that bad especially considering everything that's happened since well yes yes it was make no mistake David Moyes is a good football manager he has the credentials to prove it but like everything there is new on to consider here today we don't care about those guys today we talk about the man who came first and who's to blame I'm sorry to say again it's my hello hope you're well welcome back on the 8th of May 2013 Manchester United were first

in the league standings with only two G games left to play in the 12133 season and had already secured the league title with a 3n thrashing of Aston Villa 2 weeks before it was business as usual but on this day the world as we know it would cease to exist the great Sir Alex Ferguson announced his retirement from football most people were in disbelief because it seemed as though it came out of nowhere but perhaps there were those that simply chose to see it as some sort of elaborate prank it wasn't the first time that

he publicly announced that he'd be stepping away from W Trafford in May of 2001 he announced that he'd be retiring at the end of the 0102 season at 60 years old but after his decision to leave led to a decrease in ability to motivate his players and United being in ninth place by December yes that was not normal back then his family convinced him to stay on this man retired in 2002 but only left in 2013 this this time Ferguson's decision to leave came off the back of a winning campaign at the very least 72

years of age 27 years at all Trafford nothing would ever be the same from a financial perspective the club was bigger and better than ever here's a chart of United's Revenue growth year on year since 93 by 2013 the club was clearing £320 million per year these guys were doing sensationally well and frequently topping the high earners list over that 20 to your period all of that was as a result of onfield performance going forward it was all about maintaining the winning momentum but that would be impossible without the correct leadership and so began the

hunt for the next big boss and there was a lot of speculation over who was eventually going to take on the role one of the top three biggest managerial jobs in the world at the very least and also a position that hasn't been open in almost 30 years League champions huge bank accounts you would assume that all the best coaching Talent on the planet would be lining up in reality I think everyone knew what this job really entailed it required someone to come in and be the man that succeeded the man the rumor mill was

relentless as soon as the announcement hits luckily though thanks to comments from Sir Alex Ferguson himself in his 2015 book leading we have an idea of what was going on behind the scenes I present to you our list of candidates Pep Guardiola the man coming hot off the heels of leading boss Barcelona to their most successful period he was on a sabatical at this point but everyone knew it would be a matter of time before he returned to the game I asked pep to phone me before he accepted an offer from another club but he

didn't and wound up joining Bayern Munich in July 2013 cheers pep Jurgen Club very hard property bruo Dorman were backto back champions in the Bundesliga thanks to him and were playing a brand of football that in in some ways was ahead of its time what better way would there be to usher in a new era we also knew that Jurgen klopp was happy at produo dorant and would be signing a new contract no dice Jose Mourinho it became apparent that Jose Mourinho had given his word to Roman Abramovic that he would return to Chelsea fa

what about Carlo angelotti and that Carlo angelotti would succeed him at Real Madrid Louis vanal committed to the Dutch national team when we started the process of looking for my replacement we established that several very desirable candidates were unavailable I'm not trying to put words into the great man's mouth but to me the fact that he's included that in his book means that the eventual Choice wouldn't necessarily have been in his first second third fourth even fifth Choice maybe what was to come proved exactly that regardless everyone was urged to Rally behind the eventual Choice

your job now is to stand by our new manager the eventual Choice was from as early as 22 years of age they David Moyes was already a fully licensed coach in both Scotland and England he would study his own managers at the time and take notes he coached High School while being a fully active player eventually he made his way to Preston North End a third division side to finish off his career the same Club he would begin his managerial career with this is where everyone got a glimpse of what he could do by 1998

he had worked his way up to the head coach position Preston was struggling and the threat of relegation was very real he writed the show they avoided relegation and two seasons later won the division the very next year Preston were in the playoff finals for Premier League promotion this is the caliber of coach we're talking about here he unfortunately lost in the 2001 playoff final but he had done enough to prove that he was a premier league level manager and Everton made it reality he joined them in March of 2002 again he was joining a

relegation threatened Club but again he made things right and turned them into a fire football club Moyes managed Everton from 2002 to 2013 and by the time he was preparing to depart he was the third longest serving manager in the league only bested by celex Ferguson and aren benger and for good reason too here has a chart showing Everton's finishing positions in the Premier League era up to 2013 the difference in results that the Moyes era brought in is remarkable consistently in the top eight outside of three years one of which was the turbulent year

he joined in overall he made great signings for great great prices and proved he knew how to put together a competitive Squad Andrew Johnson James Bey jolian lescot Tim Cahill Phil jug ala Leon Banes Steven Pino marijan Fellaini and many more he improved young players the most notable being a guy built like a pub roller since he was 16 Wayne Rooney although it seems Moyes and Rooney didn't really see eye to eye at times at Everton we'll get into why in a bit but just keep that in mind in many of the interviews he's done

over the years he's been very honest in saying that had a wealth of options if he ever wanted to leave Everton i' met a couple of really big clubs who' approached me and phoned me and spoke to me know what was I do and would I be interested the truth is I don't think I'd have I'd have left for any of them you know it came up I've got a chance to manage probably the biggest club in the world but the real question was is he ready to go to the next level and Beyond at

Everton the general opinion around Moyes is overwhelmingly positive to this day but to many he had already reached his ceiling for example despite being being in Europe for five out of 11 years with Everton and effectively competing with the likes of Arsenal Chelsea Man United and Liverpool he never won a single game in any of their stadiums 43 attempts no wins despite this when the opportunity presented itself evidently he was the chosen one he was 50 years old at the time handpicked by Ferguson himself the two knew each other very well Scott to Scott this

was the future of Manchester United [Music] so uh turns out this wasn't the the future of Manchester United do you realize after everything at Everton you're going from a yacht to a cruise liner that's how big the difference will be that was Renee Merin Manchester United's first team coach at the time and one of Sir Alex Ferguson's Chief lieutenants he was right I'm no expert on the mechanics of traveling across water but I do know that the method required for either mode uh differs significantly MO obviously knew this but perhaps his navigation system was was

slightly off clearly he wanted to succeed but but sadly it looked like he was doomed from the start it's hard to pinpoint every single detail that led to what was to come but in my eyes his failings emerged from five main buckets one an obsession with his own legacy two failing to understand the media three a non-existent transfer strategy four failing to manage his own players and five tactical uncertainty believe it or not all five of these aspects were apparent within his first month so before we get into the actual onfield results let's talk with

those points in mind we can kick things off with his legacy I needed it to be David moy's era now so that meant me taking some of my own people whatever we say my job now is to make my history I have to make sure now that my history and my time is something which the fans and people in the future talk about well I guess he he did a good job job you know we're we're still talking about it this quote was in response to moy's removing the majority of the backro staff at United

and bringing in his own guys now this is obviously not a bad thing in fact I think every top manager has a group of guys that they know and trust that follow them around when they make their moves the only issue here was that United was a complex machine when you enter an environment that has had the same guy in charge for 27 years then that is neither the time nor a place to start aresh it's well done documented that in his last maybe decade at United Ferguson delegated heavily he wouldn't handle day-to-day training he

focused on Big Picture stuff strategy high level planning all that these days we see a lot of clubs opt to bestow the title of Coach instead of manager and there's a reason for that coaches deal with training players managers deal with everything and that's what celex was a manager he relied on his staff members who all knew the club inside and out from top to bottom the same staff that led the club Club to the most successful 5-year period ever directly prior to moy's arriving the most notable departures were assistant manager Mike felen goalkeeping coach

Eric steel and first team coach renie Molen Stein all leaving within a month of Moyes coming in all of whom bar steel who came in 2008 have been at United since 2001 now to moyes's credit he was a manager at Everton he had his hand in every Po and he knew what he was doing it was working but as per the accounts of both Everton and United players over the years Moyes was involved in everything from scouting to transfer negotiations to day-to-day coaching whatever he was doing at everon it wouldn't translate to a club the

size of United perhaps the story would be different had he retained the knowledge that was sitting in the minds of those he let go to ease the transition at the very least he didn't do it as a result he left himself in the position of needing time to learn things he could have simply been told time he did not have which brings us to the next Point fumbling in the media Moyes officially stepped into office on the 1st of July 2013 there was a lot to do and you would have to do it all while

conducting a preseason tour across the world in Australia and Asia for European clubs preseason tours in these areas in particular are notoriously bloody hectic constant traveling a malange of time zones jet lag hotels sponsorships and media appearances photo shoots meets and greets and more all while trying to get the stars of the show fit and up to scratch for the upcoming campaign and trying to bring in new talent in moy's case throw in getting to know the players currently at hand while also getting to grips with how the club operates it's grueling and of course

I'm saying this from the perspective of compassion unfortunately most reporters don't have the same compassion just before leaving Bangkok following the first leg of the tour Moy said the following about Wayne Rooney Wayne can play up on his own he can play dropped in overall my thought on Wayne is if for any reason we had an injury to Robin V Percy will need him I want to be able to use the two of them I want to use Danny Welbeck and Javier Hernandez as well I want to give myself as many options as possible given

the full quote this is a nothing quote a generic answer guess which part of that quote was copy pasted onto hundreds of headlines overall my thought on Wayne is if for any reason we had an injury to Robin we'll need him boom David Moyes doesn't rate Wayne Rooney the club's highest paid player Moyes was reportedly delivered that his words were minced I don't see how he didn't see it coming especially given the context of what was happening around Rooney firstly Rooney was already on shaky terms with the club and cus Ferguson he didn't even feature

when Ferguson's final two games in charge and had handed in a transfer request only weeks before Moyes arrived it was rejected and secondly as I alluded to Moyes and Rooney had quite a rough history moyes's first challenge at United will be to deal with Striker Wayne Rooney who Moyes once managed at Everton before the manager went on to successfully sue the player for lialis comments in Rooney's ghostwritten autobiography in 2006 2 years after Rooney had left Everton for Manchester United Rooney released an autobiography in said book Rooney accused Moyes of forcing him out of Everton

and leaking the details of the disagreement to the public Moyes sued for liel but the two settled out of court and Rooney apologized also Jose Mourinho was openly talking about Rooney being his only transfer Target to Chelsea even worse first Rooney had picked up an injury on that same tour and was forced to fly home the media was lapping it up for the next few months Moyes continued to make remarks that I don't think he fully thought through and just led to everyone starting to feel he was extremely out of his depth only a couple

of weeks into his United Career Moyes was complaining about United's opening fixtures Manchester City Liverpool and Chelsea in three of their first five games I find it hard to believe that's the way the balls came out of the bag that's for sure the manager of Manchester United said that the job is too hard lovely add on his constant assertion that he needed more time and people became less and less willing to take him seriously next up a non-existent transfer strategy when I first went into United my real Target was Gareth Bale the other one I

came really close to getting was CES fabrigas and Sir Alex Ferguson had told me there was always a chance Cristiano Ronaldo might come back from Real Madrid this was from 2016 but in the near decade since Moyes had consistently repeated these sentiments along with these three megga stars Thiago Alcantara was another Target he claimed to have been close to signing to be entirely fair to Moyes and not to completely mud his ability to draw players Tony Cris has publicly admitted to have been close to joining Manchester United from Bayern Munich in 2014 even after Moyes

had been in charge for a few months but that never materialized in 2014 before I signed with Real Madrid I had already agreed with with Manchester United but then they kicked out David Moyes who I was still sitting on my couch with in Munich and hired Louis vonal vonal had previously worked with Tony Cruz at Bayern Munich I'm guessing the two didn't exactly get along so basically the big picture here is saying in some alternate reality Manchester United in 2014 were rocking a team with Cristiano Ronaldo Gareth Bale CIS fabricas Tony Cruz Thiago Alcantara Wayne

Rooney Robin van persy and The Prodigal Son himself ad Nan yanai we was so close unlike the United Rumor Mill in the years to come I do believe that the links to these players were very real however based on all the reporting it seems that all of these players minus chis were more likely to have signed given Ferguson was still in charge either that or they were waiting to see if the Moy project proved successful before committing themselves to it I would say that was a good call for fabriz judging by the fact that he

went on to become a Chelsea star I don't think the Arsenal connection mattered all too much for Bale I distinctly remember the rill around him going to United being strong after his Monumental PFA player of the EUR award winning season I estimate that Moyes was hoping the name Manchester United would be enough for most players it wasn't the only player he signed in his first window was marowan Fellaini on Deadline day a player that had a release Clause of 23.5 million but United who were the only team after him were too late to trigger it

and ended up paying 20 7.5 million what's worse is that Moyes had been managing this guy for 5 years already and likely knew all the intricate details of his contract he wasn't able to leverage that information and ended up looking horribly incompetent having said all of that it would be easy to Simply blame David Moyes for all the transfer activity but again this is a case of him being doomed to fail along with C Alex Ferguson David Gil the Manchester United executive for 16 years 10 of them as the CEO of United also left the

club this man was The Mastermind behind United transfer negotiations in that period the kind of guy that was able to get a prime Robin van persy from Arsenal for £24 million pound a year prior Wayne Rooney Patrice Evra Nan vidage chistian Ronaldo both buying him and selling him for a world record fee that was David Gil he was replaced by Ed Woodward a financial Sant directly responsible with shooting United sponsorship Revenue to the Moon from 2005 onwards but also a man that was strong armed into overpaying for marowan Fellaini despite not having any competition Fellaini

to was credit had a fantastic United Career and he has the greatest chest of all time paes I'll accept no Fellaini slander but there are levels to this we're not going to get into Ed Woodward in this video that's a whole other kind of words just know that from a pure footballing perspective Moyes didn't exactly have the Dream Team on his back United were able to bring in Juan mat from Chelsea in January another fabulous play player but I wouldn't say the kind of profile of player that was a priority not with an aging defense

and Midfield another nail in the coffin failing to manage his players he failed to get his targets and he failed to win over the players he already had look it's no secret that United didn't have the strongest and most youthful Squad in the final year of Ferguson's career look at this image right here man united won the Premier League with this squad with an 11-point Gap they weren't the best team man for man but they were Champions still a slight drop off was expected but a complete nose dive is what we got boy has mostly

maintained that the players were professional and willing to fight while he was at the club but he just wasn't able to get the best out of them with his approach to coaching he banned players from eating lowfat chips before games a long-standing tradition he would consistently show video clips of other Premier League players to them think Hazard coutinho Etc and spend hours on drills to stop them specifically instead of working on United's own game he publicly said Danny Welbeck needs to follow in Wayne Rooney's footsteps and be the last man off the training pitch if

he wanted to improve Welbeck claimed he was already doing so and dismissed the comments also in public he fiercely and unsuccessfully pursued Leighton Baines in the market Patrice Evra felt undermined and Evra was an extremely popular figure in the dressing room this upset many players Captain NE Mana viage was in the final year of his contract and his agent ruled out a contract extension as early as late November players were only being told who would play on the weekend as late as the day of the game something Ferguson never used to do it left many

anxious and disrupted their pregame preparations it seems as though as late as November 2013 only 4 months into the job Moyes had entirely lost the dressing room and lastly the final nail in the coffin tactical uncertainty as the quotes at the start of the video suggest Manchester United's players were downright not sure what Moyes wanted to achieve on the pitch and what he expected from his players in the first game of the season United won by four goals to one against Swansea it was the perfect start but the joy wouldn't lost at all in the

first six games united only won twice there were some positive stretches of results here and there as the season went on but every time it looked like they were gathering ahead of steam it all fell apart and what did Moy see as the solution 81 crosses in a single game 81 crosses in a single game my God 81 crosses in one game a game that was drawn 22 vers Fulham how evidently the play style he was trying to adopt for the most part relied on wide play and getting the ball into the box for attackers

not at all unlike the attacking identity of vintage United sides but Moyes was was far too pragmatic and cautious in execution he wanted this team to be defense first buy their time for an opportunity and see if they can get lucky because of that players didn't really have the license to attack with intent perhaps Moyes planned for the season under the assumption that Ronaldo Bale and maybe another one of those super flashy players that can win a game by themselves would arrive I don't know man here's the thing though I completely understand why Moyes implemented

his pragmatism in the previous season United won it all but the defense was leaking like the stadium in 2024 for 33 goals conceded the most since 2002 at that point he wanted to change that Ironically in trying to do so the team conceded the same amount under Moyes the main difference here was that when United conceded the year before they weren't married to a single tactical approach which is why they scored 22 more goals despite a lot of new age revisionism Ferguson was tactically incredible I know shocker but people do genuinely think a manager that

stayed at the top of the industry for for almost three decades was a tactical dud it's very strange he knew how to unlock all forms of defenses he knew how to Target weak points and Coach Rhythm but maybe his most unmatched trait was that he knew when to gamble the reason why Manchester United were the comeback Kings for so long is because Ferguson was brave enough to loosen his initial game plan changed the formation and Trust his players enough to allow them to improvise on the field where necessary teams frequently couldn't deal with the sudden

complete shift in United his attack in the final 20 minutes in 20123 United mounted nine comeback victories nine times they turned zero points into three at the flip of a switch 27 extra points and they win the 1314 season Moyes played with the ambition of a mid-table squad and that's what they became as a United fan who knew nothing but Glory growing up watching this felt like being three levels deep in Inception my whole world was collapsing in on itself every weekend and this was life no kick was coming out of the Champions League in

the quarterfinals out of the FA Cup in the first game losses to several clubs at home for the first time in years sometimes decades seventh place with the lowest points tally since 1991 the first time in the Premier League era that the club had failed to qualify for any European competitions with four games left to play he was [Music] sacked Moyes to this day feels that he just needed more time to do a job at Old Trafford this is something that most would disagree with wrong man wrong place he just wasn't good enough like I've

said numerous times now he isn't a bad manager he didn't make things easy for himself that's for sure but I maintain bro was destined to fail at least he wasn't afraid of being the first this is a list of Manchester United managers win records from 2013 to 2024 this list includes all competitions I've also gone ahead and included calex himself for reference both his alltime record and his record post 1992 being the Premier League era really puts it all into perspective right so what can we tell from this well that Michael Carrick and rude vanoy

just might be the greatest managers of all time the numbers don't lie but it also shows us that all of these men that followed Fergie aren't too dissimilar I'm talking about the permanent ones at least this is a really really tough Club to manage and be successful at for some reason my mind completely wiped the ranik period from memory that was only 2 years ago I genuinely couldn't recall they say selective memory is a common coping mechanism but the common denominator here is that most of these teners incit a sour feeling in the in the

minds of most United fans Mourinho vanal and ten hug won trophies which is a reflection of their caliber as Elite coaches but almost every season regardless of who was in charge felt like a struggle all of these guys struggled for many of the same reasons Moy did but ultimately the 13 14 season is where the bant era truly began is Moyes to blame for not wanting to continue the previous Traditions making everyone else follow suit is calx to blame for choosing Moyes is United as an organization to blame for allowing for so much to change

so quickly without organizing the correct protocols that would ensure that succession was smooth do the glazers even know who David Moyes is I think all share the blame who deserves what percent of it is Up For Debate B also if you're sad chin up it's not all bad news at the end of the season Ed Woodward address the shareholders for the club stating that it was a difficult season to navigate he also reported a record-breaking annual revenue of 433 million pounds a new deal with Adidas was was a large contributor here here's that year on-year

Revenue chart again this dip over here is thanks to co but for the most part this club is doing fine can you imagine what this sh would look like if United were actually good this club will continue to dominate in terms of finances that much is undeniable but will it ever dominate on the pitch again maybe they were close to doing so maybe Moyes just needed more time