The old "they tell me that..."
Who was worse, Moyes or Van Gaal?
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) is joined by CEO Duncan Drasdo and Financial Director Andy Green from the Manchester United Supporters Trust for a special episode on all things behind the scenes at Old Trafford including a brief history of MUST and their aims today, views on INEOS and Sir Jim Ratcliffe so far, and the Old Trafford regeneration.
Even if we believe that, why couldn't the great philosopher Van Gaal resurrect them? Did Moyes damage them so badly that they were no longer options for us and had to be replaced?
Look personally, I believe that Fergie left a squad that could have challenged again with 4 key additions and a good manager. Kind of like Jose is doing right now. Interestingly, some of the position we have recruited for now, are the same that needed reinforcement then too. Add a top CB, CM, Winger & LB to the Fergie's last squad and it would be better than what we have now.
Van Gaal unnecessarily shifted too many players, and then astonishingly replaced them with worse players and confused matters further. I agree with @noodlehair 's post that even after getting everything he wanted, he bitched and moaned about not having the right players for his "philosophy". I think it was criminal the way he gutted the squad and left us short last season.
Moyes didn't leave LvG such a huge problem that he couldn't fix after getting 6 players for 150m, all of his own choice. Lvg had an advantage with a more experienced CEO, lower expectations & no European football as a distraction.
Moyes was worse, LVG is somewhere in the spectrum and his methods was not accepted by the players, Moyes on the other hand had no idea what he was doing.
Anyone saying LvG was worse has clearly forgotten our matches against Liverpool and Man City in that season. 4 matches and the aggregate score was 1-11. The most spineless team I've ever watched.
I hate Van Gaal and Moyes equally, for me they are as bad as each other but the fact remains that Van Gaal spent over 200m to create the team he wanted and got the time to implement what he wanted the team to be - the results of his desires were atrocious to say the least. However, regardless of whether he stumbled upon them, he also left us a few young players (Rashford, Lingard and CBJ) that are set to play a crucial role in our future and had the balls to make the right calls on Martial and Shaw - imagine Wenger paying 80m euros for Martial and we know Mourinho bulked at paying 30m for Shaw.
Of course mate thats all everyones doing here.
On your first point i think Van Gaal is still a good coach not a great one anymore but still good, we seen in the world cup with Holland that he doesn't have to stick to a rigid possession based system. Thats how he likes to play but he can play other ways. Short term at least i think he could have adapted to the more counter attacking style that 2013 side was built for. Van Gaal with that side i believe would have came top 4 easily enough. There was always going to be a drop off in performance once Ferguson retired i think everyone agrees on that. But the idea that Moyes wasn't at fault for our drop down the table (which i've seen some on here claim) and it was all because we had a mid-table side that Ferguson was getting to over perform way beyond their abilities is frankly ludicrous in my opinion.
On your second point well yes ideally you want to beat both good and bad sides. But if you are going to be inconsistent anyway i would rather beat the sides around us and take points off them which improves your chances of coming higher in the league. Wouldn't you agree?
In Moyes season people forget pretty much the entire top 6 took 4-6 points off United that contributed to why they all had such high points totals that year. And ensured we never had a look in for top 4.
It's not my intention to defend LvG. I tried to provide you with a reasonable answer to what you asked in your fist paragraph (the bold part). I even ended my post with the mention that this is a problem that LvG wasn't able to fix, just in case. But LvG not being able to fix it doesn't justify Moyes who is using this to say that he deserved more time at United in order to complete his demolition work.
People are talking about the psychological factor of the game in which Ferguson was a mastermind (the university of Harvard thinks likewise). Ferguson left behind a core of players who were winners and Moyes chose to keep all of them in the team but could not lead them or inspire them. LvG spent a lot of time trying to build the team's confidence (we treated our US tour like the CL) which means he acknowledged this as a problem, he failed tactically but kept going and during the end of his first season spirits were high again. Then he went on and fecked everything up with his choices.
To be fair Moyes is as culpable as anyone if not more so for those two farces as he stalled on Herrera due to lack of scouting when we could have signed him earlier and fecked about with Fellaini as he didn't want him to be his first and only signing. Costing the club millions in the process.
http://www.espnfc.co.uk/blog/transfer-talk/79/post/1908047/hunter-herrera-the-right-man-for-united
http://www.espnfc.co.uk/manchester-...aini-struggled-with-man-united-pressure-moyes
A lot of that is based on rumours rather than what we know to be fact.
We know it's Woodard's job to sign the players and it's no good crediting him in one instance, then blaming Moyes in another when it's convenient to. We went for Herrera only after it became clear we wouldn't get Fabregas which to me suggests Moyes wanted a creative midfielder and wasn't very indecisive about it at all. Woodward remember flew home from the tour to "deal with incoming transfers"...and then none happened until well after the tour.
The faffing around over Fellaini by Woodward doesn't excuse the fact Moyes signed Fellaini. Also he wanted Baines which again even if we had signed him wouldn't have been a good thing. So I'm hardly putting forth a glowing endorsement of Moyes either.
To be honest there's very valid points being made in this thread for either one of them being worse, which only goes to show that they were universally useless.
I really do think the one thing that swings it for me is that I had to put up with Van Gaal for longer. It was obvious Moyes should have gone about 3 months before he did. It was obvious LVG should have gone pretty much an entire year before he did, and then certainly before Christmas in his second year.
One thing people fail to consider is that with Moyes there was a negative perception of him right from the off. It's almost like people wanted him to fail. With LVG it was the complete opposite...to the point people spent months pretending he was doing all these great things that he just very obviously wasn't doing. I got pretty sick of people on here lecturing me about the genius of LVG's philosophy, when what was happening on the pitch made it 100% undeniable that they were spouting rubbish. I don't remember ANYONE pretending Moyes was doing a good job...but he did get blamed for lots of things he didn't do (as if there somehow weren't enough valid things to blame him for).
He may well have dithered but I don't blame him for the farcical way those transfers were negotiated. Which seems to have been the real deal-breaker, in both instances.
Well a lot of it we can pieced together from quotes from Moyes himself and others, not much if any of it is based on rumours. If it was one or two transfers fair enough i could see a case for Moyes not being at fault for them, but the running theme all summer on every deal was dithering. As i've said Woodward has to shoulder some of the blame of course but for me it was mostly down to Moyes leaving everything too late, lack of any real plan and indecision.
But anyway to get back to the original point, the fact we made bids for Fellaini, Baines, Fabregas, Bale, Herrera, Coentrao, Khedira etc. proves without doubt for me that the club were willing to back Moyes financially to the same levels they did Van Gaal. Moyes just didn't take advantage of it through poor planning and unrealistic targets.
So you're not giving Woodward any credit for signing the players Mourinho identified? Takes two to tango, surely?
But they come from a place of hating LvG as a person, rather than putting forward anything meaningful that Moyes did in his time here.
'Louis' smug head', 'It was Louis who destroyed our mindset' (
), 'him winning a trophy means nothing to me', 'Louis' notepad', 'hated everything about Louis'. In the same posts Moyes gets away with just being a limited, albeit a clueless manager.Almost as if by every measure Moyes was worse, but they'll vote Louis anyway because he was an arrogant cnut.
Well yes both deals were farcical but how is both those deals getting to that stage not because of Moyes decisions?
Why were we scrambling around late in the window for Herrera, because Moyes had us bidding for Fabregas for over a month when it was clear the player didn't want to join, and then he dithered on Herrera because he wanted to watch him for another 12 months before deciding whether or not to bid.
On Fellaini Moyes knew his buy-out was £23.5m he knew when it ended (mid-July) and yet we waited another 4-6 weeks before signing him. The bids we were making for Fellaini and Baines were way too low to ever be accepted. Moyes would have known Evertons valuation of both players. It was nonsense from start to finish.
The manager identifies targets and waits for Woodward to secure them. That seems to have been how it worked for Jose. The shambles we made in doing the same for Moyes can't all be put on him.
But they come from a place of hating LvG as a person, rather than putting forward anything meaningful that Moyes did in his time here.
'Louis' smug head', 'It was Louis who destroyed our mindset' (
Almost as if by every measure Moyes was worse, but they'll vote Louis anyway because he was an arrogant cnut.
That may be, but it's their decision
I'm not saying it's well founded or anything, just that there are quite a few people who genunely do seem to think LvG was worse.
Whether its ill-founded, short sighted or whatever, I don't know, but that's undoubtedly what they are saying.
Eh?
I'm saying Woodward made bids for most if not all of the players Moyes identified. So i am disputing the notion that Moyes was not given the same financial backing that Van Gaal was. He was.
I have made no mention of Mourinho or the deals Woodward has made this summer in that post where have you got that from?
As for your point yes i do give Woodward some credit for the signings this summer, but in my opinion they were mostly down to Mourinho and his relationships with players and agents.
Well yeah and if Moyes had given Woodward realistic targets around May i'm sure some of them would have been signed by the time he officially took over in July. Just as happened for Mourinho this summer. But he didn't clearly, he waltzed in on July 1st and asked United to buy Fabregas and Fellaini/Baines. And we basically sat in limbo for a good 5-6 weeks waiting on these players handing in transfer requests and having no real alternatives to move on to.
Woodward made a hash of it all but he wasn't given much to work with in the first place.
Of course not mate not all of it no, just the majority of it.
Look at Mourinho this summer he's been proactive, had targets lined up for months. Make no mistake the manager has a role to play in these deals. He spoke with Ibra and Pogba and convinced them to come as confirmed by the players.
Guardiola the other week convinced that Brazilian lad to join City ahead of a few big Spanish and Italian clubs. Moyes couldn't even convince Baines to make it known to Everton he wanted to move to United.
Thats on Moyes.
Feck it, I don't think our opinions are that far apart. We'd probably both agree that Woodward has become a much more canny operator in the transfer market over the last few years. Which doesn't exonerate Moyes from his own errors during that first summer but is something we should consider when people imply the only reason he didn't secure all his targets was his own indecision. IMHO Van Gaal (and, more recently, Mourinho) have both benefitted from the harsh lessons Woody learned during Moyes's stint in charge.
This is just re-inventionism to suit an argument though. The way it worked under Mourinho and LVG seems to be that players are identified and then Woodward is in charge of getting the deals sorted. Mourinho has said in fact that this is exactly what happens, several times.
You on the one hand want to say Moyes had "the same backing" as these two, yet on the other want to believe that the way the deals were handled was COMPLETELY different to how it was for them, and that for some reason Moyes was in charge of the negotiations. So one way or another the argument doesn't work.
Yaaaawn.
To avoid confusion, let's agree that we both think the two were train-wrecks. Showed themselves to be completely inept at the job.
As for your reasonable answer, your story about how Fergie built the confidence and all is good but doesn't mean much in context of what I was saying. The difference was night and day from the club Fergie took over to the one that VG inherited from Moyes.
My simple point was that a set of players didn't go from "champions" to "deadwood" in the span of a season. People cannot have their cake and eat it too by saying that Moyes inherited the champions while VG got deadwood, when he got the same players + two additions (a couple might have left but they were at the end of their careers). The situation at Chelsea is kind of similar. They won the league one season and then finished 10th last season. Are their champions players all deadwood now? Are all they damaged beyond redemption? Or is Conte's job, like any other good manager's should be, to build up their confidence and get them going again?
We definitely agree that they were both train wrecks. In my opinion anyone who claims otherwise (in favor of one or the other) is clearly biased.
I don't disagree with the rest of your post either. LvG did a terrible job, especially in his second season at the club. I won't go into further details about the transfers and the squad because this wasn't my point (i think we would agree on many things). I just mentioned that he identified the low morale in the team and he tried to address it in his own way. Ultimately, he failed miserably and he should have got the sack sooner than last May. Moyes did not have such a problem when he arrived at Carrington, he just had to convince the current players and his possible targets that he was the right man for the job. He didn't and this initiated the "United were good only as long as Ferguson was here" merry go round in the press, among the fan base and in the dressing room. To make it more clearer, i'll say that this was the main reason i wanted Mourinho back in 2013. Liverpool faced the same problem and people usually forget that they had a relatively strong side until the the mid 90s. But they chose introversion, tradition and to put all faith into their "own men". Souness and Evans were appointed to offer continuity and longevity, the same reasons that led to the Moyes appointment. But when they couldn't sustain the "winning formula", the seeds of doubt settled in. Some people believe that we could have avoided this with Mourinho in 2013 and that's why they demonize Moyes' time here. LvG was our Houllier, nothing spectacular and offered little progress but he didn't put Liverpool in a downward spiral in the first place. He just couldn't get them out of it.
Edit: The psychological factor is often underrated by many fans. I'll use Liverpool again as an example to show clearer what i'm trying to say. Benitez actually solved many of their first team problems. Alonso-Mascherano-Gerrard were as good as any midfield at the time,their defense was solid and they had a couple of quality players in other areas. But Benitez's antics could never create a sustainable winning mentality at Anfield. Blaming the refs, constantly moaning and bitching about Fergie's influence in the FA... how can you convince your players that they can win a marathon like the PL in that way?
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Probably not mate no Woodward has definitely became better at handling these deals theres no doubt about that. From the Fabregas saga to securing Pogba for a world record in only 3 years shows progress. And i've always maintained it was never all Moyes fault, i would say mostly his fault but then i can also admit that might be my bias talking because i really dislike Moyes. Ultimately though i just think his indecision and lack of planning made the job much, much harder for a guy learning the ropes. I will always be of the opinion that the club were willing to back him whatever he wanted to do and had he came in early with realistic gettable targets i think Woodward would have delivered most of them.
I can't believe it's a comparison. Moyes was an absolute embarrassment. He was out of his depth. Horrendous press conferences, record breaking defeats at old Trafford. We were thrashed by rivals at old Trafford like Liverpool and city. We were a laughing stock, everybody was unhappy including the players. Captains leaving, discontent, ridiculous training sessions, defeats to dirt at home like West brom, Fulham, Everton and Newcastle. He was a record breaker for all the wrong reasons.
Yes Van Gaal's side would bore you to death and it wasn't good enough. We didn't score enough and was way too negative but at least we were hard to beat and won a trophy. His playstyle was horrible but at least we give our rivals a good go head to head. Moyes didn't have a playstyle. Some in here must have amnesia and can't remember how bad it was under Moyes.
Yes Van Gaal's side would bore you to death and it wasn't good enough. We didn't score enough and was way too negative but at least we were hard to beat and won a trophy. His playstyle was horrible but at least we give our rivals a good go head to head. Moyes didn't have a playstyle. Some in here must have amnesia and can't remember how bad it was under Moyes.
But Moyes is on record saying he delayed bidding for Fellaini because he didn't want him to be seen as his first signing and in that one instance he denied the player, one he knew all along that he wanted, a valuable pre-season all because signing him wasn't good optics. Looking at how Jose lined up his targets and got them in its clear that Moyes wasn't well prepared for that window. Couple that with a Woodward thrown at the deep end, it was a perfect storm, so yes Woodward has his share of the blame.
Another thing is we started our transfer moves deep in the summer, after July 1st which is again evidence of poor preparation. If you remember that Moyes spent a whole month in Florida, it just looks bad all round.
Facts are facts. Moyes was here not even a season. Van Gaal was here 2 seasons. Both were failures. By definition Van Gaal held us back longer.
Moyes showed that he was unable to identify the difference between a mid-table level player and an elite player. That's why he was unable to take a punt on a Martial/Coutinho/Delle Ali type signing when Ronaldo/Bale laughed at thought of playing for him and instead then went for proven premier league players who were not good enough and who had long ago already reached their ceiling in terms of what their potential is....Moyes wilted badly under pressure proving he is a manager only for mid-table comfort zone teams where a couple of loses in a row is no big deal
Van Gaal on the other hand served up without doubt the dullest tumescent football the premier league has seen even though he never cracked under pressure and did one or two decent things with young players and Smalling
They were both equally as awful as each other and Van Gaal showed why no big club had touched him with a barge pole for a long time and Moyes showed that no big club will touch him with a barge pole ever again
Both of them will go down as among the premier leagues worst ever managerial appointments along with Sounness at Liverpool and McClaren at Newcastle etc
Van Gaal on the other hand served up without doubt the dullest tumescent football the premier league has seen even though he never cracked under pressure and did one or two decent things with young players and Smalling
They were both equally as awful as each other and Van Gaal showed why no big club had touched him with a barge pole for a long time and Moyes showed that no big club will touch him with a barge pole ever again
Both of them will go down as among the premier leagues worst ever managerial appointments along with Sounness at Liverpool and McClaren at Newcastle etc
Not at all mate, i am saying he was backed financially that is an indisputable fact. The club were willing to try to buy anyone he wanted. Even Bale for world record, what else could the club have done with the targets he gave them in the timescale they had?
As for the process lets be honest here, do you think Mourinho simply told Woodward who he wanted and left it at that?
Im not buying that for a second i think Mourinho was way more involved both on a personal level convincing players to join and through his contacts with agents on the deals this summer than Moyes ever was. Thats on Moyes own lack of planning and willingness to do any leg work himself to help secure targets, i believe he literally gave Woodward a list of players in June/July with the club having to play catch up in trying to secure deals that would usually take months of planning. No surprise none of them came off bar Fellaini who we signed on the last day for millions more than we could have.
Yes spot on summary of how i also see it mate. New inexperienced chairman twiddling his thumbs for a month waiting on Moyes turning up to reveal targets, and Moyes then stalling, over thinking and second guessing every move he made and making things harder for Ed in the process. As you say it all made for a perfect storm of shite transfer dealing.
That's fairly reductive logic. Someone's impact can last longer than the time they were working somewhere.
Even at my job we're still picking up the pieces months after a particularly bad manager left in terms of client, process and people problems.
You can't just identify a player and expect the club to sign him. You have to convince him of your ideas as a manager. Now I can imagine Moyes inspiring Kroos, Bale or Fabregas by telling them how they can look forward to make it difficult for Newcastle at OT.
How much idea Moyes had to use Mata and Fellaini at United we could all witnesses after all.
After all we are also not blaming Woodward for not getting Müller or Neymar to fulfill LvG 's wishes and while we are at it, let's identify Messi and Ronaldo, too.
You only have yourself to blame if you rely on getting players from RM, Barca and Bayern who they either want to keep or who prefer to join those clubs with Pep / Ancelotti as managers ahead of Moyes.
Bale wanted RM and they wanted him and paid Spurs asking price. Nothing Woody can do about it and Fabregas' gf was only leaving Barca for London, that's where she had lived before and where she has often been while living in Barcelona.
As a manager you either need to convince the player to join you or you need to identify a realistic target (and even then you need to convince the player).
How much idea Moyes had to use Mata and Fellaini at United we could all witnesses after all.
After all we are also not blaming Woodward for not getting Müller or Neymar to fulfill LvG 's wishes and while we are at it, let's identify Messi and Ronaldo, too.
You only have yourself to blame if you rely on getting players from RM, Barca and Bayern who they either want to keep or who prefer to join those clubs with Pep / Ancelotti as managers ahead of Moyes.
Bale wanted RM and they wanted him and paid Spurs asking price. Nothing Woody can do about it and Fabregas' gf was only leaving Barca for London, that's where she had lived before and where she has often been while living in Barcelona.
As a manager you either need to convince the player to join you or you need to identify a realistic target (and even then you need to convince the player).
I think Van Gaal's side had way more fight in them hence the FA Cup and us taking City to the wire for top four and in spite of all the hurt the guy still left us a couple of youngsters that could save us a ton in transfer fees. Van certainly shot himself in the foot when he let go of so many forwards in his second summer and Welbeck initially (who I think he could have used in the first season).
I am surprised by the difference in the poll. The definition of the worse changes from people to people. But I think we should evaluate both managers with their capabilities, with the situation that they inherited, their experiences etc.
To begin with Moyes, he had a bomb in his hands. The man was clearly not good enough and it was a huge transition for him. Even SAF admitted He had an offer that he couldn't reject, even if he wanted to. If David Gill remained on his job, maybe he could have done slightly better. I don't believe he didn't want a transfer. I remember our pursuit of Bale, Fabregas, De Rossi and Herrera. He also said, Toni Kroos could have joined us, if United didn't sack him. So, he wasn't able to fill the biggest gap in our squad.
The squad he inherited was not perfect also. I don't know how he did but during SAF's reign, the harmony of the squad allowed the end product to be better than it actually was. We basically had inconsistent wingers, mediocre midfielders, aging defenders and a forward that started to past his peak. We needed an overhaul, but neither Ed nor Moyes was capable of doing that at that time.
Don't get me wrong. Despite having a not good enough squad, Moyes made them look like worse than what they were capable of. I remember during latter stages of his reign, after a game, he said enjoyed having Kagawa, Nani and Mata in the field at the same time. We were dying for him to play those together and it took him months to figure it out. Forget that, I don't even remember how many times we failed to win at Old Trafford. All in all, he had a giant animal in his hands which he wasn't good enough to tame. Yet, he probably was just a Welbeck finish away from a Champions League Semi Final.
van Gaal is different. It was %50-%50 for me. I was hopeful when he signed. I also knew things could go bad. I didn't think it would be this bad. He managed in some of the biggest clubs in the world. It was just 4 years ago that he played CL final. So, the whole process was not new to him. I think he signed most of the players he desired. He signed an arguably top 10 player. He didn't have European football which was supposed to be slightly advantageous for league performance. Yet, we never found our rhythm and character. Even worse, we never understood what he wanted our character to be. He was worse than Moyes in terms of using squad's potential. He sold poorly. Despite buying most of his desired players, those players never seem to be settled or performed. He alienated some good players who could have been useful for us. We somehow managed to concede 4 goals from MK Dons, we failed to qualify from a very easy CL group, we were so clueless that we found 4th place and an FA cup reasonable targets in consecutive years and I am not even going to talk about the deathfully boring football. Apart from the City demolition and a winning series, I can't find any positives from van Gaal era.
So, I think, if we consider their experiences, conditions etc. van Gaal was slightly worse. Towards the end of Moyes' reign, whenever I watched United, I felt bad for the guy. In van Gaal's era, I felt hatred. He is not the dominant winner of this fight but for me he was worse.
To begin with Moyes, he had a bomb in his hands. The man was clearly not good enough and it was a huge transition for him. Even SAF admitted He had an offer that he couldn't reject, even if he wanted to. If David Gill remained on his job, maybe he could have done slightly better. I don't believe he didn't want a transfer. I remember our pursuit of Bale, Fabregas, De Rossi and Herrera. He also said, Toni Kroos could have joined us, if United didn't sack him. So, he wasn't able to fill the biggest gap in our squad.
The squad he inherited was not perfect also. I don't know how he did but during SAF's reign, the harmony of the squad allowed the end product to be better than it actually was. We basically had inconsistent wingers, mediocre midfielders, aging defenders and a forward that started to past his peak. We needed an overhaul, but neither Ed nor Moyes was capable of doing that at that time.
Don't get me wrong. Despite having a not good enough squad, Moyes made them look like worse than what they were capable of. I remember during latter stages of his reign, after a game, he said enjoyed having Kagawa, Nani and Mata in the field at the same time. We were dying for him to play those together and it took him months to figure it out. Forget that, I don't even remember how many times we failed to win at Old Trafford. All in all, he had a giant animal in his hands which he wasn't good enough to tame. Yet, he probably was just a Welbeck finish away from a Champions League Semi Final.
van Gaal is different. It was %50-%50 for me. I was hopeful when he signed. I also knew things could go bad. I didn't think it would be this bad. He managed in some of the biggest clubs in the world. It was just 4 years ago that he played CL final. So, the whole process was not new to him. I think he signed most of the players he desired. He signed an arguably top 10 player. He didn't have European football which was supposed to be slightly advantageous for league performance. Yet, we never found our rhythm and character. Even worse, we never understood what he wanted our character to be. He was worse than Moyes in terms of using squad's potential. He sold poorly. Despite buying most of his desired players, those players never seem to be settled or performed. He alienated some good players who could have been useful for us. We somehow managed to concede 4 goals from MK Dons, we failed to qualify from a very easy CL group, we were so clueless that we found 4th place and an FA cup reasonable targets in consecutive years and I am not even going to talk about the deathfully boring football. Apart from the City demolition and a winning series, I can't find any positives from van Gaal era.
So, I think, if we consider their experiences, conditions etc. van Gaal was slightly worse. Towards the end of Moyes' reign, whenever I watched United, I felt bad for the guy. In van Gaal's era, I felt hatred. He is not the dominant winner of this fight but for me he was worse.
I think you are grossly over exaggerating the state of the squad post Fergie and Moyes.
Moyes inherited an aging squad, that may have just won the title, but had very little investment in the midfield, our biggest problem area. Moyes chose to do absoultely feck all about that. By also dismantling the back room, he put United in a very bad position.
Move on a year, the strikers and defense had got a year older, the younger replacements were not ready, and a large number of experienced players retired or moved on. LVG had a significant task, he didn't have the luxury of only needing to purchase 4 players to top up a stable squad.
If Moyes, had say done a Jose, and bought a spine of players, he may well have not lost his job so soon. Even if he had still lost his job, he would have left the next manager in a better position.
Moyes fecked up United big time, and that is coming from someone who supported him to the end, just hoping he would get his head out of the sand and produce something.
I think he did, he just didn't get it right. He tried to play with attacking wingers crossing into the box; he just had no idea how to mix it up, and he didn't use the players at his disposal well at all.
Moyes for me. Id say his performance must have shocked the people at boardroom and ownership level as much as us. As soon as it was impossible for us to make top 4 they shipped him out. Letting him cull the background staff like he did must have gotten some thinking what have we done. He was inept in too many departments and punched well above his weight. The way he has conducted himself since then and his constant whining about not being given enough time is indicitive of his charcter. I wouldn't be too happy as a Sunderland fan if I had to listen to his posturing about being a champions league level manager. He should compare himself to Ranieri who was in charge of a mid to lower table team like him at Everton, at least Leicester won the league and Moyes destroyed a team of champions.
Van Gaal actually improved the club to 4th from Moyes' 7th, hence the club let him have another year. It's senseless to claim LVG failed for 2 Seasons because the club management apparently didn't think so.
By this line of thinking it would have been better for LVG to finish say, 6th and get fired because he would have held us back for one less season.
LVG - 4th first season, 5th and FA cup second season after inheriting a team that finished 7th prior to his appointment.
Moyes - 7th first season after inheriting a team that won the prem the prior year.
Some will point to money spent and other factors but for me all that matters are results and style of play. Neither addressed either concern well enough but LVG was definitely better than Moyes imo.
Moyes - 7th first season after inheriting a team that won the prem the prior year.
Some will point to money spent and other factors but for me all that matters are results and style of play. Neither addressed either concern well enough but LVG was definitely better than Moyes imo.