David Moyes appreciation thread.

[Clowncrete]

Louis van Gaal I would not be worried out.

Ancelotti however is a different matter. They would challenge fir league next year imo if he went there

Ancellotti's league record isn't particularly good. He had a brilliant AC Milan team and only won it once in 5-6 years, even if you count out that Calciopoli years when they had their points deducted. Chelsea had a complete meltdown in their second season. Madrid can still end up without the league and CL.

[Tony P]

Joking aside, this is an excellent piece of journalism from Barney Ronay:

Farewell, then, David Moyes. You made some mistakes as Manchester United manager. But none of them, let's face it, as gapingly inept as the decision to appoint you Manchester United manager in the first place.

It would be nice to conclude that United's 20th permanent manager burned brightly during his 10-month succession, that he flew too close to the sun, that this grand old romantic beast of a corporate super-club simply was not ready for the radical re-imaginings of all-out Moyes-ism. But it would also be untrue.

In the end Moyes's greatest failing during the last 10 months was simply to walk into Old Trafford and act like David Moyes, the same David Moyes his previous managerial career had always suggested him to be: a hard-working 50-year-old with obvious virtues but with a limited palette of skills when judged against the very best.

Perhaps Moyes could have learned more quickly on the job, revealed previously unseen elite-level tactical refinement, or had the courage to junk and rebuild from the start a jaded squad. That he didn't do any of this can hardly be a surprise, though. He did his best. He stayed true to himself. But from the start neither of these were ever likely to be enough.

A great deal of brain-mangling speculation will now be expended on where United go from here, but what Moyes does next is a question of some interest too, not just for Moyes himself, but also in the wider story of United's ongoing post-Ferguson macro-shambles. It is important to absorb exactly what Moyes has been subjected to here. A genuinely vertiginous descent from Chosen One to shortest-serving managerial sacking in United's 122-year history. Moyes is just the sixth United manager ever to be sacked. Leaving aside for now the 10-year churn of the post-Busby void Moyes is only the third genuine sacking after Ron Atkinson and John Chapman, who was suspended by the FA for "improper conduct" in 1926.

It is rare territory indeed for man who was prior to leaving Everton the second longest serving manager in the Premier League. If it is hard to see what he might do next then this is perhaps because there are so few precedents for this kind of slow-burn managerial Icarus-act. The ever-generous Carlo Ancelotti has already suggested Moyes will have "another club, another opportunity" before long and that this is all just the lot of the football manager, whose very existence was partly founded out of the need to have a high-profile patsy to fire when things went wrong.

But is it really? This feels like something beyond the ordinary. It has instead been a mega-sacking: pernicious, degrading, gruellingly voyeuristic, even at times a little nasty. The spectacle of Moyes on the touchline in those final weeks was painful and ever-present: a raw, wild-eyed figure lost on his blasted heath, pelted with hailstones, twitching and fretting and continually whirling around in confusion like a man menaced by a cloud of invisible bats.

The Moyes brand – and these things matter in the job market – has been disastrously smudged. There is a slight danger now of following the Graham Taylor dynamic, an excellent man and fine manager who became forever associated with his own moment of high-end public failure. Moyes at United was never quite headline turnip territory, but it has been more insidious. There has never really been a rolling-news-era football failure on this scale, each real-time black eye processed and chewed up by social media, with its daily Moyes-out statistical briefings, its brilliant rolling propaganda tech; and beyond this the unceasing artillery range harangue of the professional pundit class. It is much more than simply a sacking Moyes will need to recover from.

It has been suggested that, like Roy Hodgson and André Villas-Boas, Moyes is sure to get another chance at a similar level, but there is no real like for like Moyes comparison here. Hodgson had managed Internazionale and taken Switzerland to a World Cup before he went to Liverpool. Villas-Boas was still young and progressive-looking post-Chelsea, a skinny-tied harbinger of the new world. Moyes is simply Moyes, for whom the reservations of his Everton days remain, chiefly a failure to beat the better teams and a certain style of square-headed linear football.

Another job at a club in or close to the Champions League would require a second leap of faith given his failings at United: the peculiar big-money signings of Marouane Fellaini and Juan Mata, neither of whom addressed United's basic lack of mobility in midfield; plus also the lack of genuine, egomaniacal big league presence on the touchline, the lack of style to suit the club.

With this in mind it seems likely Moyes has two immediate options. First an Everton-level job in England. Perhaps he could revive Aston Villa, or provide a Pardew-upgrade at Newcastle. West Ham fans would surely take him. Much better, he could simply go abroad. Let's face it the high point of Moyes' dead-headed season came in the Champions League where United briefly led Bayern Munich in the quarter-finals.

And while there will be sniggers from those picturing the Moyes-led destruction of the Bundesliga youth system, or a junking of the practice balls at the Ajax academy in favour of vomit-soaked bleep tests, a spell at a German, Dutch or Italian club could provide some vital rejuvenation. Just as Bobby Robson flowered into an adaptable, sometimes incoherent European football eminence post-England; or more pertinent, as Steve McClaren rebuilt both his methods and basic sense of himself in Holland.

Either way, it is a process to be managed carefully. Almost every member of United's post-Busby and pre-Ferguson platoon of pressed-men and fill-ins ended up looking frazzled by the experience. Wilf McGuiness opted for a sun-kissed dictator-era retreat to Greek football with Aris Thessaloniki and Panachaiki. Frank O'Farrell resurfaced with Cardiff City and the Iranian national team. Tommy Docherty was in Australia within two years of leaving United. Atkinson, bolstered by a couple of FA Cups and a winning personality, went back to his old club West Bromwich Albion, an option Moyes might be best not chasing up at the moment.

Plus, of course, what Moyes does next has its own wider fascinations. It is hard not to hope he flourishes on a more fitting stage. If only to highlight the fact that those who appointed him are still in situ and that, frankly, Moyes himself looks a little like a victim in this bodged high-end succession, and a footnote in a wider story of institutional confusion that may have some time to run yet.

[Ezz]

We should club together and take out a full page ad in the MEN thanking him for his time at the club and that we will never forget him.

[Hutch's Shoulder]

Next Scotland manager

[zuricity]

Next Scotland manager

I'm not sure you are getting the hang of this. The idea is that he goes to top clubs and brings 'em down . Like Hughes does.

Next team for me ? Barcelona.

[Bridge'srightfoot]

Next Scotland manager

I'm not sure you are getting the hang of this. The idea is that he goes to top clubs and brings 'em down . Like Hughes does.

Next team for me ? Barcelona.

Which 'top clubs' has Hughes brought down? He did great for Blackburn, did okay at Fulham. Not so great at QPR and is doing a fine job at Stoke. He took us from 9th to 10th and we were in sixth position the next season when he was sacked. Not to mention he signed players such as Kompany, Zabaleta (combined fee of about 11 million), Dejong, Barry and Tevez who played a huge role in our success.

Ultimately not good enough for us, but his time with us is far from the disaster some fans try to portray it as.

[zuricity]

Which 'top clubs' has Hughes brought down? He did great for Blackburn, did okay at Fulham. Not so great at QPR and is doing a fine job at Stoke. He took us from 9th to 10th and we were in sixth position the next season when he was sacked. Not to mention he signed players such as Kompany, Zabaleta (combined fee of about 11 million), Dejong, Barry and Tevez who played a huge role in our success.

Ultimately not good enough for us, but his time with us is far from the disaster some fans try to portray it as.

He'll have Stoke in the bottom three by Xmas. He always does.

[Bridge'srightfoot]

Which 'top clubs' has Hughes brought down? He did great for Blackburn, did okay at Fulham. Not so great at QPR and is doing a fine job at Stoke. He took us from 9th to 10th and we were in sixth position the next season when he was sacked. Not to mention he signed players such as Kompany, Zabaleta (combined fee of about 11 million), Dejong, Barry and Tevez who played a huge role in our success.

Ultimately not good enough for us, but his time with us is far from the disaster some fans try to portray it as.

He'll have Stoke in the bottom three by Xmas. He always does.

He's doing a very good and steady job at Stoke.
He did okay for us and shouldn't be looked back on so negatively.
First season wasn't easy. He takes over a club, then finds out we have no money, then finds out we're suddenly the richest club in the world and everyone is demanding top four and immediate success.
He's a good manager for a mid to upper table team which we were at the time. Nothing more or less

[zuricity]

He's doing a very good and steady job at Stoke.
He did okay for us and shouldn't be looked back on so negatively.
First season wasn't easy. He takes over a club, then finds out we have no money, then finds out we're suddenly the richest club in the world and everyone is demanding top four and immediate success.
He's a good manager for a mid to upper table team which we were at the time. Nothing more or less

He should never have been at City.

Give him time at Stoke, they'll be back down the league.

[MilnersJaw]

The legend. Did too much of a good job.

[Wonderwall]

do the LMA actually do anything apart from spout the same shit for every manager that gets sacked.

The League Managers' Association has issued a statement describing the manner of David Moyes' departure from Manchester United as 'unprofessional'.

Moyes was officially sacked on Tuesday morning but his imminent demise was being widely reported 24 hours earlier, to the consternation of LMA chief executive Richard Bevan.

He said: "The LMA is very disappointed with the nature of David's departure from Manchester United and to read extensive reports in the press, confirming David's sacking, before David himself had been spoken to officially by the club.

"Throughout his time at United, David, as he always does, has conducted himself with integrity and professionalism, values that he believes in and that have been strongly associated with the club and its rich tradition.

"It is therefore sad to see the end of David's tenure at United being handled in an unprofessional manner."

The club have denied the LMA's accusation and insisted no decision had been taken when reports of Moyes sacking first emerged on Monday.

A United spokesman said: "We do not accept that it was handled in an unprofessional manner.

"The decision was not taken until late Monday night and was communicated face-to-face first thing on Tuesday morning.

"When reports started emerging on internet news sites on Monday afternoon, no decision had been taken at that time."

Its a like a template with <insert manager name here> on it

[Bridge'srightfoot]

He's doing a very good and steady job at Stoke.
He did okay for us and shouldn't be looked back on so negatively.
First season wasn't easy. He takes over a club, then finds out we have no money, then finds out we're suddenly the richest club in the world and everyone is demanding top four and immediate success.
He's a good manager for a mid to upper table team which we were at the time. Nothing more or less

He should never have been at City.

Give him time at Stoke, they'll be back down the league.

Disagree. We finished the previous season in free fall relegation form. At the time we were a mid table club looking to push on towards the Europa League places.
Hughes had done very well at Blackburn on a very limited budget and prior to that he did a great job with Wales. He was strongly linked with the Chelsea job at the time also.
He was a bright, up and coming manager with a successful past.
Who else should we have appointed instead? There was nothing wrong with choosing him.
It was not a bad appointment at the time. It was only the fact that we were taken over and expectations rose dramatically within minutes almost.
Why our own fans try and paint such a bad image on his time with the club is a mystery.

Which 'top clubs' has he brought down then as you say?

[nottsblue]

Disagree. We finished the previous season in free fall relegation form. At the time we were a mid table club looking to push on towards the Europa League places.
Hughes had done very well at Blackburn on a very limited budget and prior to that he did a great job with Wales. He was strongly linked with the Chelsea job at the time also.
He was a bright, up and coming manager with a successful past.
Who else should we have appointed instead? There was nothing wrong with choosing him.
It was not a bad appointment at the time. It was only the fact that we were taken over and expectations rose dramatically within minutes almost.
Why our own fans try and paint such a bad image on his time with the club is a mystery.

Which 'top clubs' has he brought down then as you say?

Lot of sense here. As i also recall we were shite in second half and managers were hardly queuing round the block. He was about the best available and I remember thinking at the time it was a good appointment

[Bridge'srightfoot]

Disagree. We finished the previous season in free fall relegation form. At the time we were a mid table club looking to push on towards the Europa League places.
Hughes had done very well at Blackburn on a very limited budget and prior to that he did a great job with Wales. He was strongly linked with the Chelsea job at the time also.
He was a bright, up and coming manager with a successful past.
Who else should we have appointed instead? There was nothing wrong with choosing him.
It was not a bad appointment at the time. It was only the fact that we were taken over and expectations rose dramatically within minutes almost.
Why our own fans try and paint such a bad image on his time with the club is a mystery.

Which 'top clubs' has he brought down then as you say?

Lot of sense here. As i also recall we were shite in second half and managers were hardly queuing round the block. He was about the best available and I remember thinking at the time it was a good appointment

At the time it was a good appointment mate. The second half of Sven's season we were playing like a relegation threatened team. The last quarter we played like a Championship team. We were in free fall.
Hughes had done brilliant in his two previous jobs and got both Wales and Blackburn to over-perform. Blackburn in particular he kept them in and around the top six, playing decent football on a shoe-string budget.

Hughes wasn't good enough ultimately but he was nowhere near as bad as he is made out and ANY manager would have struggled in his first season given the changes going on in and around the club. We were a mid table team before he came, who realistically should we have appointed before all the money came in?
Overall he did more good than bad and should be remembered as such.

[ruralblue]

It has taken the past couple of days for this news to sink in. Didn't want to believe it at first, choose not.to listen to news or buy a paper in the hope that maybe this wasnt true. Am deeply sickened and struggling to cope with the news. He was doing just fine in fact he was doing fantastic to lose him now makes no sense.

To think some of you are even starting to discuss who may take over from him is disgraceful to his legacy. Hang your fookin heads. Poor David.

[Benjay]

Has someone been sacked?

[bayblue]

Has someone been sacked?

No. He "has left".

[Chopper]

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