United Corner- Papering Over the Cracks (October 19th)

United Corner- Papering Over the Cracks (October 19th 2018)

Things were looking pretty bleak two weeks ago when Manchester United trailed Newcastle United 0-2 at half time of the final Premier League game before the international break.

Rumours had been rampant that Jose Mourinho was on the brink of being sacked and the atmosphere turned pretty toxic inside Old Trafford.

My stand is the East and things turned from shock to anger through the course of the first half, but importantly that anger has tended to be focused on the board and especially 'Dick 'Ed Woodward' who looks to be the main cause of a lack of investment made in the playing staff this past summer.

That is not something that will be lost on the manager, who it has been suggested leaked the rumour that he was about to be sacked, and I think it will have given Mourinho a real boost.

Coming back from 0-2 down at home to win late in the game will help, but it is always going to paper over some of the cracks and in the cold light of day it has become clear that this is going to be perhaps an even tougher season than the most negative of United fans would have imagined.

Mourinho warned this was going to be the case if he didn't get the players he wanted and it is still surprising to think Woodward didn't think Toby Alderweireld was going to be an upgrade on players like Chris Smalling and Phil Jones. However I do think Mourinho was talking from the point of view of challenging for the Premier League title and he would not be expecting Manchester United to fall out of the top four in the table.

Instead there is the feeling that even a top four place is going to be tough to achieve for the club with the current group they have. Unlike last season, David De Gea has not made the stunning saves to prevent Manchester United dropping points in games and the overachievement of finishing 2nd in the League table may actually have been a long term detriment to Mourinho and the club.

It certainly gave the board more optimism than they should had as they try and 'cheap' their way into the Champions League. That has almost all been eroded and things could look that much tougher by the end of this next set of games leading up to the November international break.

In that time Manchester United have to visit Chelsea, Bournemouth and Manchester City in the Premier League and all three clubs are above United in the League table. There is also a double header with Juventus to come in the Champions League and I can't help think Manchester United should have made more from the fixture list they had over the first couple of months of the season.

With that in mind it does feel the win over Newcastle United in early October is going to be little more than one of the last 'good' days under the management of Mourinho. Barring a real upturn in form I can see the pressure reaching a intolerable high by the time the next international break rolls around and I won't be surprised if the manager is gone before the end of this calendar year and perhaps as early as mid-November.

I don't really blame Jose Mourinho for the misfortunes of United as much as I do the players who are trying to exert their power much like the ones at Chelsea and Leicester City have done in recent years.

However I am not of the belief that Mourinho doesn't at least deserve some blame for how this season has begun.

Regardless of what his supporters think, I do believe his tactics are out-dated and the manager is simply not able to cope with the high press that so many clubs are playing with these days. The defence is not good enough for the way Mourinho wants to set his teams up, but the lack of cohesion in the final third between his players is on the manager.

I am not someone who looks back on the end of the Sir Alex Ferguson era with rose-tinted glasses because there were a number of times when the football wasn't great, but that group of players had a winning mentality instilled in them. That allowed United to turn around games when they fell behind, but this current crop is simply not good enough and not supporting Mourinho in the transfer market just seems to be a completely baffling move from the board.

If they don't want to support him they should sack him, but instead the club is left in some kind of limbo as they continue to fall some way short of the marker set by Manchester City.

That's a gap that looks like it will only get bigger this season with 7 points already between United and what looks to be progressive rivals in Liverpool and Manchester City... And personally I only see that being a few more points bigger by the time we hit the November international break.


One reason I don't want Mourinho to be sacked is I don't want the players to feel they can down tools whenever they are upset with a manager in the future. That would be the biggest mistake in an era of mistakes made by Dick 'Ed, but the situation may be untenable if United suffer through the tough fixture list coming up over the next month.

It still feels like a matter of time before Mourinho is moved on and Manchester United will be back to square one with their haphazard recruiting, which seems to be based on tracking players Manchester City have been linked with, and also Dick 'Ed will be picking his fourth manager since Sir Alex Ferguson retired.

I do think Mourinho would have had considerably more success if he had taken over immediately after Sir Alex retired and the transition from the long-term manager into the new era may have been more comfortable. Now United fans have had to support three managers who look to have been out of their depth or past their sell by date.

So where would I go from here? If it was a short term appointment I would actually consider Arsene Wenger who could instil a positive brand of football at the very least.

However like Louis Van Gaal and Mourinho, Wenger may have seen his best days pass him by and instead I would perhaps consider Roberto Martinez as someone who could be prized away from his current team.

Diego Simeone would be a popular choice, while Antonio Conte has had success in the Premier League, but I don't see the former leaving Atletico Madrid and the latter may not want to work in the constraints that saw his time with Chelsea strained at the end.

Martinez is a manager who likes to play attacking football, although his defensive work can be questioned. However this looks to be an era when attacking football is paying off spectacularly and Martinez could employ a style where attack is the best form of defence for Manchester United.

He has experience of the Premier League in his time with Wigan Athletic and Everton and while he didn't have the best success with the latter Martinez could have learned from the mistakes he made. Importantly he has won silverware in England unlike David Moyes and the work being done with Belgium has to be respected.

I am not sure Martinez would get the excitement levels of the fans moving too much on his appointment, but the style of play will quickly erase the doubters around him. For the first time in years the football would be enjoyable and the Spaniard would be my surprise choice to take over.

The next manager has to be someone who knows the Premier League and plays the kind of football the fans are craving. Martinez does tick both boxes and I think he could have some real success with United especially with some of the young, attacking players already at the club.


Ideally this will all be a moot point and United can win at Stamford Bridge, the Vitality Stadium and at the Etihad Stadium while doing the double over Juventus in the Champions League.

I would love that to be the case.

It feels more like a hope than a real belief though and the pressure could return on Mourinho immediately out of the international break if United were to lose at Stamford Bridge.

Things do need to change at Old Trafford from the very top of the club, but at this time it is the manager who is going to be the scapegoat for the performances and it does feel the Newcastle United win only papered over the obvious cracks.

Hopefully Jose Mourinho is going into the November international break with some real positive momentum behind him, but the manager looks unhappy, the players look lost around the tactics and the fans are getting more and more irritated by the performances of the board.

It all feels toxic around United despite the win last time out and I can only see it all coming to a head in the weeks coming up.

United Corner- It Just Wasn't Meant to be for David Moyes (April 25th 2014)

United Corner- It Just Wasn't Meant to be for David Moyes (April 25th 2014)








The David Moyes era at Old Trafford was officially brought to a close just ten months after he first walked through the door as Manchester United manager and it seems the over-riding feeling is of joy from the majority of the fans.

That is an understandable reaction considering the fall from grace made by United during the course of the season as they failed to really make a concerted effort to retain the Premier League title they won by eleven points last season.

Even with that in mind, I wasn't one of these 'experts' that had tipped Manchester United to challenge for the League title simply because of the margin they won the League by the year before- it was clear to most match-going Reds that the squad did need some big improvements, but that was the first failure made by the club under Moyes last summer.

While I expected United to slip off the top of the table, the belief at the start of the season was that there would be enough to see the side finish in the top four, so being a position where even that aim is unachievable with four games left to play was never going to be acceptable. However, I still believed that the manager needed to be given a chance and I was always prepared, no matter what happened this season, to give him two full seasons before I made a judgement on him.


There have been mistakes made by Moyes and he almost admitted to some of those with his statement offering the line that he 'is always learning' from the experiences. That was never going to cut it at Manchester United where the manager needed to have more faith in his own ability to do the job and it does make me wonder if Moyes ever really got to grip with what was required.

He wasn't helped last summer with a bumbling approach to the transfer market that would have been better overseen by Alan Partridge- the fact that Ed Woodward has shifted the focus on his own mistakes by using Moyes as a fall guy is embarrassing, particularly with the leak of the sacking on Easter Monday likely to have come from the new Chief Executive in all but name.

Signing Marouane Fellaini was under-whelming considering some of the names that Manchester United were linked with, while the fee was a disaster considering the Belgian midfielder could have been purchased earlier in the window for four million less than eventually agreed with Everton.


David Moyes also made the mistake of being a touch critical of a squad that had won the League the moment he walked into the club with some of the statements made about the standard bound to rub players up the wrong way. That was exasperated by the training methods that hadn't sit well with the squad and it was clear he had lost the support of key players as soon as Rio Ferdinand took to Twitter with 'veiled' digs at the manager.


His backing of Wayne Rooney, which some fans would have agreed with, seems to have been far too over the top where the striker was dictating potential transfer targets and having an increasing influence on Moyes. That was a stark contrast to how Sir Alex Ferguson dismissed Rooney's suggestions to buy Mesut Ozil in 2010 and lost Moyes the command of the dressing room, a big no no when dealing with the egos of a title winning squad that United possess.


The worst aspect of the manager reign was the post-match, pre-match interviews of a manager that seemingly forgot he was managing one of the biggest clubs in the world.

Repeated talk of 'playing well' and being 'unlucky' grated on some fans when it was clear we were not watching the same game, but using words like 'hope' before a home game against Newcastle United had everyone scratching their heads and wondering if Mike Ashley had signed the Bayern Munich starting eleven in the days leading up to the game without anyone noticing.

And any suggestion of Manchester United being an 'underdog' when Liverpool were visiting Old Trafford didn't exactly set the fire burning in a terrible performance on the pitch. Another home loss where Moyes pointed to Manchester City, not United, being the benchmark of the standard required in the Premier League was just bothersome in the meek way United surrendered on the pitch.


The fatal error from Moyes, even accounting for all those above, was the lack of a cohesive playing style that the fans could relate to- I am convinced that he would have been given time if United had been playing a swash-buckling style where they didn't simply run out of ideas the second they fell behind in a match. David Moyes was at his most comfortable when the fans accepted the tactics employed against Bayern Munich to try and contain the reigning European Champions, but those defensive schemes in games against West Brom, Fulham and Stoke City were never going to be good enough.

Buying Juan Mata looked a very good move, but playing him out of position was a travesty and the lack of a clear tactical plan may have been the downfall for the manager. Moyes has been accused of being too cautious and perhaps being in charge of a team like Everton, where finishing in the top seven every season was a success, is more in line with how he wants to approach games.

Manchester United expect to beat the likes of Liverpool, Chelsea and Manchester City... David Moyes just didn't want to lose those matches.


All of this may seem that I am being critical of a manager that I said I would give a chance to for at least a couple of seasons before I made my opinion on him- I still would have given the man another transfer window and evaluated the success in six months time.

This isn't out of blind-faith or because I want to show off 'Top Red' status, but simply because I believe the job at Manchester United was not going to be one that could be settled into immediately.

Moyes had been identifying the weaknesses in the squad and was being linked with the right players to start making the changes he wished to see. The midfield was quickly seen as the area he wanted to improve, although I do wish he hadn't panicked and bought Fellaini without really considering what he wanted to do with him.

Luke Shaw seems to have been persuaded to join United over his favourite club Chelsea and Moyes apparently had a scouting system in place that had impressed some of the big-wigs at the club.

Manchester United had been getting linked to some of the talent required in the areas they are needed which suggests that Moyes had an idea of what had to be done to change our fortunes on the field, but all the sub-standard performances and losing support in the board room and the dressing room ended any chance of extending his time in charge.


At the end of the day, United have to be comfortable with the manager they are willing to back heavily in the transfer market as I simply don't believe the owners are going to be investing in too many big windows into the club judging by past performance. That means the investment has to be right and the club have to be sure which manager gets the chance to do that.

I respect that, but I don't respect the way the owners and Ed Woodward in particular decided to go about their dispensing of Moyes- for all the mistakes that the manager had made, and for all those who don't believe that he was the right man for the top job, Moyes seems to be a nice enough guy that deserved to be treated with dignity and respect.

Those two elements were the last things afforded to him with the rumours about his demise spreading through Easter Monday and United's denials that they were in the process of removing him at that point is an outright lie. Fanzines like Red Issue and Red News have both been making it clear for weeks that there was a big change in feeling towards Moyes and suggestions that he was going to be leaving definitely came from within the club to the journalists after the loss at Everton.


As despicable and slimy as the likes of Woodward and the Glazers are, the players also should not be afforded the luxury of hiding behind the Moyes dismissal. Despite what they thought of the manager, their lacklustre displays in defeats to Manchester City and Liverpool is just as unforgivable as anything Moyes did and many of them should not be wearing the shirt for United again.

Moyes is certainly not going to be forgiving those players if his statement thanking everyone but noticeably ignoring the players is anything to go by and I don't blame him. For all the tactics and complaints about the way Moyes prepared for games, I have utter disdain for the way some of the players conducted themselves on and off the field.


So where do United go from here? I am not at all convinced with the idea of the 'Class of 92' taking over in a committee role, but that doesn't look a long-term plan with the job being linked to some of the bigger names in football.

Louis Van Gaal looks the obvious choice and while I have never been his biggest fan, the idea of someone with the discipline to come in and shape that squad and a man with the strength of character he has is very appealing. He has plenty of trophies behind his name, but the majority of those have come in the last century and that is the main reason I am not bouncing off the walls in anticipation of his arrival.

Personally I would look to Carlo Ancelotti, although trying to get him out of the Spanish capital might be nigh on impossible if he leads Real Madrid to the Champions League success they have craved for over a decade.

Even if it is Van Gaal, a manager I don't have a lot of time for, he needs to be given the chance to build the squad to his satisfaction and that means not being in this same position in twelve months time. If Manchester United are out of the top four again, the pressure will be on the owners who haven't accounted for the club being out of the European elite for too many years, but Van Gaal, or whoever is allowed to spend the money being spoken about, should be allowed to make the necessary changes that may not produce results for a couple of seasons.

Patience might have to be the key for the supporters, but I have faith they will have that with the match-going Reds who were behind Moyes until the very end. That should make it easier for the new manager, especially if they employ an attacking style that shows signs of the improvement that fans were looking for from the Moyes team selections as each week passed by.


Ten months is not enough time to really have a positive impact on a club and that is sadly going to be David Moyes' legacy at Old Trafford when we look back on his time at the club. There just won't be anything that people will look back on and remember was set in place by Moyes and I do feel sorry for him that he wasn't given a full chance.

He can also take some of the blame for that as he lost the dressing room and the performances highlighted that- it also showed a team that might not be willing to learn under Moyes and that was always going to shorten his time at Old Trafford.

For years it has been said that the Manchester United job would be a great one for the manager following the manager that replaced Sir Alex Ferguson.

The first part of that statement has come true with David Moyes being the victim, but it remains to be seen if the new manager, whoever that is, can really get the team back on track as soon as the fans would like it to be.