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Someone's having a real laugh - gollum?


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From the Daily Telegraph

 

David Moyes kept in Manchester United job by the absolute influence behind the scenes of Sir Alex Ferguson

At any other club manager would have been sacked by now, but his predecessor at Old Trafford is proving to be his most important friend of all

 

By Jim White8:31PM GMT 05 Mar 2014 33 Comments

Sir Alex Ferguson was enjoying himself at the Oscars ceremony.

Grinning widely, eyes sparkling, he was evidently appreciating being in the company of winners for a change. Inevitably, as he was spotted in the crowd heading into the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, he was asked by a British journalist on the fringes of the red carpet about David Moyes.

Which must have confused any American showbiz reporters eavesdropping on the conversation. What award was this Moyes up for? (Here’s a clue: it would not have been Best Director).

Ferguson was quick to say that Moyes will come good. What he needs is time, Ferguson added. As long as he is granted that he will be “OK”, which in the great manager’s vocabulary means more than just adequate. With that, he smiled and disappeared in search of a waiter holding a tray of champagne glasses.

For Moyes it was the most significant statement of the week. The international break can be a testing time for a Premier League manager in crisis.

 

That is when his players are cast to the winds, out in the wider world where they can make all kinds of dark mutterings about their boss’s competence away from any control (which they can then deny when they get back to the day job).

You can bet that in the dressing rooms of Holland, Japan and England the questions will have been asked of the Manchester United players: what has gone wrong? What has changed? Is the guy up to the job? The same questions that will come from journalists reporting on the games, the answers to which can quickly be made into suggestions of dressing-room revolt.

But now it does not really matter if Shinji Kagawa does make cryptic comment about not knowing what he has to do to get a game. Robin van Persie can talk all he likes about his colleagues getting in his space, it is not going to make any material difference.

 

Indeed all of those United Kremlinologists scanning for signs about the manager’s future have now been given the biggest hint about what will happen next.

The fall in the share price, the gathering storm of protest about ticket prices for any matches in the Europa League in the new season, the curious manner in which Ryan Giggs has studiously avoided being photographed next to his new manager, none of these things will have any bearing on Moyes’s employment prospects: now we know, in the short term at least, he is going nowhere.

This is the irony about Moyes’s tenure at Old Trafford. Many observers felt that Ferguson’s presence at United would be the biggest obstacle to his chances of success. Yet far from being a problem for him, Ferguson’s continuing involvement at United is turning out to be his biggest defence.

 

Because, rest assured, were he employed by any other club in the country he would have been gone by now.

At Chelsea it is a matter of certainty. At Fulham there would have been three other managers since he went. Even at Liverpool, Roy Hodgson did not last as long as Moyes has, and he did not preside over anything like as prodigious a decline.

It felt after the limp, insipid defeat by Olympiakos – a game in which United’s performance redefined the term lacklustre – like a turning point in Moyes’s stay at United. Among the match-going fans, who had loyally chanted the new manager’s name through the downs and downs of the season, there was a sudden and noticeable cooling.

The fanzine United We Stand polled its readers and discovered that there was a marked decline in tolerance after the defeat in Greece. At the end of January, just 22 per cent of those polled thought the manager should be dismissed; by the end of February that percentage had swollen to 55.98 per cent.

 

With little positive to show for his tenure, as the mood among even the most steadfast supporters changed, Moyes might have looked friendless. Except he has the most important friend of all: the man who recommended he be appointed, the man whose influence behind the scenes at the club is absolute.

There is one thing about Ferguson: he could never be mistaken for a man in a hurry to admit mistakes. Eric Djemba Djemba, Sebastián Verón, Kleberson, all were quietly let go rather than speedily put out of their own – and everyone else’s – misery.

Ferguson has never forgotten how the board at United stuck by him in his own dark days in the autumn of 1989. Now he is in a position to influence decision making, he wants his successor to enjoy the same benefit. “Give him time,” he told the reporter outside the Dolby. “That’s what I was given.”

Time, though, has condensed since he was in trouble as a manager. There is no way a business as highly geared to success as United could again wait three years for a turnaround in fortune.

 

But Ferguson’s endorsement suggests Moyes is safe for now. He will surely now be in place until the summer, when he will be handed the financial resources to mould the squad to his requirements.

However, if by September there is no evidence that his way is producing results, not even the most influential of supporters will save him. By then, in the accelerated continuum of the modern Premier League, time will have run out.

 

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"Even at Liverpool, Roy Hodgson did not last as long as Moyes has, and he did not preside over anything like as prodigious a decline."

 

Erm, I'd say he did, he dragged us down towards the relegation zone.

 

 

...must...suppress...urge...to...mention...the...words...'Northampton'...and...'formidable'...

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The Oscars? Ficking hell what a fawning, Champagne chasing old twat.

 

The lengths some will go to for a free bar.

 

After the following morning's stock take, he won't be asked back.

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David Moyes writes to Manchester United fans to thank them for support

Moyes admits season has gone worse than he imagined

• Manager says fans' backing has been 'incredible'

 

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/mar/06/david-moyes-manchester-united-fans-letter

 

 

 

Desperate much?

 

 

Well he could hardly come out and say that it's all going to plan! He'd be fucking lynched if he did.

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