David Moyes has claimed he knew it would take years to revitalise Manchester United when he succeeded Sir Alex Ferguson in 2013.
The Scot was given the keys to the Old Trafford kingdom after they won the title in Fergie’s swansong season but was sacked just 10 months into a seven-year contract.
United were an ageing side when they won their last title and needed an overhaul, but Moyes, handpicked by Sir Alex to succeed him, did not get a long crack of the whip.
Over a decade on and with Ruben Amorim set to become United’s seventh permanent boss since Ferguson retired, Moyes fears it is an ‘impossible’ job for the Portuguese – with the reset United fans have longed for yet to dawn.
‘I had a feeling that it was going to take a long time to fix [Manchester United] but I couldn’t come out and say that it’s going to take six years to fix,’ Moyes told the Stick to Football podcast, brought to you by Sky Bet.
David Moyes said he knew it would take ‘years’ to fix Manchester United when he took over
The Scot was sacked just 10 months after succeeding Sir Alex Ferguson, who had won 13 titles
Fans hoped the woeful 2013-14 season might be a blip but over a decade on, little has changed
‘The team had just won the Premier League, and I was thrilled to be taking over, thinking this is great, but it was also a team that was on the verge of having to change around.
‘The players had a great loyalty to Sir Alex Ferguson, no matter who you had coming in, which is amicable, but I did feel like it was going to take a longer time to change things around.
‘I had a great relationship with Sir Alex and David Gill – we’d meet once a month for dinner and talk about things.
‘I hear people talk a lot about Manchester United and think to myself, Louis van Gaal and Jose Mourinho would arguably be right up there in the top dozen managers worldwide who you’d want to be manager of your team, and they found it impossible to get what they want. It might run deeper than that [the issues at Manchester United].
Moyes was sacked on April 22, 2014, after a 2-0 defeat by his former side Everton.
With Ryan Giggs seeing through the rest of the campaign as player-manager, the Red Devils ended seventh and missed out on European football – still the only time that has happened to United since Ferguson qualified them for the 1990-91 Cup Winners’ Cup after a European ban on English clubs was lifted.
Moyes did steer them to the quarter-finals of the Champions League, though they lost 4-2 on aggregate to Bayern Munich.
‘We lost in Olympiacos, 2-0, in the Champions League Round of 16, and won the next game 3-0 at home – but I felt the pressure then. I was coming back to the media, they’re all waiting on me and the pressure was mounting at the time,’ Moyes admitted.
Moyes fears the job is a poisoned chalice for Ruben Amorim, soon to join from Sporting Lisbon
Moyes points to the litany of managers such as Jose Mourinho who have found it ‘impossible’
The Scot guided United to the Champions League quarter-finals but their league form was dire
‘The biggest thing they were saying then was that if I didn’t qualify for the Champions League, I’d lose my job at Manchester United. You think of that nowadays, that wouldn’t be the standard set now, the standard has dropped.
‘I have no regrets, I learnt so much from the players, the level of fight they gave you – the dressing room was tough, and they called each other out, there was no messing around in the months I was there.
‘I admired them greatly and could see why they’d been at the top but there was a diminishing level of quality and age. They had a toughness and ability to dig each other out, which is lacking greatly in the modern game.’
Part of Moyes’ failure with United stemmed from a difficult summer transfer window which saw them denied two of their key transfer targets.
While they secured the services of Juan Mata and Marouane Fellaini, they missed out on two potentially transformational men – Gareth Bale of Tottenham and Cesc Fabregas of Barcelona.
Moyes once revealed that United had a helicopter waiting to whisk Bale to Old Trafford but his heart was set on Real Madrid, while Fabregas stayed put at the Nou Camp for another year before joining Chelsea.
‘My plans [at Manchester United] were to not do anything different to what Sir Alex Ferguson did but I couldn’t be Alex, I couldn’t manage like him. I wasn’t going to come in and change the philosophy of Manchester United, I was just going to continue everything I thought he’d been doing right,’ Moyes said.
‘At the time, I remember when I’d met Sir Alex, he asked whether I’d be interested in Cesc Fabregas, and I said, “Definitely”. That was probably the main signing we were trying to get in summer, and I’d spoken to Cesc, and he had said that if he started the first game for Barcelona, he wouldn’t come but if he didn’t then he would come. So, I was going to have to wait right to that time to find out.
Cesc Fabregas was United’s top midfield target in the summer of 2013 but he stayed at Barca
They had a helicopter waiting for Spurs star Gareth Bale but he opted to join Real Madrid
United are still waiting to lift the Premier League again, 11 years on from Ferguson last did it
‘Gareth Bale was the other one [we were trying to sign]. My interpretation with Manchester United was that they had great wingers, great wide players with traditions from George Best and you name them all through the years.
‘So, I thought Gareth Bale would be the one and to be fair to the club, they’d offered more money and had tried to get him, but he had his heart set on Real Madrid. We’d took it right to the wire to get him.
‘I didn’t have a backup to what I wanted after those two players, but I’d brought in Marouane Fellaini – he was the only one that came in.
‘My thought with Marouane was because I’m thinking they’ll be going away to Stoke City and games like that – and to be fair to him, he had a good career at United.
‘We also tried to bring in Leighton Baines, as a backup for Patrice [Evra] at the time, which we didn’t get.’
David Moyes was speaking on the Stick to Football podcast, brought to you by Sky Bet.
