It has been a torrid start to life in Manchester for David Moyes. Given the keys to Fergie’s golden empire, few may have been forgiven for thinking this could have been an easy transition.
Yet Manchester United appear to be a club in free-fall, dogged by structural deficiencies which have been gaffer taped up by the imperious rule of Sir Alex, United have been living on borrowed time and it may finally have started to catch up with them.
The Premier League demise has been stark with the club now sitting in 12th place having lost 3 times already and looking a shadow of their former selves. It’s perhaps unsurprising that Moyes has gone so far as to dismiss the Champions from any real assault on the European summit. Speaking to Sky Sports he was quick to dispel hope that United could achieve continental glory this term:
“To win the Champions League, you need five or six world-class players,”
“Look at Bayern Munich, they have it. Look at Barcelona, who had it in the past and Real Madrid, who have maybe got it now. That’s the level you have to be at to win it. We’ve not got that yet but what we have got is experience.”
If current form is anything to go by this is hardly ground-breaking stuff. United’s issues don’t appear to just be a short-term concern, I accept commenting on a club 6 games into a season is slightly ridiculous, but the squad itself when compared to it’s divisional rivals looks totally unfit for purpose.
Moyes is right, United no longer possess the array of world-class players able to influence a game. Robin Van-Persie, potentially Wayne Rooney? It has got to the stage where almost every single Bayern Munich player and Real Madrid player would easily make it into a United XI, far from the state that the club found themselves in the height of the Fergie era.
I have a degree of sympathy for Moyes, he inherited a club very much on the wane and clearly a couple of months is insufficient to re-write the clubs fortunes. Sir Alex was able to make do because he was in my book the greatest manager of all time, able to win titles without ever playing edge of the seat football. United got it done.
Looking ahead to his retirement, Ferguson’s focus naturally shifted from the years ahead to making do in the present. United are not short of one or two quality players, more like four or five and this really is the tipping point that has been threatening for many years previous.
So why didn’t Moyes move fast to fix these problems?
By all accounts it was a shambolic window for the ‘Reds’, failing to capture any of their first choice targets and having to take the hit on an over-priced Fellaini on deadline day. Overpriced in the sense that they could have bought out his release clause for many millions less a month earlier.
Fellaini isn’t the answer, he is a quality footballer but he alone cannot ride the storm. An ageing defence, lightweight midfield and surprisingly blunt attack. Surely more should have been done to alleviate these concerns?
The reality now for United is that they do not boast the pulling power of Sir Alex, or the star studded squad to entice other stars in. Players are keen to follow the money and a project that looks set to succeed. As it stands United offer neither. Whether this is down to Ed Woodward, Sir Alex or David Moyes it is difficult to be sure, but all that can be inferred is that without swift action the club may soon be in the mire.
United fans may well be caught up in the status quo deluded by the belief that things will always continue as they used to be. The fact is times change, cyclical decline is commonplace in our world and United are not immune to it. Fans of Nottingham Forest would be quick to talk up the position they once held in our game, only to be subjected to the ignominy of lower league football in the modern era.
A club in poor shape on the serial decline, Moyes has the job a lifetime on his hands. Swift action in January and the coming windows and United may well be able to re-write themselves. Failure to heed the early warnings and we could well be in for a change of order at the very top of English football.
Are United on the verge of dramatic decline, or are the scaremongers just doing their worst?