Manchester United Sack Manager David Moyes
Manchester United announce that they have sacked David Moyes as manager of the club after less than a year in charge at Old Trafford. The rumors have been swirling since before midseason after a string of poor results particularly at home. Home losses to clubs like Sunderland and Swansea were not the norm for Manchester United but they seemed like a weekly occurrence for David Moyes.
Those losses along with the club’s lowest ever finish and point total in the Premier League were also certainly factors in the decision to sack Moyes. Why the club waited until this late in the season is a mystery if they were planning on letting him go all along. There is also the question of why they would sack him with only three games left in the Premier League season. Perhaps they want to see what Ryan Giggs can do in a player-manager role for the final stretch.
There are a number of factors as to why David Moyes was fired but the primary one has been allowing the club to lose its nearly untouchable status. Even when Alez Ferguson’s side was knocked out of the group stages of the Champions League and eliminated by Athletic Bilbao from the Europa League, they still had that aura of champions. This year, whenever a side played against Manchester United, they always felt they had a chance to win. That includes clubs from the bottom half of the Premier League table and even Greek minnows Olympiakos who went toe to toe with the Red Devils. The loss of that aura of invincibility and ability to always come back no matter the deficit that took Alex Ferguson 20-plus years to build was too much for the fans and board to take and Moyes had to go.
A list of potential successors includes Holland manager Louis van Gaal and Borussia Dortmund’s Jurgen Klopp. Whoever takes over at Manchester United next year has the benefit of only having to do better than Moyes did in his first year to impress the fans and board. A top four or five finish and a domestic cup trophy should be enough to win the fans over but the tough task will be to return Manchester United to its perch as an elite club in England and in Europe.
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