There’s a huge gulf between many Manchester United supporters about the amount of time David Moyes should be given to try and redeem what is so far a very poor first season at the job. No matter how you try to spin the facts and the situation, it’s probably going to be up to his top players – Wayne Rooney, Robin van Persie and newly arrived Juan Mata to save him.
There are many speculations as to what it’s going to take for this season to end like for Moyes to be fired. For now, the ownership feels he’s someone worth saving, or they wouldn’t have allowed him to sign Juan Mata from Chelsea for £37 million, the most the club has ever paid for a player.
A recent poll on United we Stand provided the following results: Of the question “Moyes. What to do?” the answers were the following: 15.71 percent replied to “Sack him, it’s not working“; 22.51 percent to “Sack him if United don’t finish in the top four“; and 61.78 percent to “Judge him in a year when he’s had time to build his side.”
There’s still patience from the fans and obviously from the ownership, but Moyes trying to belittle his own club and players by playing a certain tune that just doesn’t fit this club. And right now being at 7th, with the top 4 looking like something that’s becoming more and more impossible to aspire to? Things were always going to be more difficult with Moyes and without Ferguson, but they keep going from bad to worse, picking up three losses in five league matches since the turn of the new year, while being knocked out of the FA Cup by Swansea and the League Cup by Sunderland.
Tactically, Moyes thinks he’s on a different team. But he has quality at his side. It’s impossible to think that just by changing the manager a team that easily won the Premier League last season could be so far off (22 points) from where they were last season. This isn’t a slight bump on the wings, but somebody cutting them off completely.
So it’s down to the players themselves to make something out of it, because Moyes might be experienced, but only in certain kinds of teams and styles. Manchester United is a different beast that he might grasp eventually, but not at the moment. He needs his trio, even though they don’t fit his tactics unless he changes them, to simply do what great players do, which sometimes has nothing to do with what their manager is telling them.
Patience is a great thing to have in owners, but there comes a point when the disappointment is a bit too much to ignore. It goes beyond the mere results: Except for the 5-0 win over Leverkusen, it’s hard to think of an impressive Manchester United performance this season. You can squeak through public opinion while winning, but when the losses come, wins that have no style and soul in them are dismisses easily. For something better, Moyes needs his expensive stars to do him a solid and save his job.