In a distant corner of Manchester United’s training ground a lone
figure is running. It is 4am, pitch black, the silence broken only by
the sound of his breathing and his footsteps on the perfectly
tended grass.
David Moyes is in the dark but he knows what is coming. Nobody
from what is supposed to be the world’s greatest football club has
told him. But he knows, as he circles the perimeter of Carrington’s
pitches one last time, that it is over; knows that in a few hours his
players will be training here but he will be gone, no longer their
manager.
He knows because the story broke on a number of websites the
day before. He didn’t believe it at first. Indeed, when I spoke to
him within an hour of the story appearing, he was incredulous.
‘There’s no way you guys would know before me,’ he said in the
first of two conversations we had that day. ‘This is Manchester
United we’re talking about.’ Moyes was not being naive. Nobody could ever accuse this
streetwise Glaswegian of that. But even after a crushing defeat at
Everton two days earlier, he was struggling to come to terms with
the fact it was ending like this; struggling to believe, having given
up the stability he had enjoyed for 11 successful years at
Goodison Park, that within barely 10 months his new employers
would allow him to be utterly humiliated.
By the time he went to bed on that Easter Monday, he knew he had
been. For a start people had not been answering their phones, and
when he finally did make contact with Ed Woodward, the club’s
executive vice-chairman would only say that he would meet him at
Carrington at 8am.
Moyes had no intention of driving in at that time — not when the
cameras would be waiting. So he got there four hours early, went
for a run, took a shower and then, alone in an empty, eerie
building, began to clear his desk. ‘I hadn’t slept a wink,’ he says.
‘But the run gave me a chance to clear my head. A bit of time to
think before I started to pack up my stuff.’ He has done an awful lot of thinking since April 22, and now he is
reflecting on his brief but difficult tenure in the first interview he
has given since his brutal dismissal. Foremost in his mind is a
desire to communicate how determined he is to return to work. His
powers have not been diminished, he insists. On the contrary, he
feels the next club to employ him will be hiring a David Moyes
more focused and determined than ever.
But he will be choosing his next job very carefully, and
understandably so. ‘I would never have left a job,’ he says before
pausing. ‘The job at Everton was so good. I worked for a great
chairman, great people at the club.
‘It was not easy to begin with at Everton either. We had a couple of
tough years before we had the club the way we wanted it. But the
reason I went to United was because I thought I was joining a club
that would give me time. That was the big thing. I didn’t want to
change anything immediately. I wanted to take my time working
out what I thought was needed. ‘I saw what I thought were important similarities between United
and Everton. Like the focus on developing young players. Look at
the players we brought through at Everton. As well as the ones we
brought in. You go back to Wayne Rooney and all the other lads.
Ross Barkley, Pienaar, Coleman, Jagielka, Baines and Lescott. We
signed John Stones. We had a really good club at Everton who
gave me the opportunity to do the job the way I felt it needed to be
done.’
By accident I met Moyes in London the night he got the United job.
He had travelled down to complete the formalities with Bill
Kenwright, the Everton chairman he admired so much. Moyes was
with his brother and adviser, Kenny, and was clearly excited by the
prospect of succeeding Sir Alex Ferguson. It was the job he had
always craved.
Now, however, he accepts that following the finest British manager
in history was no easy task. ‘It was a step into the unknown and,
looking back now, it was near enough the impossible job,’ he
says. ‘But it was the right job for me. I’d been at Everton for more
than 11 years. We’d qualified for the Champions League, got to an
FA Cup final, I’d been voted manager of the season three times. I
was among the most experienced managers in the Premier
League. United had always had British managers.
‘I was devastated to lose the job because it was something I felt I
could make a real success of. We knew it was going to take time
to make the necessary changes. It was going to take time to
evolve. But we were in the process of making other important
changes. In the end, I don’t feel I was given time to succeed or
fail.’ That final remark is one he repeats more than once over a three-
hour lunch in a charming Italian restaurant in Hale, Cheshire, but
there are plenty of other subjects he wants to tackle in a
conversation in which he concedes that he might have approached
the job differently, answers some of the accusations that have
been levelled at him and reveals that he too would have made
Rooney his captain this season.
What still troubles him is the nature of his departure, though. He
has to be careful because he is bound by a confidentiality
agreement in his severance deal. But plenty have already
expressed their view. Ferguson told dinner guests in Manchester
that week that it was ‘upsetting the way it came out’. Roy Keane
blamed Woodward, saying Moyes deserved more time and that the
club’s executive vice chairman needed to take ‘a long hard look at
himself’. The League Managers’ Association said the dismissal of
Moyes had been ‘handled in an unprofessional manner’.
United contested that accusation but there is no escaping the
facts. Moyes was among the last to know and the impact it had on
his family still distresses him. His father was seriously ill at the
time, and deeply upset by the humiliation his son suffered. ‘In the end it was difficult for my family, the way we discovered —
via the media — that I’d lost my job,’ he says. ‘We have always
tried to do things the correct way. I know it comes with the
territory, and I know if you lose matches you risk being sacked.
But how it affected my family made it hard. My dad is a great
football man [he was a coach at the much respected Drumchapel
Amateur Football Club where both Moyes and Ferguson had
started out]. He lives near us [in the house adjacent to the family
home near Preston] and he has always followed my career. I
always take him to the games and I hope when I’m his age — he’s
79 now — my son takes me to the football, too.
‘But he wasn’t well for a while after that. We don’t think what
happened to me was the cause, but that made it tough. He’s fine
now, I’m pleased to say. In my mind I have moved on, but the way
I lost my job is something I won’t forget.’
His wife Pamela, he says, is a strong lady. ‘She understands that if
you lose games, you expect criticism,’ he says. ‘That’s the game
we’re in. She was incredibly supportive. Many times when there
were members of the press at the end of the drive she’d make
them a cup of tea. She was also getting to find her way around Old
Trafford as the manager’s wife. She’s really good in company. I
think it was hard when we walked into paparazzi at Miami airport,
after I’d been sacked. But even then we managed to laugh about
it. She said to me, “I hope they don’t get us on the beach!”.
‘What upset her, though, was the fact that I was being told by
members of the press that day that I was out. I just never expected
that to happen.’ It would be wrong to imagine this is a bitter and twisted David
Moyes talking here. He is calm and considered, and he looks
tanned and well compared to the slightly greying, chastened
individual we saw fighting for survival in those final few months at
United.
After climbing from his car — a sleek, black sporty number — he
jokes that it is the first he has had to buy in he can’t remember
how long. Never one for blowing his cash on flash motors, he had
always been happy to drive whatever vehicle had come with the
job.
But now he is out of work. Now, for the first time in 35 years, he is
not preparing for a new football season. And it hurts, even if he
does seem in good spirits when he talks about how much he
enjoys walking his dogs and raves about the ‘brilliant new Donald
Trump golf course near Aberdeen’.
Inside, however, he is suffering. Not least because it is not in the
nature of a proud, working-class Scotsman to be idle. He wants to
work. He needs to work, and a few days before the start of a new
Premier League season he is seriously missing work.
‘This is the first time I’ve missed a pre-season since I was 16,’ he
says. ‘I’m 51 now so that’s a long time. I’ve missed it because
pre-season is quite an enjoyable time. As a manager it’s a bit
more relaxed. I’ve also enjoyed having a bit more spare time than
normal. ‘It’s going to hurt this weekend that I’m not managing Manchester
United, because that’s obviously what I’d have liked to have been
doing. But I’ll watch the games. I won’t be running away from it.
Football is something I’ve been involved in since I was a boy.’
I ask him if his passion for football has in any way been
diminished. ‘I still love the game,’ he says. ‘At times I found it
difficult. But I love being around football people and I also accept
that you are going to have bad times as well as good times. And
I’ve still had an awful lot of good times.’
In the statement issued through the LMA on his behalf after his
dismissal, much was made of an apparent snub to the players. He
had mentioned his ‘staff’ but not his squad. Sitting here now,
however, he wants to clarify something.
‘On the day I lost my job I spoke to every player at the training
ground,’ he says. ‘I called the players into the dressing room at
10am that morning and told them how disappointed I was; how
surprised I was that it had ended so soon. But I told them that they
were playing for a great club. I told them that they should all
embrace it and realise how fortunate they are.
‘The players were how you would expect them to be. Quiet but
respectful. If you’re a Manchester United player you have to have a
lot of respect. It was the first time I’d ever had to give a speech
like that. Never before in my career. But I felt it was the right thing
to do, to address them before I left.’ It was a dignified exit but it has not been the only example of such
dignity these past few months. He has endured a fair bit of
criticism on the sports pages of the national press but still had
dinner with a number of football writers in Miami during the week
England spent there prior to the World Cup. Indeed he picked up
the tab, even after discovering the numbers had swelled to more
than he expected.
When he agreed to this interview, he asked only that any fee this
newspaper might wish to pay — he does not specify a figure — be
donated to Darren Fletcher’s ‘United For Colitis’ charity. ‘When a
plane flew over Old Trafford that day towing that banner [it said
‘Moyes Out’] I turned to someone next to me and said they would
have been better giving the money to Darren’s charity,’ he says.
In reports that emerged in the days that followed his dismissal, it
was suggested his attempts to contact Ferguson on that Easter
Monday had proved unsuccessful. ‘I’ve met Alex on several
occasions since I left,’ he says. ‘And I spoke to him about the days
surrounding my departure. He explained it to me and I totally
accepted what he said. He was in a difficult position, and I
understood that. ‘At no time did I ever have anything other than 100 per cent
support from him. He was always incredibly good to me. We had
several meetings over the course of my time at the club. We spoke
regularly. And I saw him being around me only as a positive.’
He is candid enough to admit that, in hindsight, he might have
done certain things differently at United. ‘If there was one thing I
would have changed I would have started the day after I finished
the season with Everton,’ he says. ‘Instead of waiting until July 1,
I’d have started immediately.’ An Everton contract that ran until
June 30 meant he couldn’t. ‘And within a few days of starting I
was off on tour all around Asia,’ he says.
‘I also went into the job thinking I want to do exactly what I did at
Everton. I want to be the same person. I want to manage in the
same style. Because why would I change when I had success
working that way? But now, looking back, I think there might have
to have been a slightly different approach. I might have altered the
style in which I managed.’
He is reluctant to explain exactly how. ‘I just want to keep
working,’ he says. ‘I worked long and hard to get to that level. I
put in an awful lot of effort for it to be taken away from me. And I
feel that whoever gets me now will probably get, not a more
determined David Moyes because I’ve always given everything,
but I will definitely have a focus on what I’ll be aiming to do and
what I’ll be aiming to achieve. I don’t think I’ve necessarily got
anything to prove to anyone. I’ve worked really hard my whole
career.’ But what went wrong at United? Why was it impossible? ‘I’ve tried
to analyse it,’ he says. ‘I’ve been listening to Louis van Gaal and
he has been saying similar things. For instance the fact that he
wants to give every player an opportunity to show what they can
do.
‘We tried to bring players in during the summer transfer window
but they didn’t materialise. It certainly wasn’t for the lack of
trying. It wasn’t indecision. The complete opposite.
‘It’s been well documented that we wanted Fabregas, Bale and
Ronaldo. There was talk of Ronaldo when I first arrived. We were
close to getting a couple of major names. I’m not getting in a
blame game here but things just didn’t materialise. I had taken
over from the most successful manager in history. The chief
executive had taken over from one of the most renowned
administrators in the game [David Gill]. So it was a new job for
two people.’ In the end he made a late move for Marouane Fellaini, a player
who was hugely impressive at Everton but seemed to struggle
under the burden of expectation at United. Moyes says ‘he simply
needs to be given more time’.
‘The players were fantastic,’ he says. ‘They were great. I just don’t
think I was given time to succeed or fail. I was taking over from a
manager who had been there for more than 20 years, and I tried to
continue the success the club had enjoyed. There was always
going to be a difficult period.
‘I thought we worked well together. We worked as a team. We
tried to do the right things. I was criticised for getting rid of Rene
Meulensteen but I asked him to stay. But since we left I’ve spoken
to my staff and we’ve gone through what happened. It meant a lot
to us all. We were all desperate to succeed and we’re all hurt. But
we will learn from this.’
Moyes responds to certain accusations that were levelled at him.
For instance, had he encouraged Rio Ferdinand to study a video of
Phil Jagielka? ‘That’s nonsense,’ he says. ‘I would never do that.’
He was criticised for taking the players for a stroll on Bondi beach,
where they were mobbed by autograph hunters. ‘It was a Sunday
morning in winter time there,’ he says. ‘I really don’t see what the
problem was.’ He could also add that Van Gaal took the players for
a stroll on the beach in Santa Monica just recently. Further to that, he denies any personal issue with Robin van
Persie. ‘I had a good relationship with Robin,’ he says. ‘I liked him
a lot. He was an intelligent guy. He had more injuries than the
previous season but we did everything we could to get him fit.’
He applauds Van Gaal for making Rooney the new club captain,
agreeing that the timing is right for the England forward. ‘Wayne
would have become captain under me,’ he says. ‘Because of
where he’s at now as a player. I think in time he may develop into
a midfield player. He’s a great centre-forward but in the coming
years I can see that happening. He can play in a number of
positions. He’s very experienced now. Not a lot fazes him. I think
he might need that responsibility now. Certainly for the next part of
his career. Wayne worked as hard as anyone last year. He got
himself in great condition, he worked great for me and he was
great for the team.’
Now, however, Moyes needs to find a new team with new players;
a new opportunity to demonstrate that he remains among the best
managers around.
He took some pleasure in watching so many players he has
worked with in action at this summer’s World Cup — 24 in all —
but has his fall at United damaged his confidence? ‘It would have
knocked the confidence of any manager but I believe I’ll be a
better manager for the experience.’ He is open-minded about where he works next. A club abroad is
just as appealing as one here in England. It just needs to be the
right job.
‘I’ve been sounded out by a few people about different jobs but I’d
like to find a job, if I can, that gives me a chance of being
successful,’ he says.
‘I had a look at Galatasaray and they had a look at me, and
nothing came of it. But abroad is a possibility. We’ve always had
a healthy number of foreign managers in the Premier League and
I’ve always felt we should have a similar balance of British
managers working abroad.
‘It may help and enhance me to go abroad. Look at Roy
Hodgson’s career. Look at Terry Venables; Sir Bobby Robson. I
don’t think it did them any harm. I left a very stable job in the
belief I was taking another stable job, so I’ll be taking my time
finding something that’s right.’ In the meantime he will watch football. This weekend has been
spent in Qatar working as a television pundit. And he is trying to
reply to the ‘thousands’ of letters of support he has received, with
Neil Kinnock and Gordon Brown among those to have written to
him.
He also plans to accept an invitation from Carlo Ancelotti to watch
Real Madrid train. ‘Towards the end of my time at Preston I went
to watch Carlo’s training in Milan,’ he says. ‘He remembered that
when he came to the Premier League. In fact, the night he was
sacked by Chelsea, in a corridor at Everton, he turned to me and
said, “Maybe I’ll come and watch your training at Everton now”.
Carlo’s a nice man.’
Indeed he is, and Moyes might note that the Italian also bounced
back rather well after the humiliation of that particular dismissal. |
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