Premier League
Time for David Moyes to return to England - and prove critics wrong
I think some much-needed revisionism is taking place over David Moyes’ reign at Manchester United and people are realising that he was hard done by. His reputation deserves to be reappraised ahead of a possible return to England, now his spell at Real Sociedad is over.
I believe the time is right for Moyes to return to England now, without a doubt. In fact, I think the time might have been right some time ago and there were jobs around which might have suited him.
He made an admirable decision to go abroad though and he wasn’t going to just abandon Real Sociedad when a good job became available in the Premier League. He was respectful of what he was doing in Spain.
You have to commend Moyes for trying something different and opening himself up to a new culture. But if managing a Spanish team is a completely different challenge, then it becomes even more unfamiliar if that team are Basque.
Ron Atkinson, John Toshack and Chris Coleman have all managed Real Sociedad and had varying degrees of success. Because it’s a different culture and a different approach, it means it’s not quite the same as managing a team from somewhere else in Spain.
From what I’ve read, Moyes tried to be his own man and instil a different culture at the club. If you are going to go down, it’s good to go down in your own style rather than conforming. He was trying to prove a point - even if he has come unstuck a bit.
Moyes still has to prove that point to his detractors in England after his time at United, but I think if you look at what is happening at United now - how much money has been spent, the style of football on display - you have to conclude that maybe Moyes wasn’t so bad after all.
Louis van Gaal has spent around £280 million on 14 new players while David Moyes was given just two: Marouane Fellaini for £27 million in the summer of 2013 and Juan Mata for £37 million the following January.
Was Moyes given a fair rub of the green? Did he have enough time to prove himself and build a new team? No. United have been far more understanding with Van Gaal. They’ve given him huge resources and we still haven’t seen the real Manchester United.
And look at what Moyes was left with when he took over. There was a lot of dead wood in the squad bequeathed to him by Sir Alex Ferguson; some of the players had gone in their own minds. Patrice Evra was having a terrible time; Nemanja Vidic wasn’t fit, and when he was he was poor; Rio Ferdinand was suddenly being found out. It was a huge rebuilding job and it needed to be started much earlier, not left until the new guy.
No one could have replaced Ferguson satisfactorily - and other managers might have been too scared to take the challenge on. Moyes was always brave and honest about the challenge of managing Manchester United and he has kept his counsel after leaving. He hasn’t been badmouthing anyone at the club and he isn’t bitter.
He got himself a new job in a different country and I’m sure he learned more from his season at Manchester United than he did in 11 years at Everton.
But if the right job comes along in the Premier League then he will be a success again, I am sure. He will be a mainstay of the top flight once more. You know with David Moyes at the helm, your club is not going to be relegated.
The Aston Villa job seemed like the perfect fit but I don’t know how much freedom he would have had to spend money. Maybe he didn’t want to put himself into a such a difficult job, with all the attendant pressure from the media after his time at Manchester United.
Villa are a big club, historically speaking, and have a certain status in English football. Because of what happened at United, Moyes is not going to get a top job and Villa could have been in the next rung down.
You’d think that a former manager of Manchester United wouldn’t take a big step down in his next job in England but look at Steve McClaren. After a spell abroad with FC Twente and Wolfsburg, he came back to manage Nottingham Forest in the Championship.
Football is football and you get on with it. If a decent job comes up with a club with aspirations of promotion to the Premier League then why not?
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