David Moyes return to Goodison Park on Sunday and his less
than warm reception there may seem incredibly mean spirited, churlish and
lacking in gratitude. Moyes had been a great servant to the club which he took
from being a struggling side finding it difficult to cope in the big money era
of the Premier League to a regular top six finisher. He was justifiably given
an emotional send off at the end of last season when he left the club to manage
Manchester United.
Football can be a fickle business, heroes becoming villains
overnight, the team’s best striker kisses the badge after scoring one day, the
next he has signed for another club for a bigger pay packet and expectation of
European glory. Everton have now moved on considerably since Moyes left whilst
Manchester United have regressed. Both teams needed points on Sunday; to
paraphrase Clausewitz, football is war by other means.
All that said David Moyes could have received a warm
reception had it not been for his conduct after leaving the club. He could have
been greeted as a Harry Cattrick, Duncan Ferguson, Kevin Sheedy or Alan Ball, true
legends at the club, part of the evolving story that is Everton FC.
His departure package
was extraordinarily generous, even though Everton received no compensation from
Manchester Untited as Moyes contract had expired.[1] Whilst
visiting Old Trafford and establishing himself at United he was still on the
Everton Payroll!
‘It was unnerving even
for those Evertonians with short memories, as if they had done their bit to
prepare the apprentice for the big league, help pack his bags and then wave him
down the road with a triumphant send-off and proud smile. Evertonians are
entitled to think their club bigger than that.’[2]
But Everton owed Moyes a great deal and after his last match
with the club was given a fitting send off. This was what made his subsequent
behaviour all the more hard to stomach. It is not unusual for managers to look
to the clubs they have just left for playing talent, for obvious reasons, when
they join a new club, but it was the manner of Moyes’s pursuit that disgusted
and alienated the Everton fans. Again as Chris Bascombe points out in The
Telegraph it was the tone of voice that Moyes adopted to his former club that
ensured the alienation of Evertonians:-
“I know if I was the
Everton manager and Sir Alex had come asking for Baines and Fellaini, I would
have found it very difficult to keep them,” said Moyes.
“I always felt the
right thing to do was what was right for the players.”
Moyes might have left
two months earlier, but this patronising remark was the real moment of
separation.’[3]
Now we learn that
Moyes is to be sacked from Manchester United. I cannot be the only one who sees
something of a Shakespearean tragedy about the affair. Moyes bought into the
idea of the anointed king, the arrogance of his remarks about his former club
revealed this. Everton now characterised as little more than a feeder outfit
for the really big side that was Manchester United. Such imperiousness reaped
its own demise. It was Everton and Roberto Martinez that were fighting for
European football on Sunday, Manchester United that were struggling to fight
for a top six finish; poetic justice? It felt so to many Evertonians like myself.
Now Moyes faces the ultimate humiliation of the sack. The
reasons for Moyes failure at Manchester United are complex and multi-layered,
though one reason appears to be that Moyes never enjoyed the full support of his
players, they denied him the respect essential if a manager is to succeed. Football
can be a cruel and dramatic affair, it is however this very Shakespearean
quality that provides for its universal dramatic appeal.
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