Moyes progress puts United in shade

MANCHESTER UNITED’S seven-year-itch is moving towards eight and they still have not scratched it. It was May 2013 when Sir Alex Ferguson celebrated the last of his club’s league titles and walked out to the centre circle to deliver a message to a packed Old Trafford. ‘Your job now,’ he said, ‘is to stand by our new manager.’

That ‘new manager’, of course, was David Moyes and tonight he will return to Old Trafford at the helm of West Ham. It has taken this long for him to recover his reputation after a false restart at Real

Sociedad and a sobering misadventure at Sunderland.

United are edging back towards where they long to be under the quietly impressive leadership of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. But they now lie 14 points adrift of Manchester City and it is clear that, if Moyes’ rehabilitation is all but complete, United’s still has some way to go.

They have been hamstrung by the decision-making of executive vicechairman Ed Woodward, who was blinded by the glamour of big names such as Louis van Gaal and Jose Mourinho. It took Solskjaer a while to clear up the mess left by Mourinho, in particular, but at least United’s recruitment record has improved.

Woodward, who has got plenty wrong, deserves credit for sticking with Solskjaer when many called for him to be fired.

United are getting there but not as fast as West Ham. In the last season, Moyes has done what had looked impossible and injected some heart and soul into a club that seemed to be intent on selling that soul just as fast and as cynically as it could.