Moyes is the Cats version of Article 50
DAVID MOYES was sent off during Sunderland’s midweek defeat at Southampton for swearing at the fourth official after seeing his team denied a penalty.
The incident encapsulated the Scot’s time with the Black Cats: Frustration, disappointment and anger.
Tomorrow will mark his first 100 days on Wearside, though there’s no cause for celebration.
He went into the weekend cut adrift at the foot of the Premier League. In charge of the only team in the English Leagues without a win, staring at the sack.
Ellis Short doesn’t want to ditch Moyes after declaring that his four-year appointment would, “create a stronger and more stable club looking upwards, rather than downwards every season.”
The Sunderland owner has either fired or accepted the resignation of a manager during the course of each of the last four seasons – Dick Advocaat, Gus Poyet, Paolo di Canio and Martin O’Neill.
And, of course, Moyes is only in the job because Sam Allardyce left to become England boss in July.
Short also knows that each of those mid-season managerial changes produced an upturn in results that enabled the club to stay in the Premier League.
It’s almost become the football equivalent of Article 50. Theresa May has to decide when to trigger Brexit and Short has to decide when to push the button that would install the next Sunderland miracle worker.
The dilemma is that the more time he gives Moyes, the less his successor will get. If things continue on the same course, Sunderland will be unsaveable, no matter who the manager is.
For Moyes, what’s happened in the last 99 days has been a personal disaster. After he was sacked by Manchester United and then by Real Sociedad, another failure could damage his stock beyond repair.
He went into yesterday’s game against Arsenal having won just 14 of his previous 61 matches.
Three years ago he was Sir Alex Ferguson’s “Chosen One” and he’d been the LMA Manager of the Year three times in seven seasons. That hard-won reputation is rapidly unravelling.
The Sunderland fans have not been impressed by his often dour demeanour. They accuse him of being defeatist about the team’s prospects and overly negative in his tactics.
Striker Jermaine Defoe says the team has gone backwards since Allardyce kept them up last May.
He probably doesn’t mean it as criticism of his new manager. But that’s the only thing that’s changed.