Moyes isn’t a bad boss, but he’s in a bad job
THIS is the weekend they dread. Every manager whose team are stuck in a rut hates the fixture immediately before the international break. This is prime sacking time.
David Moyes won’t need reminding. There he is, rooted to the bottom of the table after a disastrous start, his new team yet to win in the league. Another defeat at Bournemouth and many Sunderland fans will believe all hope has gone.
The situation is loaded with pressure. Moyes, after all he has been through in the last couple of years, will know exactly what conclusion those looking in from the outside will be drawing: Manchester United — sacked; Real Sociedad — sacked. Sunderland…
So, what happens next? Sunderland, after all, are a sacking club. I’m reluctant to say that approach has brought them ‘success’ but wielding the axe in recent years has enabled them to stay in the Premier League. Moyes has the support of owner Ellis Short, but who is to say that won’t change?
Here’s the issue. Moyes hasn’t become a bad manager. Far from it. I’ve long regarded him as a very good Premier League manager and his work at Everton was outstanding. He knows how to get out of difficult positions and find results.
Being in the bottom three at this stage shouldn’t faze him. In 2005-06, Everton had an appalling start. They lost 12 of their first 17 games, including a Champions League play-off against Villarreal, and found themselves in the bottom three in November.
It was a position in which a club could have lost touch, particularly as main striker James Beattie was injured. But Moyes planned the remainder of the campaign and set a points target for each month. He made Everton resilient again and they finished comfortably in mid-table.
Resilience was also required when Moyes arrived at Everton. He had nine games to save them from relegation in March 2002 but he exploited the presence of Duncan Ferguson and Kevin Campbell up front to get results. Moyes made no excuse for playing long.
That came to mind when Niall Quinn suggested last week that Sunderland need to play more directly, as they did under Sam Allardyce, to stay up. Can Moyes go back to that style? After all, he has evolved as a manager from when he first set foot in the Premier League.
He used to be regarded as onedimensional but by the end of his time at Everton he had changed. They played good football and he wanted to play with style when he managed United and Real Sociedad, too. The perception, however, of his teams being dour — which I believe is unfair — cost him jobs elsewhere, most notably Tottenham.
Given the current position, wouldn’t it be better to go back to what served him so well at the beginning?
Sunderland’s problems are not down to Moyes. He has just taken a bad job. Gus Poyet, who had 18 months in charge at the Stadium of Light, summed it up recently when he said ‘there is something at Sunderland’s very core’ that makes managers fail there.
Think about it. The only blemish on Martin O’Neill’s c.v. is Sunderland. Steve Bruce was spoken about as a future England manager but he failed there. Dick Advocaat has managed all over the world but couldn’t make it work. Allardyce is regarded as a saviour, but he only won nine of his 30 games in charge.
Moyes became the 12th permanent manager to be appointed by Sunderland since Peter Reid was sacked in 2002, and no one has found the formula to turn them into a club that sits comfortably in the Premier League, rather than one that just clambers out of the bottom three in May.
It feels as if Moyes has been on the back foot ever since he replaced Allardyce on July 23.
Managers start to prepare for a new season in April or May, when they talk to agents and line up moves, but Moyes was left to scurry around for late deals, hoping to entice players to a club and an area that, with the greatest respect, has never had pulling power.
SOhe went for players he knew, such as Steven Pienaar and Victor Anichebe, who he worked with at Everton, and Paddy McNair, Donald Love and Adnan Januzaj from his time at Old Trafford. Of those five, only Januzaj has come close to doing enough.
Then there was Papy Djilobodji, who was signed from Chelsea for £8million, and his biggest acquisition Didier N’Dong, who cost £13.5m from Lorient in France.
The other big issue from the window was the fact he managed to hang on to Lamine Kone, who had been targeted by Everton.
He might have felt that was his best decision but it has proven to be his worst. Kone has been a disgrace, his body language and performances have been dreadful and he has made it clear he wants to move in January. Kone sums up the regression from May, when Allardyce’s side secured back-toback wins against Chelsea and Everton to send their bitter rivals Newcastle down.
Kone’s defensive partner in those games was Younes Kaboul. Djilobodji, his replacement, isn’t a better player.
The same goes for N’Dong coming in for Yann M’Vila, who had been key in midfield but is now gone. Jordan Pickford is a keeper of promise but he lacks Vito Mannone’s experience, while injuries to the influential Jan Kirchhoff, Lee Cattermole and Fabio Borini have been crippling.
Most troubling is this statistic: if games finished on 85 minutes, Sunderland would be five points and two positions better off than they are now but the inability to see a match out shows them to be mentally weak. When you add it up, is it any wonder they are bottom?
If it continues like this, there will only be one outcome. In that 2005-06 season when Moyes steered Everton impressively out of trouble, there was a Sunderland team who finished bottom with 15 points under Mick McCarthy.
I said last season Aston Villa were the worst Premier League team I had seen but the Sunderland of 2016-17 has the potential to eclipse them. I fear for their future. But to hold Moyes responsible? I’m sorry that just isn’t the case.
He is managing a club that is almost unmanageable.