8 May 29, 2022The Sunday Times
Football
W
hen Sir Alex Ferguson
made his retirement
speech on the Old
Trafford pitch on May
12, 2013, his famous
words were: “Your job
now is to stand by your
new manager.” It was amessage to supporters, and the
football club he built. The rain fell, the
sky darkened and, in a black overcoat,
Fergie gripped the mic tight.
Last week Manchester United fans
were being asked to stand by their
sixth new manager since Ferguson
left. Erik ten Hag’s appointment on
Monday came at the end of a season in
which the club failed to land a title for
the ninth year running and finished
the Premier League with their lowest
top-flight points total since 1990.
For all the sadness at the club about
Ferguson’s departure that day nine
years ago, there was hope in the
knowledge that he had handpicked
his successor. David Moyes was in
Manchester with his wife, Pamela, on
May 1 when the call came. The pair
were visiting a jeweller to get the strap
adjusted on the watch that she bought
for his 50th birthday when Moyes’s
phone went and Ferguson’s name
flashed on the screen.
“Can you come over to the house?”
said that inimitable voice.
Half an hour later, Moyes was at
Ferguson’s home in Wilmslow, being
handed a mug of tea and some
extraordinary news. “David, I’m retir-
ing, you’re going to be the new man-
ager of Manchester United,” Ferguson
JONATHAN
NORTHCROFT
Football Correspondent
said. They went upstairs and
discussed the club. Ferguson was
handing over a squad that nine days
previously had clinched United’s 13th
Premier League title in 20 seasons.
However, there was recognition that
new blood was required, and that
areas of the club — the academy, for
example — needed to be refreshed.
An hour or so later, Moyes was
leaving Wilmslow, the biggest job in
football his.
Over the next 48 hours he met the
club’s recently appointed executive
vice-chairman, Ed Woodward, and
members of the Glazer family, the
billionaire Americans who owned the
club, and quickly agreed a contract. It
was for six years — a symbolic span,
given that Ferguson required six full
seasons to win his first English title
after joining United from Aberdeen
during the 1986-87 campaign.
For Moyes, there were two
immediate priorities. The first was
appointing the right staff, and he met
Rene Meulensteen, whom he wanted
to keep as assistant manager. Second
was to do everything possible to
secure the two big signings he felt the
club needed: Cesc Fàbregas, who was
unsettled at Barcelona, and Gareth
Bale, who was leaving Tottenham Hot-
spur and hoped to go to Real Madrid,
but spent May and June waiting for the
Spanish giants to make a move.
Moyes was desperate to get to work
immediately but was not able to join
United until July 1, and found himself
behind the clock from the start. By
then Meulensteen had changed his
mind after suggesting that he would
stay, Madrid were in talks with Bale
and no progress had been made on
Fàbregas. Why did he have to wait?
Because his Everton contract did not
run out until June 30 and United did
not pay the compensation to secure
him earlier.They were basking in record reve-
nues and the thinking behind making
Moyes wait would seem extraordi-
nary to nearly anyone in football.
Perhaps anyone except those who
have worked for Woodward and the
Glazers. Bottom line over scoreline —
a mindset that Moyes’s successor,
Louis van Gaal, believes he experi-
enced too.
“Manchester United is a commer-
cial club... one can do better coach-
ing at a football club,” Van Gaal said in
March when asked whether Ten HagWoodward
had some novel
ideas, for
example that
United needed
a ‘fat squad’
THE FALL
AND FALL OF
MAN UNITED
PART 1 THE MANAGERS
SPECIAL REPORT
should take the Old Trafford
manager’s job.
A sense Moyes soon developed —
that those at the top at United did not
realise the task their club faced —
would be shared by Van Gaal and his
staff. Frans Hoek, Van Gaal’s No 2 and
goalkeeping coach, told The Sunday
Times: “When rebuilding is needed
everyone has to stand behind that and
speak the same words. That comes
down to how much you trust the man-
ager — and it means that the people
standing behind it [the hierarchy of
the club] need to have the knowledge
and understand the process.”
Working with Van Gaal, Hoek had
witnessed how other leading clubs
organised themselves and supported
managers. “Take Bayern [Munich] —
the organisational structure is a
guarantee that you are always work-
ing at the top level,” Hoek said. “In our
time, you had guys like [Uli] Hoeness,
[Karl-Heinz] Rummenigge [club leg-
ends who are now board members],
who have a clear vision and philoso-
phy. You can always lean on them —
and they’re also very capable of judg-
ing what is going on, the work of the
manager. That is the most perfect
combination in the football world.”
And how did that compare with
their United experience? “You could
put a question mark about how that
structure is at Manchester United.”T
he summer of 2013 wound on
unsatisfactorily at Old Trafford.
After strains in his relationship
with Ferguson, Wayne Rooney
had entered the final two years of his
contract without an extension pro-
posed — and was being wooed by
Chelsea. United had two bids rejected
for Fàbregas, who then announced
that he was staying at Barcelona. Bale
was also slipping away, with Real now
negotiating with Tottenham, andUnited’s transfer summer took on a
farcical edge.
Moyes wanted two players from his
former club: Leighton Baines, whose
35 assists in five seasons made him the
Premier League’s most productive
attacking full back, and Marouane
Fellaini, whom Moyes felt would give
United robustness and a plan B
perfect for assignments such as West
Bromwich Albion and Stoke City.
Fellaini’s buyout clause was
£22 million but Woodward had the
brainwave that he could get a better
deal if he bundled the Belgian
together with Baines and submitted a
joint bid. Everton, determined to
retain Baines, knocked back repeated
invitations to name their price for the
two players. In the meantime,
Fellaini’s buyout clause elapsed.
On deadline day, having finally
admitted defeat over Baines, Wood-
ward paid £27 million to make Fellaini
United’s only big summer signing.
Fellaini, who spent six seasons at
United, under three managers,
proved a useful acquisition, but on his
own was nowhere near enough.
Moyes knew it. United’s 2012-13
title was one of Ferguson’s greatest
conjuring acts, won with a patchy and
ageing squad. It featured a 39-year-old
Ryan Giggs, a 38-year-old Paul
Scholes, a 33-year-old Rio Ferdinand
and a 30-year-old Nemanja Vidic
beginning to suffer the knee issues
that would prematurely end his
career, plus a clutch of others in their
late twenties and early thirties.
There is an oft-reported story
about Vidic resenting being shown
analysis clips that used Phil Jagielka as
an example of how to defend in
Moyes’s system — but this did not hap-
pen. The story is a fantasy. Though it
is true that Moyes banned chips and
ketchup from the training ground
canteen, upsetting Ferdinand.8 May 29 , 2022 The Sunday Times
Football
Unveiled on Monday, Ten Hag is United’s sixth managerial appointment
since Sir Alex Ferguson. This is the inside story of how the club and
those appointees have presided over a near-decade of decline
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