ThThe Sunday Times ThThThThThThThThThThhhhhhhhhhhhhheeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeSuSSSSSSSSSnday Times MMay 29, 2022ay 29 , 202299
“The way I managed and coached
was maybe different to Sir Alex. When
it all finished I wanted to rethink and
relook and work out what I could have
done better. How did I present
myself ?” Moyes told The Sunday
Times in November. “The takeaway? It
was probably that I felt I had to be
more positive. Better communicator.
More approachable. I think I’ve
always been relatively direct... and I
maybe had to be not quite as direct.”
By early December United were
ninth, having won only six of their
first 15 Premier League games. Moyes
found himself labouring round the
clock, almost never off the phone, in a
grand, dark-panelled office at Car-
rington still decorated to Ferguson’s
specifications. Moyes was impressed
by Ferguson’s group of scouts, led by
Jim Lawlor, but the recruitment sys-
tem needed expanding and modern-
ising. It was the same with the medical
department and academy.
Woodward was also stepping into
big shoes, those of the outgoing chief
executive, David Gill, and had some
novel ideas, for example that United
needed a “fat squad” — ie one com-
prising a large number of personnel,
all tied to longer contracts, so that the
playing group was high in asset value.
This led to a new five-year-deal for
Nani, whom Moyes did not see as
important to his plans.
However, slowly, the dial started to
shift in terms of squad-building, with
Woodward pulling off a coup in Janu-
ary to land Moyes a prime target: Juan
Mata. Then, in February, Moyes held
talks with Toni Kroos and the pair hit
it off. Kroos agreed to join United that
summer and the German’s agent,
Volker Struth, would later reveal just
how close he came to doing so. “The
contract and offer were good and
Kroos had agreed,” Struth said. “On
April 22, they sacked Moyes and wehad to start looking for a new club.”
Kroos would leave Bayern for Real.
For Moyes, the best thing about his
eight months at United was the fans.
They offered a level of support he
appreciated during a period when, by
his own admission, results were not
good enough, such as the 2-0 defeat
away to Olympiacos, in the first leg of
a Champions League round-of-16 tie
in February 2014. Woodward took a
picture of the scoreboard in Athens
and kept the photograph on his desk
at Old Trafford, intending it to serve as
a reminder of a low point and keep
people humble when success
returned. In fact, Moyes overturned
the deficit, winning the second leg 3-0
to progress into the Champions
League last eight. They only once
went as far in Europe again during
Woodward’s 8½ years as executive
vice-chairman.
In their quarter-final United
pushed Bayern close, leading the tie
with 33 minutes remaining. Yet
Woodward and the Glazers had had
enough, and two days later Wood-
ward met Van Gaal for secret talks. A
further 11 days on, United sacked their
first manager in 27 years after defeat
away to Everton. That reverse made it
mathematically impossible for United
to qualify for the Champions League,
and that meant Moyes was due less in
compensation. Another great result
for the bottom line. The League Man-
agers Association (LMA) condemned
United for a dismissal “handled in an
unprofessional manner”.
Moyes had begun his last full day
working on a deal to sign Luke Shaw
from Southampton. Early in the after-
noon his phone lit up with calls and
texts from agents and friends — en
masse, the newspaper reporters who
cover the club were reporting that he
was about to be sacked. The tip-off
came from high within the club. Wood-ward refused to meet that evening but
confirmed Moyes’s dismissal in a
meeting at Carrington the next morn-
ing. He told Moyes that the board had
started having “a few doubts” after
Olympiacos away. Moyes pointed out
he had actually turned the tie around,
and would have turned United round
generally, given time. Woodward said
that the team had not shown enough
“spirit and fight” to suggest a revival.
Moyes noted that if there was one
thing he had been associated with,
throughout his managerial career, it
was producing sides with “spirit and
fight”. Was, therefore, the lack of it at
United down to the manager? It is a
question he left Woodward to ponder.U
nited confirmed Van Gaal as their
new manager on May 19, 2014.
But when Moyes had departed
four weeks previously, the
favourite to take over was Jürgen
Klopp. Woodward flew to Germany to
meet Borussia Dortmund’s then man-
ager and, according to Raphael Honig-stein’s definitive Klopp biography,
told him that the Theatre of Dreams
was “like an adult version of Disney-
land”. This sales pitch bemused
Klopp, who told a friend he found it a
bit “unsexy”. Woodward denies
uttering the “Disneyland” line but was
known to be “absolutely gutted”
when Klopp ended up at Liverpool.
Like Moyes, Van Gaal could not
start until July — first he would manage
Holland at the 2014 World Cup — but
Woodward was convinced that the
experienced Dutchman, a Champions
League victor and multiple trophy
winner in the Netherlands, Spain and
Germany, fitted a new template he had
drawn up after consulting Ferguson,
Sir Bobby Charlton and Bryan Robson.
The template involved four crite-
ria: the manager would play attacking
football with X-factor players, draw
from United’s academy, be humble off
the pitch and arrogant on it.
And Van Gaal believed United was
the perfect fit for him. His greatest
strength was systematically building
clubs and instilling a new identity
from the bottom up. To him and Hoek
it was obvious this was what United
needed. “What Ferguson did is excep-
tional. When you have a manager like
that, who was incredibly responsible
for what happened, the moment he
retires, everyone who comes after has
a difficult job. So what you need is a
clear new start,” Hoek said.
“[United] were champions in
2012-13 but the insights I got from the
players and staff was that it was a very
special championship, because it was
not that the team was at the top level,
but that everything went in a certain
direction. I understood Robin [van
Persie] had been very important and
everything he touched turned to gold.
“So our understanding was that yes
you were the champions, but you
have to start at zero, with the funda-mentals again. And in my opinion,
what I have seen with Louis, at Ajax,
AZ Alkmaar, Bayern Munich and Bar-
celona — when he took over after
Johan Cruyff — if anyone is capable of
starting again it is Louis.”
Van Gaal’s proscriptive and
detailed approach led to culture
clashes. He implemented “evaluation
sessions” the day after matches where
he could be blunt with his appraisal of
individuals. Players received emails
outlining areas to improve, with video
clips attached. Several ignored these,
so Van Gaal deployed tracking soft-
ware to monitor how long emails were
opened for — even then, certain play-
ers simply opened the emails on their
mobile phones and wandered off to
do something else. Perhaps this was
the start of a dressing-room resistance
that Ralf Rangnick encountered.
Van Gaal’s efforts to instruct play-
ers on fine details did not always go
well. Van Persie did not enjoy being
told to make the same near-post run
every time the ball came into the box
and critics mocked Van Gaal’s “micro-
management” when he instructed
Rooney how to take penalties.
However, Rooney would later say
that, for tactics and preparation, Van
Gaal was “by far the best” manager he
played under. Hoek suggests Van Gaal
was attempting a culture change that
simply needed time. “Louis is a guy
who tries to make everything clear
and he had quite a few meetings,
which is new for players,” Hoek said.
“It takes time for players to adjust —
but if you are successful it is easy.”
Van Gaal’s start — three wins in ten
— was worse than Moyes’s, yet form
improved and United finished fourth,
ensuring a return to the Champions
League. Before his second season,
expectation grew after he recruited
six new players, including the excitingWALKING INTO, ERIK
THE FERGIE FACTOR I
Tr o p hie s wo n
Last nine seasons under Sir Alex
Ferguson (2004-05 - 2012-13)Past nine seasons (2013-14 - 2021-22)
1
Champions
League3
League
Cups5
Premier
Leagues1
Europa
League1
League
Cup1
FA
CupContinued on page 10→