LeadershipIt has been difficult watching David Moyes struggle this season as he attempted to follow Alex Ferguson, as Manchester United manager.
Today that ended when Moyes was fired from that role.
Many people have been critical of Moyes, both throughout the season, but also when he was first appointed as manager, feeling that he wasn’t good enough.
David Moyes has not done himself any favours especially with some of his player purchases, tactics or player selection. His appearances in the media, where he seemed to blame everyone, stated he had no idea what was wrong, or said he wanted to emulate Manchester City, have done little to increase his credibility, in fact they have been damning.
But is this all Moyes fault?
Would we be sat here now in this same situation had it been handled differently.
Manchester could have approached Moyes last season and had him work as assistant to Ferguson during Sir Alex last season in charge. This would have allowed for Sir Alex to mentor Moyes, give him an opportunity to get to know the players, the coaches, the organisation rather than thrown in at the deep end.
Manchester could have insisted that Moyes work with the existing coaching staff, rather bring in his own staff, limiting the scale of the changes and disruption to the existing set up.
Manchester changing their Chief Executive, and replacing him with someone with limited experience, which didn’t help Moyes either. Two new leaders, in two key positions at the biggest club in Britain, at the same time was never going to help either of them.
Moyes certainly hasn’t helped himself, but I believe that the majority of the blame has to lie with Manchester United themselves.
They selected a manager who lacked the experience of running such a big club, a manger who had never won a major trophy, they didn’t ensure he had the right level of support and they made other senior management changes,
David Moyes was put into a position where even a great manager would have struggled to succeed, and he wasn’t a great manager, good maybe, but not good enough in this situation.
Ultimately it is Manchester United who will pay the price for their poor Succession Planning.
Next season they will miss out on Champions League football which will cost them an estimated 50million pounds. They will need to find a new manager and rebuild their ageing team, at the same time both Everton and Liverpool have emerged as serious contenders for Champions League places, which will make it more difficult.
This could be a long way back for Manchester, all because they didn’t appoint the right manager first time, or because they didn’t create the right environment and support structures for the manager they did choose.
I wish David Moyes all the best for the future and hopefully he will be offered a position where he has a chance of success and the support of the club to be able to achieve it.
Gordon Tredgold
GET THE COMPLIMENTARY E-BOOK
