The Downfall of David Moyes: An 'Accidental' Brian Clough

Collage by Marta Parszeniew

In The Damned United, David Peace's novel about Brian Clough’s brief reign at Leeds, there's a scene where Brian Clough has to introduce himself to his new charges. It's a tense situation – all the Leeds players already hate Clough because of the continuous slagging he'd given them and their ex-manager, Don Revie, throughout his career. So how does Clough deal with the tension? He gathers them all together and tells them that everything they've ever achieved means nothing because they're dirty cheats. He tells them that things are going to be different – that everyone's going to do things his way. And his way lasts just 44 days.

David Moyes lasted a little longer than that, though there was a similar moment for him earlier this season. It was before Christmas and things at Old Trafford had not yet begun to look completely fucked. A top-four finish was still very much within the team's grasp, and United remained in contention for three trophies, with three "easy" opponents to follow in Swansea City, Sunderland and Olympiakos. The arrival of January reinforcements was surely just days away, and there was plenty of scope to salvage what at that stage had been a disappointing, but not yet calamitous season.

But first there was some mundane video coaching for Moyes to attend to. Rio Ferdinand – for a period of his career the finest defender in the world, as well as one of the best in both his club and country's histories – needed some instruction. Moyes chose his former player Phil Jagielka as the blueprint, advising the Champions League winner to watch the ex-Sheffield United man closely; to study his moves. Ferdinand paused for a second, before responding: “And what the fuck has he ever won?”

Four months later, United would be out of all four competitions and Moyes would be out of a job.

It’s a story that will probably go down as the defining obituary of the Moyes era, symbolic of the manager being out of his depth at managing a large club. Jagielka is a fine defender, but like Moyes, he has the stench of the small-time about him, anathema to the likes of Ferdinand, an archetypal big-club prima donna, a hat salesman occasionally playing a bit of football on the side. Baresi never played under Neil Warnock. Hierro was never regularly asked to play as a backup keeper for Sheffield United. And Fergie would never have compared even a former great like Ferdinand to someone who is, ultimately, a clogger.

Of course, it’s also easy to see the other side. Ferdinand was an all-time great, but is no longer, and Phil Jagielka is still a very serviceable defender who has undoubtedly had a better season. Yet there was something deeply uninspiring about it all. Moyes’ advice came straight from his own insipid, unwilling personal brand as much as Brian Clough’s fabled words to his new Leeds United squad that they could “throw all their medals in the bin”. The same sentiment, but expressed by accident. And the same reaction, though again, obtained completely without design.

The story of Clough’s time at Leeds is one of the most fabled in English football, particularly since the novel and the inferior film that followed. The reason it’s relevant here is that it’s the only precedent we have to the situation of Alex Ferguson’s succession. Sure, United had previous of their own in foundering for decades after Matt Busby’s retirement, but that was a bygone era, where the game had a very different psychological makeup. An era that United, with their European conquests and bringing George Best to the world, did more than anyone else to destroy.

Yet it was an era briefly harked back to in the initial phase of the succession crisis. Mourinho was the outstanding candidate, and he’d spent the past few years demolishing any suggestions raised by United fans that he might be unsuitable to take over at Old Trafford. He managed on budgets, built teams up, played great football and utilised young talent. All that remained was some vague criticism of his conduct. As laughable as it was – following a cruel, selfish, treacherous, Machiavellian tyrant like Ferguson – that criticism of Mourinho harked back to an era of pipe-smoking, slipper-wearing gentlemen that would never return. Bastards were the present, and the future. Mourinho – why not?

Despite the popularity of the Clough fable, there’s been the conviction that Mourinho would have worked out very differently. On the face of it, the situation is identical: arrogant upstart replaces his former nemesis at a club where he has been regarded as a father figure, without whom life is unthinkable to his players, who are successful yet ageing and in need of replacement. The comparison with Mourinho and Clough is particularly resonant, save for one difference: the United squad wanted him, whereas Clough was loathed at Leeds. It’s questionable how useful the endorsement and loyalty of the very players who need to be shown the door really would have been, but it’s been Moyes’ biggest downfall.

The question then, has to be raised: Is it possible that Moyes was destined to fail? At no point did he look like a leader, but he was far more of a disaster than he really ought to have been. His tactical cock-ups and post-match excuses were so repetitive that you got the impression of a man operating in the dark, unable to understand the short-term and long-term consequences of his own mistakes. Caught in the shadows of both Ferguson and the alternative present Mourinho might have offered, Moyes never seemed capable of escaping the crime of not being those two men.

In that sense, he was merely unfortunate – a pawn blustered to and fro in a game being played by bigger men than himself. Not only did he have to contend with entering a world where simply Being David Moyes was a capital offence, but also with the boardroom incompetence in the transfer market that hindered any ability to overhaul his squad. Then there were the question marks raised over his own past, his former club demonstrably improving without his presence there. When Everton took three points against United at the weekend, Roberto Martinez had bettered in one attempt what Moyes' had done in the previous 11.

At this point, "the wrong man for the job" is a severe understatement. What is much less clear, then and now, is what the ideal man looks or would’ve looked like. United needed a revolution. Even if Mourinho had worked miracles, it's likely he would only have had them performing at the same level Ferguson had – and they were already well on the wane with him. Yes, they needed a boot up the arse, someone to come in and tell England’s most successful team they were not good enough. But they also needed someone who had the backing of a competent board, as well as experience in following Glaswegian demi-gods. They needed, in other words, a manager who does not exist.

Moyes has achieved almost the exact opposite of everything he wanted. He was supposed to build on the legacy of his predecessor, but undid years of his work in months. He was supposed to nurture emergent stars like Danny Welbeck, yet made mortal enemies of them. He was supposed to graduate veterans into the new noble custodians of the club, yet rumours flew around that Ryan Giggs hated his guts. He was supposed to bring new ideas, but looked left behind by progress. He was supposed to be a legacy-builder, and has ended up as a pub quiz answer. He has ended up an accidental Clough, a man destroyed by his own relative strength of ego.

@Callum_TH

Previously – Why Is Daniel Sturridge the Only Hipster Footballer?