David Moyes Is on the Edge

David Moyes is supposed to feel at home in San Sebastián. After spending more than a decade expertly coaching up limited Everton sides, Moyes flamed out at Manchester United. That job was supposed to be the opportunity for Moyes to prove he could not only put a medium-sized club into European competition, but take a large one all the way to the top. It really, truly did not work out that way, and in the wake of that failure, Moyes sensibly accepted a gig for which he was better suited, taking over as manager at Real Sociedad in November of last year.

La Real are something like a Basque Everton: they're talented, if not overwhelmingly so; they have money, but you wouldn't call them rich. Jagoba Arrasate was fired three months into the season not because his squad was woefully underpowered, but because they played like they were. Curiously, Real Sociedad's most notable wins before Moyes showed up were against two of the three best teams in Spain: Real Madrid and Atlético, the latter of which La Real dominated on the eve of Moyes's arrival. It appeared the Scotsman was being given something to build upon.

On second glance, though, perhaps not. David Moyes's Real Sociedad are not much better than Arrasate's. They're currently sitting 12th in La Liga, just five points clear of the relegation zone. What has been most discouraging about the team's performances under Moyes are the sudden moments of drift, a peculiar team-wide tendency to lapse into laziness and indiscipline. They've been thumped here and there, but more than anything, they have dropped points due to disorganization.

This past weekend, it happened to them again. Leading Celta Vigo in the 85th minute of what was looking like a dour-if-acceptable 1-0 victory, Real Sociedad's midfield didn't rush to help their back line as Celta played a space-creating long ball up the pitch. With La Real's defenders momentarily exposed, Nolito found a bit of room in the box and—whap!—there went the lead.

This is not the sort of error Moyes's teams typically make. He has been criticized for tactical rigidity—Moyes prizes order over invention, always—but at Everton, his squads possessed impeccable focus. They didn't beat themselves; their intensity didn't drop off in the 70th or even the 88th minute. Moyes was able to convince his players that if they outworked the rest of the league, they wouldn't necessarily win it, but they would be satisfied with where they were at by the end of the season. He was right more often than not.

But Moyes isn't the transformative force in San Sebastián that he was in Liverpool. He's trying to shape La Real in his image, but he's meeting resistance. He only started learning the language a few months ago, and the club wasn't able to bring in any of the talent he wanted during the January transfer window. His best player, Carlos Vela, is going to miss at least the next two months with a knee injury. None of this helps, but it also doesn't fully explain why La Real don't resemble a David Moyes team, at least beyond their boringness in attack. Maybe this squad won't take to old-fashioned grit.

Fortunately for Moyes, he has time. He won't be frantically drummed out of Real Sociedad like he was at United. But his reputation has been damaged in some meaningful way by his experience in Manchester. José Mourinho could get fired by Roman Abramovich and find lucrative employment tomorrow. The same is probably true of Moyes's successor at Everton, Roberto Martínez. Moyes took La Real up on their offer because it was an enticing one, but also because a gig at a mid-size Spanish club was about as good as he was likely to do. This past summer, he wasn't in high demand.

This would be strange if you considered only Moyes's credentials, but not if you take into account the prevailing strangeness of soccer's managerial market. It's a fickle thing, like a coach's grasp on his team. It only takes one bad six-month stretch for a skipper to lose his job, and whether he gets a new one depends upon something considerably less scrutable than science. The community of chairmans who keep André Villas-Boas in Hogwarts chic suits and hair product have also banished Michael Laudrup to Qatar. The universe is full of mysteries.

For whatever reason, Moyes' lot is more Laudrup than AVB. It would seem that he has the skills to walk into most of the good-not-great clubs in Europe and get something close to the best out of them, but the folks with the power to hire him aren't so sure, and there is probably growing concern amongst the skeptics as he continues to search for his footing at Real Sociedad. Thus, Moyes is both where he needs to be and teetering on the edge of the professional abyss. He has a track record that suggests he'll make it work with La Real, but if he doesn't, he might not get another chance.