With David Moyes' sacking from Manchester United now officially confirmed, his reign will be looked back upon as ten of the darkest months in the history of the Premier League's most successful team. Unable to finish any higher than sixth and therefore certain to miss out on Champions League qualification for the first time since 1995, United have looked discordant and mentally frail ever since the Scotsman took over. While results under Moyes have too often been stuck somewhere on the spectrum between disappointing and dismal, there are certainly arguments to be made that shifting the blame entirely onto his shoulders would be to ignore bigger problems at the club both present and at the time of his appointment. Succeeding Sir Alex Ferguson, the most successful manager in the history of British football, was always going to be a challenge of near-insurmountable magnitude and a catalogue of mistakes leading up to Moyes' first game in charge may have made his job even more difficult than it needed to be. Read on for the five reasons why David Moyes deserves some sympathy for his struggles at United.
5. Ed Woodward Replacing David Gill
Moyes may bear responsibility for replacing key members of the Utd managerial team following his appointment, breaking up an established and respected backroom staff, but one departure he couldn't control was that of CEO David Gill, who had been at the club since 1997 and presided over its transfers dealings following the departure of Peter Kenyon to Chelsea in 2003. His was a deep understanding of the transfer market and the manner in which the club liked to do business, giving Sir Alex the assurance of a knowledgable hand behind the scenes in making sure any requested players would be ready and waiting in the dressing room by the end of the next transfer window. Like Ferguson, Gill predated the controversial arrival of the Glazer family and understood what it meant to be a part of a footballing institution as long-standing and important as Manchester United. Moyes could have used someone like him to help shape the squad during the early days of his reign without wasting valuable time on protracted negotiations. Unfortunately, Gill's replacement, Ed Woodward, had little experience of the transfer market, having been appointed by the Glazers as an advisor during their takeover and later to negotiate sponsorship deals. The nuances of the transfer market seemed lost to him as the club missed out on target after target, ultimately only succeeding in bringing in Marouane Fellaini for a drastically overinflated price on the final day of the summer transfer window, with constant delays meaning they missed out on a release clause £4m below the price United ended up paying. Had Gill been around to ensure business was conducted as quickly and efficiently as during the Sir Alex era, Moyes would have enjoyed a relatively stable pre-season instead of constantly needing to fend off questions about why his squad hadn't been augmented. Fellaini's protracted transfer may have also had a destabilising effect on his early form, leading to his clear lack of confidence in later games and denying Moyes the midfield general he remembered from his Everton days.