Logically I know that this is correct, but I still can’t reconcile that idea with the actual implementation of the players bought. And I don’t mean that to absolve Moyes of culpability, because at the end of the day he’s the one training the players, improving the players and selecting the players for games.
I felt last summer there was still a club to manager disconnect, and even if Moyes was the deciding vote there was clearly still pressure on him to go a certain way (young, unproven, high resale). Evidently last summer we had a foot in each camp only for the manager to totally disregard one of the camps once the games started. If that happens again then the manager will need to be changed.
It would be a disappointment for the season to fade away, for sure. A wasted opportunity, and one from which we would have little to show. The improvement in Garner and addition of KDH would be about it, though easily countered by our best and most important young player being crippled by injury to an alarming degree.
But given where we’ve come from and what the last five years have been, I can forgive one of these seasons. I appreciate not everyone will feel the same, but I personally feel Moyes gets one middling, non-threatening gap-fill of a season. I don’t think a 12th place finish, which is absolute worst case scenario from here, is a hanging offence.
Which is why this summer is so critical. My mind will be made up within a few months of next season, as at that point we’ll be able to see what the plan truly is under Moyes. Are we trying to create something sustainable which could grow to become great, or is it a year-by-year proposition with a lower ceiling and marginally higher floor? He’ll need to adapt for it to be the former.
