First off, great post LCAB.
The question isn't "has Moyes taken us as far as he can?" the question is "has Moyes taken us as far as
anyone can?"
In the modern era there is exactly one example of a team with [Poor language removed]-all cash getting fourth (in case anyone forgets how much Spurs
spent) and that is an Moyes-led Everton.
It is entirely possible, as disgusting a notion as this is, that there is no manager out there who could take a team which gets to spend 3.3M net per year (which is approx. Moyes net spend p/a thus far) into the Champions League.
There used to be four teams capable of spending big (on both transfers and wages -- don't ignore wages, the huge wage budget is a big part of Arsenal's success) -- there are now six.
Just because we don't like it doesn't mean it isn't true. Is it impossible to find another manager who can pull off that miracle? Maybe not impossible but it's a huge long shot.
Moyes frustrates me too at times but make no mistake that he has worked some miracles here. I know you (and others) would say ...
First off, that's bollocks, lots of people live on past glories in jobs (and it's very frustrating for the rest of us having to deal with these people but nonetheless it happens all over the corporate world).
However, more relevant to your point, and the point most "Moyes out" people miss, is that when you make a decision (assuming you care about making it logically) the only relevant question is how much better or worse the current person is than the replacement would be (given the exact same resources). If the current person has accomplished more than anyone else with similar resources (which Moyes has) then you have to think very carefully about that decision. There are many real-world examples of companies (and football teams for that matter) who experience some kind of problem (unrelated to the person in charge just a bad break) and then have a bad year or two, fire the person in charge, then get a replacement who turns out to do twice as bad as the person they had. It turned out that the original person in charge was actually doing an amazing job with limited resources, and almost anyone else, given the same bad breaks, would have done far worse. I haven't heard one coherent, logic based argument about why someone else would be better than Moyes.
Would I be intrigued to see what would happen if we could get
Joachim Löw away from Germany? Of course -- in fact Löw is more my kind of style of manager. But I'd also be intrigued to see what would happen if I spent the night in bed with two supermodels -- it doesn't mean I'm going to fly to Paris to try to make that happen (because the odds are rather heavily against it working out and then I'd have a huge travel bill and an angry wife to contend with when I got back).
Read up on some risk/reward guys -- the numbers don't add up right now.
There is also loyalty -- we expect players (and managers) to be loyal to us, even when we have a bad year; but sitting eight points off Europe with a game in hand (again, if you care at all about logic, the points don't matter, only relative position -- for example would you not celebrate as much if we won the league with the lowest ever points total to win the league?) we fans can't show any loyalty to our manager? Pienaar should stay and play non-CL football for less money here (out of loyalty) but Moyes has to go because we're 8 points off Europe with a game in hand?
I'm not saying we could
never want a manager out but Moyes is not just "a" manager. He's our manager and (to echo LCAB) he's earned a lot more than he's getting from (some) of us.
