Today's football.

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Liverpool game today was both the best and the worst result possible; spurs deserve to be level but arsenal showing resilience which keeps them in the title race.
 
Royal Blue Jersey said:
Contrary to most on here, it seems, I believe he can turn it round. But eventually external forces will win and he will be kicked out if he doesn't start giving them a little pride at the very least. I think today's probably as low as any Man U fan has felt in years. [Poor language removed] 'em. Welcome to life as a proper football fan. Don't worry, you're only passing through...
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I think at any other elite club he'd have been punted already.

Ferguson has made a monumental error that can only be fixed by the Glazers simply calling time on Moyes before this gets out of hand.

Im now in two minds what will happen: previously I thought he'd defo get until the first international break of next season to show he has what it takes; now I'm thinking the smart money will be on Moyes parting ways in the summer.
 
Royal Blue Jersey said:
What the [Poor language removed] was that capitulation? Both tactics and transfers were undoubtedly inept - Fellaini was a horrible buy and the midfield was completely blunted - but this, for me, goes far beyond simply laying the team's ills at Moyes door. What we have seen is the almost omnipotent quality Ferguson had at United: I think, being as young as I am and seeing almost uninterrupted dominance year-on-year, combined with that cavernous stadium, worldwide fame and stupendous turnover, I just thought of Man U as de facto league leaders. I thought this was because the system was rigged through self-propelling, money-spinning success, spineless favourable referees and a cooing, sycophantic media devotion to the Man United cause. I think I let Beckham, or what he symbolises, represent United in my eyes; that being how intensive commercialisation eventually led to the football becoming truly secondary to Man United the business venture. I mean, you even had the Glazers arriving to confirm everything I thought by actually listing the club on the stock exchange.

So, though I heard an endless stream of journalists falling over one another to proclaim his incomparable greatness, and you had Murdoch's lackeys in the Sky studio - if ever two meteoric rises were more made for each other - perfecting their hammy brown-nosing into an art over the years, I was always wary of such headline praise. It never felt genuine to me, and it probably wasn't - but what it caused me to underestimate was the value of the man himself. I suspected the media, referees and fellow pundits who he had variously brow-beaten, molly-coddled, threatened and intimidated (or some combination of them) to bend to his will. And so it proved. It's been open season from unfavourable headlines and rumours of dressing room disorder, not to mention some iffy decisions. Essentially, they became ordinary. They were now just like any other team, fair game. And taken off that Ferguson-era pedestal of feted, arrogant glory looks to have been so jarring for damn near all of them.

Now the headlines don't herald their industrious late season title charge, winning mentality or fortress home ground. It's all about their true mediocrity and just how extensively the whole team needed reworking, complete with speculation over who will leave first - the manager or the big-name players - and whether they can realistically manage 4th. And this is a team who haven't finished outside the top 3 in 23 years. It's been an entire generation's worth of football, most of which was dominantly successful. 27 years is far longer than the average marriage nowadays and I'd bet they meant more to each other than any husband and wife; in other words, you can't stop the insidious extensions of one man's influence when he is in sole charge for so long. No wonder they have so many rules throughout the world on heads of state and their term limits. It's impossible to prevent something that is by its very nature a volatile position - that of a football manager, given the sacking rates and so on - from becoming dangerously institutionalised after 27 years. Maybe, probably likely, this was known to all parties but Ferguson couldn't help himself - and with success still beckoning, no-one was encouragng him to do otherwise - from just having 'one more year' and they traded off making the inevitable transition more and more difficult through those extra years of top level challenge.

Essentially, Moyes has been thrown under the bus. I don't think they could possibly have anticipated this degree of failure, which is reaching embarrassing proportions, but they did help to set him up for it which is okay if they are as patient and understanding as they no doubt assured him they'd be when taking the job. But there's only so much they can endure, either before the crowd get on their backs or they themsleves lose all hope in Moyes' skills as a manager.

Contrary to most on here, it seems, I believe he can turn it round. But eventually external forces will win and he will be kicked out if he doesn't start giving them a little pride at the very least. I think today's probably as low as any Man U fan has felt in years. [Poor language removed] 'em. Welcome to life as a proper football fan. Don't worry, you're only passing through...
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Well if you look his best quality as a manager is bringing in players <10M (only Wenger has a better track record with cheap players) and Utd doesn't really operate that way. Plus Utd never played the style Moyes likes to play. He could have done well at Chelsea IMO, who always played a style that Moyes likes and who attracts players no matter who the manager is (Fellani always looked like a Chelsea player). Utd needed Murinho who would have gotten VanPersie and Rooney to play for him even in a rebuilding year.

With the exception of Jose I don't know of any manager who could have gotten that team into the top 4, maybe Wenger.
 
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