Fergie says “Support your manager”!!

Four games in charge – 1 win, 1 draw and 2 losses! Sir Alex Ferguson’s famous reply would be “oh my”! But wait, these are friendlies. Do the results matter?

 

Yes it is pre-season. And yes David Moyes is new to Manchester United and Manchester United is new to David Moyes. But that will not be an excuse, not to David Moyes or to the fans. It is all about adjusting to each other’s style. It is about how the players will play under David Moyes system. It is about the manager’s needs to access every member of his squads in terms of skills, attitude, strength and weaknesses. Fitness, match fitness is also top of the consideration during pre-season. Finally there is the commercial obligation for top premier league teams to travel and play half way around the world.

 

While other closest premier league rivals in Arsenal and Chelsea are scoring “thumping” wins in their pre season Asia’s tour, the other two main contenders in the form of the two clubs from the city of Manchester are scraping for convincing wins. There are also the two clubs with change of managers. Chelsea’s Jose Mourinho does not count as he has a previously successful stint at Chelsea. And since then he has had stints – successful ones – at Italy and Spain, and comes back experienced and wiser. In addition to that he still has a small group of core players that worked well with him in the past (in the form of Cech, Terry, Lampard, Essien, Cole). Therefore Chelsea, like Arsenal has what we called familiarity as compare to the two Manchester clubs.

 

As Sir Alex Ferguson stated in his farewell speech at his final home game against Swansea at Old Trafford “support your new manager”. His words not only highlight his belief or endorsement of David Moyes but also the need for David (or any other managers) to be given enough time to run their own show. Fergie is old school, he believes in manager getting full backing in terms of times and resources before success can be achieve, after all he is the living proof himself of this belief. Fergie has also lamented on how manager’s stint in the modern games has been far too short for any success to be measured. He has successful proof that football clubs need to have stability in terms of the way they are run, in order to achieve on and off field success. Manchester United fans know this well, as we are one of the best managed clubs in the world. This despite the massive protest with Glaziers’ takeover. Truthfully, aside from the debt issue, the club has been successful since the takeover. The club’s book is showing profitability, the commercial arms of the club is doing extremely well judging by the incoming deals (which will translate to revenues) and most important of all for the fans – the trophies are in (we did “knock Liverpool off their perch” during Glazier’s time). And it is all down to one fact – the manager has not change and has been allowed to manage his way (with full backing) after the takeover. Therefore David Moyes should have the full backing despite the early unfavorable pre-season results. It is early days.