The Moyesiah; or Just an out of his depth Bhoy?

The impending arrival of Juan Mata to Manchester United will afford a considerable boon to a club that is seemingly plumbing fresh depths each week.  The Spaniard’s presence will not only add considerable wit and invention to a team bereft of those qualities.  It will further sharpen the focus on David Moyes’ suitability as Sir Alex Ferguson’s successor to the Old Trafford stewardship.

As much as the result when, on Wednesday, United lost their Capital One Cup semi-final tie against Sunderland, the pallid nature of the side’s display will have been further grist to the mill for any home supporters concerned about the Scot’s tenure thus far.  Even the patient majority will surely have been perturbed to see a Manchester United team happy to operate on the counter attack, with it’s primary aim being progression to the final by virtue of away goals scored, against a rival that sits 19^th in the Premier League.

It was a pragmatic approach to the task in front of him that will be familiar to Moyes watchers.  On this occasion, despite being armed with reduced resources, it was a flawed tactic.  United, in their forward areas, fielded Danny Welbeck, Javier Hernandez, Adnan Januazaj and Shinji Kagawa; a quartet with the capacity to apply sustained pressure on reputedly inferior opponents.  The creative, predatory individuals in the Old Trafford side were never given the platform to engineer a positive effect.  That has largely been the tale of Moyes’ first six months at the helm.

Plenty has been written and said about the squad bequeathed the 50 year-old Glaswegian.  The playing unit he has inherited falls someway short of Ferguson’s finest; the hard-nosed double winning 1994 unit, 1999’s thrilling treble winners and the teams that scrapped, battled and powered their way to successive Premier League titles and a Champions League triumph between 2007 and 2009.

Nevertheless, Moyes has taken charge of the Premier League champions.  It is a situation far removed from that when he took the reins of a club and team at Everton that had been thoroughly deflated by the decidedly uninspiring management of Walter Smith.

Moyes’ immediate remit then was to revive an ailing side and punch-drunk fanbase.  He achieved that by concentrating on making his new team difficult to beat, and through an upbeat nature that was in stark contrast to his predecessor’s unrelentingly dour demeanour.

Arriving on the back of Ferguson’s remarkable 26 year era, prioritising defensive solidity and players’ work-rate will simply not wash.  With those qualities, so dear to him, not evident in his current team’s performances Moyes will be hurting to his core.

He has not settled on a preferred centre-half partnership, and has been unable to instil any convincing sense of cohesion into his defensive unit.  Admittedly not helped by injuries to, and the ageing legs of, some of his premier defenders, the manager hasn’t been able to rely on consistency of selection in his back-line.

The deficiencies exposed in this United side, however, have been at the most basic level.  Frequently undone when defending set-pieces, and routinely allowing opponents to run freely into space in the final third; these are short-comings that will embarrass a man who prided himself on the organisation of his Everton teams.

Despite a pressing need for reinforcements in that part of the field, Moyes’ acquisition of Mata could be a game changer.  There can be no negative aspect to having a player of the 25 year old’s undoubted exquisite talent on the books.

It was widely acknowledged when Arsenal, last summer, recruited the services of Mesut Ozil that the Gunners were purchasing a player to operate in a role for which they were already well stocked.  There were far more pressing matters, with respect to playing personnel, to be addressed.  Arsene Wenger recognised, though, the value of adding to his array of attacking firepower a genuinely world class artisan.

The German has yet to scale the heights commensurate with his gifts, but already the £42.5m paid for his signature appears money well spent.  Ozil’s mere standing as an Arsenal player lifted everybody at the club, raised the belief and confidence of the men already in situ, and shifted outside perception of a team for so long dismissed as too flaky to chase the game’s main prizes.

Bringing in Ozil was as close as is possible to a gamble free decision for Wenger.  The same is true of Moyes’ capture of Mata.  At Everton, the former Celtic defender’s prosperity in his transfer dealings was rather hit and miss.  Working under greater financial restrictions at Goodison Park, however, Moyes was never able to trade in a fashion as devoid of risk as is the case in this move.

Mata’s ability is not in question.  The responsibility, therefore, for ensuring his ingenuity is utilised to stir United into life falls squarely on the manager’s shoulders.  If Chelsea’s player-of-the-year for the past two seasons does not function so auspiciously in United red, focus will centre on the club’s boss even more so than today.

Moyes will always be revered at Everton for changing the face of a club in decline.  Notwithstanding the progress achieved during his eleven year stay on Merseyside, the club’s supporters point to some less favourable traits that developed in that time.

Their team’s tendency to retreat into its shell on the big stage is already being replicated in the opening phase of Moyes’ Old Trafford career.  Limply losing a cup semi-final to Sunderland can be added to beatings at the hands of Liverpool, Manchester City, Everton, Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea thus far.

Furthermore, with the exception of Marouane Fellaini, Moyes’ big money purchases at Goodison either didn’t pay-off, or lost their way after initial success.   James Beattie and the hapless Russian winger Diniyar Bilyaletdinov fall into the former category, Andy Johnson and Yakubu Aiyegbeni the latter.

Nevertheless, Moyes’ eye for a player does broadly bear up to scrutiny.  Errant calls such as those to hire Per Kroldrup, Simon Davies and Magaye Gueye, as well as some curious temporary acquisitions, are far outweighed by his identification of Tim Cahill, Joleon Lescott, Phil Jagielka, Leighton Baines, Steven Pienaar, Seamus Coleman, and Kevin Mirallas as players to fit his bill.

Cahill proved the catalyst to Everton’s fourth placed finish in 2005.  That Champions League qualifying campaign followed a miserable season in which the Toffees finished 17^th in the Premier League, and the club’s home reared hero Wayne Rooney was sold to United.  As that miserable 2003/2004 term came to a close there was much speculation about a players’ mutiny against Moyes.  With their league safety secured the team folded horribly, losing their final four matches in insipid style.

If there is any fact in reports that some of his current players are similarly poorly disposed to their manager, it is a circumstance that Moyes has form for overcoming.  By taking the plunge and paying £37m for a player, whose presence will at once enhance training ground morale and hike expectations around the club, he has taken a vital step towards establishing a degree of command over his charges.

With Robin van Persie and Wayne Rooney nearing a return to action, Moyes now possesses the attacking artillery to blow away the league’s lesser sides.  Over time at Goodison he developed a team capable of the same feat.  Regardless of that, by the later stages of his regime at their club, Evertonians, although appreciative of the marked improvement under Moyes, had long grown weary of their manager’s inherent inferiority complex when tackling what he perceived to be superior adversaries.

There is a huge job ahead of Moyes.  If he is to fulfil it successfully some old habits will have to be cast aside.  Old Trafford’s inhabitants, especially those reared on Ferguson’s quarter century rule, will not suffer through their team protecting a lead against Sunderland for too long – especially now that they can count Juan Mata as one of their own.  The ability, or otherwise, of the club’s new record signing to initiate a Manchester United revival will go a long way to deciding if Moyes is ever classed in the same terms.

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