LONDON — David Moyes will be sacked by Manchester United in the coming weeks and could even go before the end of the season.
United’s owners the Glazer family have finally lost patience with Moyes after a dismal season that has seen the reigning English Premier Soccer League champions slump to seventh in the table.
The final straw was Sunday’s 2-0 defeat at Everton, their 11th in the Premier League this season, and a result that left the title holders down 13 points off the Champions League places.
The Glazers and United chief executive Ed Woodward were determined to show patience with Moyes, but have recognised inescapable signs recently that performances were getting worse and that players had stopped trying for their manager.
It is understood that the plan now is to sack Moyes at the end of the season, but the situation could now come to a head in the coming days. If the former Everton boss is sacked before the season’s end, club legend Ryan Giggs will be asked to take over team affairs.
In terms of appointing a long-term successor, Dortmund coach Jurgen Klopp, Holland’s Louis van Gaal and Real Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti are in the frame. Despite the expensive signings of Marouane Fellaini last summer and Juan Mata in January, United have failed to keep pace with their rivals and mount any kind of title challenge.
Moyes, who moved from Everton last summer to replace Sir Alex Ferguson, has also overseen failure in the cup competitions.
United were eliminated by Swansea City in the third round of the FA Cup, by Sunderland in the semi-finals of the Capital One Cup and by Bayern Munich in the quarter-finals of the Champions League.
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Taking all competitions into account, United have won 27 of 51 matches during the Moyes tenure, drawing nine and losing 15.
Pressure mounted further on the embattled manager following a lacklustre showing at Goodison Park, in which United transfer target Leighton Baines and Kevin Mirallas scored the goals.
Moyes bizarrely claimed that his team had played well after they lost 2-0 at Everton despite one of the most lame performances of his reign.
Many United fans saw the performance as a tipping point and the increasing number who were calling for him to go have got their wish.
Afterwards, Moyes — who was taunted by a man dressed as the Grim Reaper in the crowd — claimed he was happy with the display.
He said: “We played well in the first half, but conceded two on the counter-attack. We didn’t deserve to be 2-0 down. We had good control of the game and possession of the ball. We didn’t defend well for the goals, though. That was right rotten.”
Moyes’s verdict raised eyebrows in the Sky Sports studio.
“That’s the worst I’ve seen from them over 90 minutes,” said pundit and Sportsmail columnist Jamie Carragher.
“Nobody seems to know what’s going on, on the pitch or in the dugout. You can’t see what the plan is. When I played it was total dominance from Manchester United. I’m looking at this team and wondering why they didn’t play like that when I was playing.”
Moyes was even criticised on the club’s in-house TV channel when pundit David May said he was “out of his depth” before being hushed up by the presenter. —Dailymail
