This time four years ago, David Moyes was one of the Premier League’s most respected managers.
Moyes was in his 11th year as Everton boss, and about to guide the Toffees to a very respectable sixth-place finish. He was also about to become Manchester United manager, as Sir Alex Ferguson’s successor, and we all know how that went.
Moyes proved to be completely out of his depth at Old Trafford.
The club only managed to sign Marouane Fellaini in Moyes’ first transfer window, played dour football and went from champions to seventh place. Moyes’ reign ended with a defeat against his former team Everton.
It wasn’t pretty.
That experience at United, and his dismissal from Real Sociedad after a year, appears to have scarred Moyes.
He was never one of life’s optimists, but Moyes has seemed particularly miserable since returning to the Premier League as Sunderland manager.
The club are in free fall, so no-one would expect him to be arriving to work with a smile every day. However, there hasn’t been a shred of optimism from the 53-year-old this season.
Ahead of Sunderland’s must-win game against Manchester United, which they lost, Moyes said:
“You need good players around you to really show your managerial abilities. Sunderland’s a really hard job.”
Sunderland may be a poor team, rock bottom, 10 points from safety with nine games remaining, but they never stood a chance of staying in the Premier League with a defeatist attitude like that.
It appears Moyes’ negativity has spread to the person who runs Sunderland’s Twitter account.
When Zlatan Ibrahimovic opened the scoring in the 3-0 win at the Stadium of Light, the club’s official account tweeted:
“It was only a matter of time for the visitors as they’ve dominated the first half at the Stadium of Light.”
The tweet was quickly deleted, and you can see why. Although it was correct, as United had dominated, it’s rare to see an official club account so down on their own side.
It was as though Moyes himself tweeted it, and it appears everyone at Sunderland has given-up the fight.
Especially their manager, who didn’t even react when Sebastian Larsson was sent-off.
https://twitter.com/weijian29/status/851065753092579329
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