Giggs on Moyes failure: He panicked & bought Fellaini

Matt Stead

Ryan Giggs has explained why David Moyes struggled to such a great degree as Manchester United manager.

Giggs served as player/coach under Moyes when the Scot replaced the retiring Sir Alex Ferguson in summer 2013.

The former Everton manager struggled at Old Trafford however, and was sacked by April, with the club eventually finishing seventh.

Giggs, who would retire from playing in summer 2014, used his first Daily Telegraph column to explain just why the current Sunderland manager failed.

‘I don’t believe that the decline, post-Sir Alex was inevitable,’ he wrote. ‘We won the Premier League by 11 points.

‘There were so many winners in that team, so many great characters. Yes, the likes of myself, Rio, Nemanja Vidic, even Patrice Evra were coming to the end of our careers – although Patrice is still playing. But with the right recruitment we would have been gently phased out and replaced by young, hungry players with United’s winning mentality.

‘Instead, the recruitment in that first summer under David Moyes didn’t go to plan.

‘I don’t blame David. He came in without any of the inside knowledge about how the squad worked: when certain players needed resting, who was right for which game, who needed to be moved on and who needed to be encouraged.

‘Those of us who had lived through it could help him a bit, but a manager has to acquire that knowledge over time.

‘Signing Marouane Fellaini so close to the deadline that August, the club’s only major deal in a summer when we needed two or three big names, suggested that things were not running smoothly. United had signed players late in the window before – Dimitar Berbatov in 2008 springs to mind – but this time was different. This time it was more of a panic.

‘Sir Alex might not necessarily have had a first-choice XI but he knew exactly what side was needed for each game, and would have that planned weeks ahead. David did not have that information. He started with a blank sheet of paper and for most of the first season we were chasing our best XI, or the right team for the game in question.

‘The best run of form was the six straight wins in December 2013 when we had a reasonably settled side, and then injuries kicked in and things went wrong.

‘The training sessions under David were excellent. All the players enjoyed them and there was no downturn in the competitiveness that had always been a feature under Sir Alex. Perhaps something else was lost with his departure that was bigger – something that was harder to quantify but there nonetheless.’