As we all know, football can be a cruel and and unforgiving sport.
When Sir Alex Ferguson won the 2012/13 Premier League title, he must he felt within himself that he had gotten the very best from the players at his disposal before making his shocking announcement about his imminent retirement. He addressed everyone connected with the club to “get behind the new man” and when the time came, Everton’s stalwart, David Moyes, was announced as the manager to take the club forward.
While Moyes was still getting a hang of things at his new club, Sunderland parted ways, rather acrimoniously, with the volatile and charismatic Paolo di Canio, making him the first managerial dismissal of the season. After working hard to bring Crystal Palace up through the lottery of the Championship playoff final, Ian Holloway and the Eagles parted ways via mutual consent. December turned out to be a hot month for firing managers as Martin Jol, Steve Clarke, AVB and Malky Mackay received the axe.
When Michael Laudrup surprisingly lost his job in February, Fulham were at it again as Rene Meulensteen was sacked after just 13 games with his new team. Norwich finally terminated Chris Hughton’s employment after a run of fruitless results and many bookies believed that it was going to be the final sacking of the season, till the summer at least.
Little did we know that the hierarchy of Manchester United had something up their sleeves and inevitably, David Moyes, lost his job after 10 months in charge. The Red Devils are set to have their lowest points tally in Premier League history as well as not qualifying for the Champions League in some 18 years or so, and as expected, the naming ceremony has begun for his potential replacement.
News of Moyes sack was strangely followed with Manchester United fans celebrating wildly in various social networking platforms, even to the extent where a fan baked a cake in honor of his manager losing his job.
Former Red Devil, Gary Neville, has openly criticized the sacking of David Moyes and while I’m certainly no Man U fan, I feel that he should have been given more time to turn things around at the club. It’s true that his players struggled for form but axing him with three games to go wasn’t worth the trouble. At least, he’s walking away with £10 million.
As for his replacements, Dortmund’s Jurgen Klopp has a £5m to £10m buy-out clause while Pep Guardiola’s release fee is close to £16m allegedly but reduces as the end of his contract approaches. Media favorite, Louis Van Gaal’s clause is allegedly £2m unless he is sacked after the World Cup. Wasting £10m in relieving the services of Moyes is no where as detrimental as the impact of not featuring in EUrope’s elite football competition next season, as it’s clearly obvious that Manchester United fans would brace themselves up for some Thursday night football.
Bringing it home to “more familiar surroundings”, Arsene Wenger’s 18-year stint with the club seems to be reaching its climax and no one knows the decision the manager is going to take this summer and while we fans are hoping for the best, we are also preparing for the worst.
Arsene Wenger could win the FA Cup and bow out like Sir Alex Ferguson, then probably recommend someone that he feels would be in the best position to the take the club forward. Many fans are also hoping for him to sign the new deal and spend this summer so that he can reap the fruits of his labor.
Many have bemoaned the lack of trophies, failure to sign quality players, rigid tactics and his stubbornness could be good enough reasons for the club to decide not to retain his services but the board still has the final say, and we all know that the Arsenal hierarchy remain supportive of the manager.
The loss of David Moyes is rather unfortunate, but that’s football.
These sort of stuff are part and parcel of the game.
Sayonara.
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