Anger no substitute for missing fear factor
That’s Moyesy all right, in an Observer interview, talking about his first day in an Everton changing room. By the time he did the interview, in April 2003, the players were listening and Moyes had turned relegation battlers into European hopefuls.
At around the same time in his Old Trafford career, Moyes has also turned Manchester United into European hopefuls, but there is no sense that his players are convinced what he is doing is okay. Judging by the expressions of bafflement that follow every fresh setback, Moyes may not quite have convinced himself yet either.
Can United wait a while longer? There was a good deal of anger about this week, in stands and television studios.
On one television station, Roy Keane roared at Michael Carrick for not saying enough; on another, John Giles — crosser than we’ve seen him in years — called Robin van Persie a prat for saying too much.
And the United faithful, on the way home from Greece, surrounded Roy and wanted to know what could be done. But really, they probably just wanted to bask in a little anger. To huddle a moment in the heat.
They must crave anger now, the faithful. Experts warn about kicking two addictions at the same time. Giving up the success has hit them hard; but giving up the anger as well might prove too much.
They have feasted on the anger for so long; on the red-faced belligerence, on the finger-jabbed accusations, on the promises of vengeance. They have grown up on rollickings and histrionics and blood-letting, had boots kicked and teacups smashed.
Richie Sadlier — as he took on Gilesy with an assertiveness that felt almost indecent, but could be the blueprint for a Montrose revival — insisted Moyesy should have sacrificed somebody by now; should have bared his teeth and made an example.
But all Moyesy has given them is bafflement, and mainly fear. It’s as if he has absorbed it all; the fear that once gripped opponents, officials, journalists when they turned up at Old Trafford. The fear that once gripped United’s players, to more profitable effect.
Now the faithful must face their own worst fears, of turning into Liverpool. Of the segue from boom to gloom. Yet, when they demand anger; when they want action; what they are asking for is Souness. When Souness arrived at Anfield, to find the fear evaporated, he couldn’t keep a lid on the anger.
In his book, The Management Years, he accepts that rage was not the solution when dealing with men who had accepted new circumstances.
“Our reputation was such that some teams took heart from an honourable defeat... but times had changed… the change saddened and angered me.
“Eventually I fell out with most of the guys who were at Anfield when I returned… My reaction to any dissidents was to get them out of the door as soon as possible. That was the wrong approach. What I should have done was keep them for another year and buy myself some time to bring in replacements.”
All Souness bought himself was grief and havoc and the seeds of ruin. Whether it’s that natural deficit of self-assurance that betrayed him the first time he stood in front of Duncan Ferguson and company; or because he is buying himself time; Moyes has not taken the Souness approach at United.
Despite everything, he is still a man in no rush, as if he still knows this isn’t the team on which he will be judged. With things as bad now as they could reasonably get, there may not even be much left to fear.
In throwing the war chest at Rooney, he has made one telling move; bucking the pecking order with van Persie that Ferguson had put in place. The centrepiece of Moyes’s team will be a kid who sat in front of him a decade earlier and thought, for a while at least, that he was doing okay.
Later, in that Observer interview, Moyes talks about a French conditioning coach he uses but doesn’t really like. “The thing is, the players think he’s good. Therefore he is good.”
Moyes might get one more crack at completing that circle when his own team takes shape this summer.
Sky Sports devoted this week’s Footballers Football Show to England’s World Cup preparation, with Club England supremo Adrian Bevington on hand to assure us that everything is under control with the build-up; and that England will be bringing their own bedding to Brazil, to make sure the quilts are right.
It was impossible not to be reminded of RTÉ’s magnificent 2002 production Shay & Ray’s World Cup Guide To Japan, screened a month or so before civil war erupted in the Pacific.
To be fair to Shay Healy and Ray Treacy, they didn’t take in Saipan, so must remain blameless in that regard, but their enthusiasm for the facilities Ireland would enjoy in Japan brought on a false sense of security that prevented many of us from ever truly trusting again.
Have a look at it again on YouTube, if you can face it. The palatial rooms: “Two beds… it’s got almost everything… television… a lounge area… a view of the bay, which is nice.”
The salubrious office space: “This will be the headquarters of the FAI. They’ll have all the facilities — phone lines, etc.”
And yet, and yet… Of course Sky Sports took the facilities for granted and moved quickly onto England’s chief worry: the penalties. “We’re all ears,” said Roy Hodgson, with the air of a man who would be thankful if they got as far as a match where penalties were a possibility. Roy did have one big idea of his own; practising without goalkeepers. We know what the other Roy made of that idea 12 years ago.
But with the quilts right, Roy also come up with moment of genius to bed in his own comfort zone. “Our goal, if we have one, is to make sure we go as far as our football will take us.” Even Keano would have struggled to pin him down on that one.
Here’s the Shay & Ray’s World Cup Guide To Japan in three parts
STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN
Johnny Murtagh: With ROG gone, Drico on the way, Shefflin on his last legs; here’s another vacancy in Dunphy’s litany of saints. Does Eamo have a new cast of heroes left in him?
Laurent Koscielny: Took time out from the title squeeze to save France’s oldest accordion factory with a €600k donation. For he’s a jolly good bellows.
Lisa Carrick: Tweeted the first sign of fight from the United ranks in quite a while.
Jose Mourinho: Journalists overheard and printed things about Mourinho’s players that make the job he is doing look better. How unfortunate. He really should be more careful.
