Ryan Giggs pinpoints why David Moyes failed at Manchester United

January 27, 2020
Posted by Steven Tan | Source from Manchester Evening News
The Man Utd legend took over from Moyes on an interim basis during a disastrous season following Sir Alex Ferguson's retirement.
 
Ryan Giggs believes the expectation of taking over the Premier League champions and Manchester United's ageing squad were the two main factors that contributed to David Moyes' downfall at Old Trafford.
 
The United great was a 13-time league winner under Sir Alex Ferguson before taking on a player-coach role when Moyes replaced the legendary Scot in 2013.
 
The former Everton boss, of course, did not last the season before he was sacked and Giggs took over on an interim basis.
 
And Giggs had plenty of sympathy with Moyes' plight.
 
"There were two ways of looking at the job that David had inherited," he told The Coaches' Voice. "Usually, a new manager takes charge of a team that is struggling or has had a bad run of games. Instead, he was taking over at the champions.
 
"But it was also a team with some key players coming towards the end of their careers at the club. Rio Ferdinand, Patrice Evra, Nemanja Vidic, myself – we were all approaching the end in one way or another, and that would obviously have been difficult for any manager coming in. Plus, every coach wants to put their own stamp on a team."
 
Giggs then reflected on his own four-game stint in charge of United, which he believes has set him up for his managerial career. He's now in charge of his country Wales and has achieved qualification for Euro 2020.
 
"By the end of that season, I had four games to do just that for myself," he added.
 
"I had good people around me – Phil Neville was already a coach at United, Nicky Butt was in the academy, Paul Scholes came in too – although the difficult part was that I was still a player. That meant I was picking or not picking some of my mates – teammates with whom I had shared a dressing room for a long time. Also, I knew it was my last year as a player and I had wanted to enjoy it as much as I could – which, in the end, I probably never managed to do.
 
"But I got the chance to manage Manchester United– and nothing prepares you for the actual experience of being in that hot-seat. The feeling of being in that office after training, picking your team for the next game, players knocking on your door. It was an unbelievable experience.
 
"I put myself under a lot of pressure to win those four games – and it was in that time that I came to know I had the mentality to become a manager."
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