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Rob Fox

David Moyes and the art of football management
17 August 2004

David Moyes: The Quintessential Football Manager?

For once, I'll get straight to the point.  Our manager has come in for plenty of criticism lately, from a few Everton fans on Internet messageboards and several of his players.  Cards on the table, I have a lot of time for David Moyes and believe he has the potential to be an outstanding manager.  Obviously it is impossible to ignore the brickbats being hurled at him at the moment and with rumours and counter rumours springing up seemingly daily; it seemed a good time to reflect on Moyes's reign, trying to shed some light on what has gone wrong and consider whether he is still the man for the job.  I make no apologies for the length of this analysis as I want to be thorough and not skim over any major issues.

Part 1 — Jack of all trades              Part Two           Part Three

Before considering Moyes's credentials in detail, it would seem prudent to actually consider what the job of a football manager in the Premiership actually entails and to pinpoint the necessary skills and qualities desirable to be a successful manager.  This is not meant to patronise but to focus on exactly what a manager's job entails.

Aspects of the job

1. Coaching ability
Football coaching has developed into a much more scientific process; in its purest form it is concerned with developing the ability of each player to his maximum potential.  This is all well and good, but these individuals need to be moulded into an effective unit on the pitch so they also have to be in peak physical condition as well as have a clear idea as to what their role in the team is.  For most managers, this is a case of appointing staff to implement the actual coaching within a general framework laid down by the manager, freeing their time to handle other aspects of the job.
KEY SKILLS: Knowledge, organisation, thoroughness, motivation, appropriateness and delegation.

2. Tactical awareness
This obviously is a key part of team training which is also carried over into planning for matches, team selection and substitutions.  Some managers take a narrow approach of choosing a formation and system that they like and understand and coaching the players to play within the system, replacing those who aren't up to the job.  This leads to players clearly understanding their role but can be inflexible when problems are encountered.  Other managers are willing to use different formations to suit the players they have and to deal with different match situations.  This is obviously more complex and requires great skill to coach players to be flexible or great players who can adapt easily.
KEY SKILLS : Knowledge, organisation, thoroughness, communication, decisiveness, flexibility.

3. Man management
In football terms, this obviously involves working closely with the players and motivating them to work as a team, improve their skills, carry out your instructions within a team and give 100% effort on the pitch. Another aspect, perhaps more important, is installing and applying a framework of rules and regulations for the squad to adhere to on and off the pitch.  Some do this through fear, some through trust others with a combination of the two.
KEY SKILLS: Organisation, determination, consistency, negotiation, communication, fairness, delegation, understanding of psychology, patience.

4. Team selection and substitutions
This is what everything boils down to, putting your formations, tactics and motivational skills into practice.  Everything you have been working on distilled into 90 minutes.  Once the players are on the pitch your influence becomes very limited, with only a short period at half-time to regroup and make tactical changes and motivate people.  The only other real impact is through carefully timed substitutions, unless your only fit left back gets crippled after 5 minutes, thus severely reducing your options.
KEY SKILLS: Decisiveness, understanding of tactics and formations, courage, flexibility, quick thinking.

5. Initiating transfers
This basically consists of assessing your squad, assessing your transfer budget, prioritising key areas for improvement, identifying targets, investigating their backgrounds and suitability and then making inquiries until you can draw up a shortlist of available targets and their likely fees.  Then it's a case of revisiting you list of priorities, and deciding which targets to try to sign first.  Then it's over to the board, meanwhile keep looking for new targets, decide how long you are willing to wait for a deal to be set up before switching targets or even revising your shortlist.  Hopefully, before long you will be given the green light to actually talk to a player

At the same time you will be talking to other managers who want your players, telling some they are free to talk to other clubs, hoping they then leave rather than skulk around mumbling behind your back for the remainder of their contract, deciding whether to tell players you will sell them once you have a replacement or say nothing until their replacement is leaving them for dead on the first pre-season training run, risking a major showdown in front of the rest of the squad and the possibility of them refusing to leave or failing to find a club who wants them.  They can then of course join the other outcasts mumbling behind your back and plotting insurrection with the more impressionable members of the squad.
KEY SKILLS: Knowledge of players, setting up a good scouting network, decisiveness, patience.

6. Negotiating transfers
The manager's involvement in this process is minimal but crucial.  Once the Board have agreed a fee with the selling team you will then meet the player, show him the club, outline your plans and his role in the team.  The player's responses should then decide whether or not you inform the Board to tie up the deal, negotiate his agent's fee, signing on fee and contract whilst the player's agent negotiates the player's loyalty fee from his previous club (OK, so he called his manager an idiot and said the club were rubbish, but he didn't actually ask for a transfer).  Many managers have a chat with their chairman to decide the length and terms of contract required then leave the negotiations to the financial people, others like to be more hands on and make sure the money involved is divided up fairly between clubs, agents and players, plus the manager's share as well.  If this all goes smoothly you have a new player.  Now who will you spend the other £500,000 on?
KEY SKILLS: Communication, psychology, judgement, decisiveness.

7. Dealing with the media
Some manager's view this as a necessary evil and use it as a political opportunity to praise players when appropriate, praise the fans, praise the board, thank the national manager for putting his teenage protégé into the starting line up every game when you wanted to ease him in gradually, and be ever so charming and cordial so they write nice things about you and the club, boosting your reputation along the way.  Some enjoy the limelight and tell lots of funny jokes, some send their assistant managers when they have lost, others rant and rave, and still others calmly tell the truth.
KEY SKILLS: Communication, intelligence.

8. Appeasing the fans
This can be done the modern way by using the media to your advantage, or the old fashioned way by playing entertaining football and winning matches.
KEY SKILLS : Straight choice; chicanery or ability.

9. Appeasing the Board of Directors
It is crucial early on to assess the requirements of the Board of Directors.  All boards are ambitious.  Some are ambitious for their club to win trophies.  These boards will give you all the funding they possible can, the only way to appease them is by actually winning trophies.  Other boards are ambitious to inflate their own bank accounts.  These can be appeased by making a profit either by building a successful team and attracting money from supporters and investors, or by running a tight ship and surviving by selling players or other means to make a profit.  At least you have a choice of approach with this type of board, but as they are unlikely to give you much funding, you will need to be able to make silk purses out of sows ears.

The final type are ambitious to inflate their own egos.  They will certainly give you plenty of funding but don't worry particularly about having to be successful.  All you have to do is bring in star names, generally over the age of 30, on massive wages and play entertaining football at times.  Winning is optional, in fact it may even be detrimental as if the team is doing well the Board (or 'owner' in actual fact) will have less need to attract more publicity by buying another over-rated foreign star to underline your ambition.
I wonder which type of Board Everton have.  What do you mean I haven't included a category labelled "incompetent?"  Don't be so cynical...
KEY SKILLS : Judgement (of the type of board that employs you), then chicanery or ability as appropriate.

David Moyes : Messiah.  Discuss!

I promised to get to the point and I haven't mentioned David Moyes since the second paragraph. So, finally getting to the point, what of David Moyes?  Ultimately, managers are judged on results.  Some people believe David Moyes has 10 games to get it right or he will be sacked.  In many respects this is a ridiculous way to judge a manager.  A good start to the new season will not prove he is a good manager and the right man for Everton any more than a poor start will prove the opposite.

When Bill Kenwright appointed Moyes, he said that Moyes had all the qualities to make Everton great again.  It was also pointed out by both Kenwright and Moyes that the job was massive, would take time and that a young manager would inevitably make some mistakes along the way.  I would suggest that a fair way to judge Moyes, and indeed any manager, is by tracking his methods and approaches and judging whether he has displayed the necessary qualities to do the job. If there are many glaring weaknesses then a reappraisal may be necessary.  If there a few weaknesses these should be assessed in terms of their overall importance and whether they can be overcome if they are likely to seriously damage the manager's ability to do his job effectively.  In recent times this has become the crux of the issue regarding David Moyes.

So where to begin?  Well the beginning would be a good place to start.

Inheritance

When David Moyes assumed the reigns from Walter Smith, he inherited a club with an old stadium, training ground, and no up to date youth training facilities, and one also with financial problems.  He also inherited the following first team squad, with their age and an estimated transfer value at that time.

Goalkeepers
Paul Gerrard 29 (£750,000)
Steve Simonsen 22 (£1,000,000)

Defenders
Steve Watson 27 (£1,500,000)
Gary Naysmith 23 (£1,500,000)
Alessandro Pistone 26 (£2,000,000)
Alan Stubbs 30 (£750,000)
David Weir 31 (£1,500,000)
Tony Hibbert 21 (£1,500,000)
Alec Cleland 31 (£0)
David Unsworth 28 (£1,750,000)
Peter Clarke 20 (£500,000)

Midfielders
Thomas Gravesen 26 (£4,000,000)
Tobias Linderoth 23 (£2,500,000)
Lee Carsley 28 (£1,750,000)
Leon Osman 20 (£500,000)
Paul Gascoigne 34 (£0)
David Ginola 35 (£0)
Jesper Blomqvist 28 (£0)
Idan Tal 26 (£750,000)
Kevin McLeod 21 (£500,000)
Mark Pembridge 31 (£1,000,000)
Niclas Alexandersson 31 (£1,500,000)
Scot Gemmill 32 (£750,000)
Alex Nyarko 28 (£2,500,000)

Forwards
Duncan Ferguson 30 (£750,000)
Kevin Campbell 32 (£1,000,000)
Thomas Radzinski 28 (£3,000,000)
Nick Chadwick 19 (£750,000)
Wayne Rooney 16 (£5,000,000)
Joe Max Moore 31 (£500,000)

There were also a course a number of young players, but I have only included the ones who have gone on to make the grade.  Additionally, the troubled Paul Gascoigne quickly followed his mentor Walter Smith out of Goodison Park.

Of course, Moyes also inherited some of the most passionate, informed and demanding supporters in the game...

First moves

Well, Moyes's very first move as Everton manager was the famous "People's Club" statement.  He can claim it was off the cuff all he likes, in fact it was a very clear statement of intent.  He knew that immediately Evertonians would sit up and take notice.  At last here was someone talking our language.  From the off, Moyes was clear and vocal about his aims and ambitions.  He saw Everton as a big club and was determined to restore it to a position where it could compete at the top level.  With the supporters at least he had raised hopes and set the bar for himself.  Moyes was aiming for the stars and he will have been fully aware of the new hopes his words will have given the supporters.

If you were an outsider you would probably look at the squad and wonder why it was struggling so much.  On paper, there is plenty of quality in this squad, should be comfortable mid-table at least.  At this point, it would be easy to simply contrast Moyes approach to that of his predecessor, but in truth this would give us a very easy target and a narrow approach.

Let's just say Moyes was able to make some simple changes that would have an immediate impact.

So, a new manager comes in with 9 games to go, the team seemingly in disarray.  I would think it's fair to say at this stage most players would be quite happy just to focus on the task in hand (survival) and leave the rest until later.  All they were looking for was some direction.  I think it's fair to say Moyes approach was spot on at this time.  First of all he was hands on, training was organised and team selection was simplified.  He opted for a traditional 4-4-2 with players playing in their correct positions and we played a more open attacking game.

The impact of this change on players shouldn't be overlooked.  Under Smith's usual 5-3-2 the plan was to keep it tight and hope for something at the right end.  This system provides a safety net in many areas of the pitch in that players have a more flexible role.  If the wing back is caught forward, it's excusable and there is cover.  Similarly, three centre halves and three central midfielders allows a certain amount of leeway, as supposedly you are all covering each other.  This was exemplified when we lost to Middlesbrough in Smith's final game.  Truthfully it was hard to single out who was responsible for the goals.  As a supporter it was impossible to say which central midfielders were responsible for tracking the opposition midfielders, which centre half was supposed to marking who at a given time.  I suspect the players often weren't much clearer than us. 

The overall impact was that players could get away with looking imploringly at each other when things went wrong.  This is great if you are a shirker, not so pleasing if you are a competitor.  Moreover, it led to Everton being ultra-cautious, possibly as a result of this safety net (why stick your neck and be the midfielder who gets forward?), or as a result of the manager's natural caution, or a combination of the two.  Many people say 3-5-2 or 5-3-2 does not work.  I believe it can be an excellent system with the right players: good wing backs and flexible players who are tactically aware.  Yobo, for example would fit into this system, Kilbane could be a decent left wingback, but for this system to work you need all of the components.

With the team reverting to 4-4-2, the immediate effect of players having a set job to do, whether it's a man marking or operating within a zonal system, is that it is easier to see who is to blame when things go wrong.  On a positive note, this clarifies for a player what their exact role is and makes it harder for them to shirk, or at least shows it clearly when they are.  If an opposing central midfielder makes a run unchallenged, it is clear who has failed to track back.  If a centre-forward wins a free header, we know who should have been marking him.  If the centre-half is out of position because he had to come across to cover for an errant full-back, again it is clear who is at fault. 

Players are given more responsibility; with a new manager, nobody wants to be the one who is found wanting.  More or less everybody responded positively.  Also, reverting to attacking football would have been almost universally welcomed.   Forwards would actually get some varied and more regular service, midfielders would get the opportunity to play a bit, and the defenders might have the option to strain their necks watching some action enfold at the other end of the pitch for once.

So it was pretty gung-ho but it was effective and not only did we survive but we got some enjoyable football, a few goals and some pride and hope back. The one performance and result that stood out in those last nine games was the 6-2 defeat at Newcastle.  This game for me highlights exactly what David Moyes is about as a manager.  On that day, as in other games, we matched fire with fire.  We went there and we gave it a go; for an hour we matched them and were hopeful of pulling off a famous victory.  Until, of course, the last 30 minutes when their young legs gave us the runaround and stuck 4 goals past us.  Moyes's response was unequivocal and should be remembered now.  He was adamant that we were on the right track, that youth and fitness had prevailed, and that his first goal would be to emulate Newcastle.  In other words, to bring in young, talented, hungry players and build a dynamic, attacking team.

In my outline of management skills, I pinpointed two approaches to tactical awareness.  The evidence so far is that Moyes is a coach who believes in having a basic system, coaching the players to fit it and replacing those that aren't up to the job.  In truth this is what the vast majority of successful managers do.  Alex Ferguson and Arséne Wenger are shining examples in this country.  Jose Mourhino certainly had a system at Porto.  Compare the approach of Houillier who abandoned his principles and lost his job, and Claudio Ranieri who's tinkering similarly cost him his job. 

The key is to have the mental strength to stick to your principles and be patient and astute enough to find and acquire the right players to do the jobs you require.  Many people criticise Moyes's tactical ability, although interestingly rarely in much detail.  My view is that Moyes has a sound set of footballing principles and is still in the process of finding and acquiring the right players to fit his system.

Rob Fox

Part 2 — Season 2002-03

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