Manchester United

[Leyton388]

[Buzzo]

As soon as Eddie Murphy and Dan Ackroyd get there

Don't be duped into buying frozen concentrated orange-juice shares.

[Bender]

Don't be duped into buying frozen concentrated orange-juice shares.

David Moyes just bought the entire stock

[elrichio86]

are sky or anyone running any polls that we can vote moyes in on

The Guardian are: Linky

51% want him to still be there next season, as of now.

[PTP]

stay..refresh...stay....refresh

[fah-q]

Time for the internet terrorists to do their work

[S-RED]

has to be an opposition fan - bbc websire

Ben Seymour: Personally I'd like to think an establishment like Manchester United are above the "hiring and firing" approach favoured by so many clubs these days- Moyes is a very shrewd manager, and must be given time to work the team in the way he wants, with the players to suit his style.

[Shaggy]

Time for the internet terrorists to do their work

Looks like they've already done it

[fah-q]

A mass showing of support for Moyes, convince the board he is still popular and urge them not become another Chelsea "new manager every season" type club.

[Pablo]

In what other profession is hiring and firing deemed abnormal or wrong? In any other job in the world people lose their jobs for poor performance. Why is it wrong that managers lose their job if they under perform? Admittedly it happens far too often in football, but the idea that you just keep someone on who consistently under performs in their job is lunacy.

But obviously I hope that's exactly what they do

[Buzzo]

has to be an opposition fan - bbc websire

Ben Seymour: Personally I'd like to think an establishment like Manchester United are above the "hiring and firing" approach favoured by so many clubs these days- Moyes is a very shrewd manager, and must be given time to work the team in the way he wants, with the players to suit his style.

'Moyes is a very Shrewd manager' He definitely can't support them - surely no sane Man U fan can still be wanting to give him time.

Who cares if you have a hiring firing approach. 'Get rid of **** managers keep good ones' is a far superior model to follow.

[Maxiedge]

Loving this. Schadenfreude

[Pablo]

Why don't they have probationary periods in football management?

I'd love to see Moyes publicly humiliated by having his probationary period extended

[fah-q]

Or put under performance review.

[john316]

Matt Dickinson from The Times:

At Manchester United it felt like something snapped on Tuesday night, and that something may be impossible to fix.

David Moyes could cope with bad results, a trophyless first season, even terrace jeers but no manager can survive when his players start giving up on him.

When Moyes surveyed a beaten, bedraggled dressing room in Athens on Tuesday night, how many of his squad did he trust were squarely behind him, believing in him and his methods, certain that he will endure? Too few.

How many raised their eyes from the floor, looked at their manager and saw a decent man overwhelmed? Too many.

Wayne Rooney still fights for Moyes, as well he should given the time and effort the manager has devoted to keeping him happy, but even that single, scant consolation against Olympiacos only highlighted the impotence of the other ten.

We can read too much into single games. We commonly misinterpret lack of confidence for players not caring.

This wonderfully unpredictable sport has a habit of making fools of analysts and we rush too quickly to judgement like the last time United were in a situation which felt this dire in December 2005. Knocked out of the Champions League group stage, with Roy Keane railing against his team-mates and the supporters revolting, even within the club they wondered if Sir Alex Ferguson was finished.

How premature those obituaries proved but when Ferguson told his players it would all be fine, there was a decade of unprecedented success to back him up as well as a young, primed Cristiano Ronaldo.

There is a limit to how many times Moyes can tell his players to hang in there through the latest setback. There is a limit to how long he can believe in it himself.

Long-term planning, a six-year contract, has been overtaken by a scrap for survival, the need to prove that he can tough out the next few weeks.

United have enough good players to win any match. Perhaps a goal will fly in, the crowd will roar, Moyes will punch the air and a sense of order will return. But any reprieve just now will feel awfully fragile and temporary.

After Saturday’s trip to West Bromwich Albion, United have four games in ten days – against Liverpool, the return tie versus Olympiacos, a trip to West Ham United and then Manchester City at home – which have the capacity to push Moyes over the brink.

That is how finely balanced it feels when we consider how dark the mood will turn at Old Trafford should Liverpool or City pile on fresh misery.

On Tuesday afternoon, the issue for the United hierarchy was how much to spend on the summer rebuild; £150 million, £200 million? So wretched was this latest defeat that it changed the question to whether Moyes can be allowed to lead that reconstruction.

This squad desperately needs better players in defence, midfield and attack but, more importantly and far more urgently for Moyes’ sake, it needs some conviction from those it already possesses. That is not a matter of splashing the cash but trust in his leadership.

If Moyes cannot shake these players from their fatalism and self-pity then the brutal truth is that he will not be given the chance to work with new ones.

We know the busted, broken Rio Ferdinand will move on, along with the creaking stalwart Nemanja Vidic, but Moyes cannot change everyone. He still has to work with the jittery Chris Smalling, fearful Tom Cleverley and limp Ashley Young. He has to make them believe in themselves, and him.

He has to somehow make Robin van Persie remember he is a world class striker and a senior pro, not a sulker casting around blame.

If improvement is not immediate, and the signs were desperate in Athens, a board which has been absolutely unequivocal in its backing for Moyes will have to consider other options, even interim ones like Ryan Giggs.

It is a desperate situation for the Scotsman who deserves far better than to go down in history as the man who screwed up his one big job, the 21st century Frank O’Farrell.

So many of the problems are not of his making, but they are his to fix and there was no reassurance to be found in Athens as United’s failing players slunk away, certain that the focus will be on their manager and not them.

When players start speculating in their own minds whether the manager will be fired, it is not the beginning of the end. Often it is the end.

Perhaps this crisis can be turned around but the fans don’t see it. Most alarmingly for Moyes, it seems that many of his players are struggling to see it, too.