Rio Ferdinand claims he’s heard some ‘little white lies’ about David Moyes’ spell as Manchester United boss.
David Moyes was handed the near-impossible task of replacing Sir Alex Ferguson back in 2013.
The Scotsman took over from the legendary boss off the back of an excellent spell at Goodison Park and was even recommended by Ferguson himself.
Of course, the appointment didn’t quite go according to plan as Moyes was sacked after only 10 months in the dugout at Old Trafford.
The United job has proven to be a difficult task for all of Moyes’ predecessors, with only Jose Mourinho managing to scoop more than one major honour.
After Moyes’ dismissal, there was plenty of speculation doing the rounds at the time and one story involving the Scotsman showing United’s defenders, including Rio Ferdinand, a video of former Everton man Phil Jagielka as an example of how to defend.
Ferdinand says Moyes rumour is simply untrue
Speaking on The Overlap, Ferdinand discussed Moyes’ time at United and offered some reasons as to why he lost support in the dressing room, while he also debunked the Jagielka story.
“I think there is a few old wives tales, little white lies,” the United legend said. “Like he showed me and Nemanja Vidic a video of Phil Jagielka and whoever else. That didn’t happen.
“Do you know what it was? Two moments happened, maybe three. I got on the coach after a tour, I think it was Asia or something, and they were tiring. I remember getting on the plane and the manager was pulled out on the chair and looked dishevelled. Big club this isn’t it? That’s what he said to me. I thought oh. I said this before but a kit launch at Everton is on the pitch, a kit launch at United is like a worldwide tour. Very different. So he quickly grasped that at the end of this tour, I thought I actually thought you might have known that before.
“We played against Liverpool and Chelsea and I remember in the training sessions we were setting up to stop Hazard and Coutinho. He put a box in the middle of the pitch or in the area they play in, and the players were looking at each other like we don’t set up to stop individuals, we have never done that at United. Even Messi, we didn’t really have a massive plan for him. It was that mindset of you worry about us, not us worry about you.
“Those two games made me think we were setting up with a defeatist mentality rather than a title-winning team last season. It was a very big shift and that was a thing where one of the things where the players were not against him, but it gave the players a question mark about him in their head.”
How many trophies has Moyes won since leaving United?
It’s fair to say that Moyes suffered temporarily after his reputation was somewhat damaged following a miserable spell at United.
The Scotsman endured another tough spell at Real Sociedad just months after leaving United.
He also lasted just a season at Sunderland as he resigned following relegation from the Premier League back in May 2017.
But after a short first stint at West Ham, he returned to east London in December 2019 and has done a quite brilliant job.
Moyes guided the Hammers to their first major trophy since 1980 last year as he scooped the Europa Conference League title.
The post 'That didn't happen': Rio Ferdinand says he's heard something about David Moyes at Man United which isn't true appeared first on TBR Football.