WELL – is David Moyes the bravest or most foolhardy manager in football history?

Only time will tell which side the standing-up coin will land upon as new eras are ushered in at not just one club in the Premier League, but two.

Never mind contrasting the respective managers – Sir Alex Ferguson garnering the monopoly of available silverware in the glittering form of no fewer than 49 trophies, while his successor has just the old Division Two title with Preston to his name – compare the relative extremes of the clubs.

The Blues are a well-run outfit who have competed with the best on a shoestring. The Red Devils have dominated as a dynasty, England’s domestic best if more frequently foundering in Europe, and no longer a plain simple football club.

As one Man-yoo fan said in the immediate wake of Moyes’ appointment, it is like asking the bloke who has been running a corner shop to now head Coca-Cola.

That’s what the Old Trafford operation is – a brand, indeed a global brand on the scale of the aforementioned American soft drinks giant, or food empire Heinz, or car manufacturer Jaguar.

Man-yoo are a marque, whose commercial growth coincided with the trophy-amassing reign of the man from Govan.

It’s the on-field legacy of Fergie that fellow Scot Moyes has to try to emulate, a hard enough challenge in anyone’s language. But accompanying that is the club’s untrammelled, remorseless pursuit of economic pulling-power.

Runaway champions of the Premier League, Old Trafford can be re-read as Gold Trappings. As a footballing franchise it is second to none across the globe, even if it often translates as a club whose mesmeric soul of Busby, Best, even Cantona, is diluted by every new pound-grounding, dollar-dripping, deal.

Now few, if any, will heap such a burden on Moyes’ shoulders. He will be tasked with a smooth transition of power on the pitch, but he is at the head of a juggernaut, a pantechnicon of power.

Maintaining that supremacy remains the key to domination as a team, especially given the Croesus riches of the middle eastern potentate of noisy neighbours Man City and the oligarch of Chelsea.

To stay ahead of the field Man-yoo will have to keep on milking the cash cow, whose bounty seems boundless, at the moment. But such is the volatile nature of the game at its most financially aggressive that within hours of Ferguson’s dramatic decision to quit, points – or rather value – were wiped off Man-yoo’s share price.

With Moyes having spent the last decade and more as manager of a club whose resources he so tediously and frequently reminded everyone were anorexic compared to the fat cats at Anfield, the Stamford Bridge and the Etihad, I did not think he was a shoo-in for Old Trafford.

I honestly believed the sudden turn events of this week hinted more towards a Senor Mourinho snail-trailing into Manchester. He certainly would not be fazed by stepping into the shoes of the British game’s most trophy-laden boss.

The drawback though to that scenario was having Ferguson still in situ at the Theatre of Reams of money. Mourinho may obscenely fawn over Suralex but together at the same club? Nah.

However, unlike the last time the club’s biggest boss retired, Sir Matt Busby in 1969, Moyes may well find Ferguson’s influence as director and ambassador a blessing.

Back when Busby edged upstairs his presence was like Banquo’s ghost at the feast. Busby’s successors such as ex-York City manager Wilf McGuinness and Frank O’Farrell could not escape the Busby shadow.

Second time around, I believe Moyes will be aided, not hampered by Ferguson’s new reign as director.

After all, it was Fergie who self-anointed the newly-appointed Moyes.

But whether the dark side at the other end of the East Lancs Road continues its mastery remains in the hands of Mammon as much as Moyes.


AS hinted on some forums in the news of Fergie’s exit, there is probably a Scouser with a lamp who has had two wishes granted.

“That woman” recently dead and the Man-yoo managerial mandarin now out of office.

But what of the third wish? It could be Mark Hughes succeeding Moyes as the new Everton boss.

Keep rubbing you fool…