History is repeating itself at Manchester United: for the travails of David Moyes read Wilf McGuinness under Matt Busby

It is a job that, notoriously, made one man’s hair fall out after he had failed to meet the challenge of succeeding a legend whose two and a half decades in charge had left an indelible imprint. No one really blamed Wilf McGuinness, even the senior players he left out, although they were quick to voice their complaints to Matt Busby while teeing off with the former manager on a Manchester golf course that became known to some as “the court of appeal”.

When McGuinness took the Old Trafford job in the summer of 1969, appointed ahead of Don Revie, the bookmakers’ favourite, he was told that his salary would be £80 a week – more than doubling his pay for running the youth team – and he would be called United’s chief coach. If it all worked out, in due course the title would be upgraded. But the position was far from straightforward. “Matt still had all the power,” McGuinness would remember. “He said he was standing down, but he hadn’t surrendered control.”

Before the start of his first season in charge McGuinness wanted to sign Colin Todd, Malcolm McDonald and Mick Mills, but was denied by Busby, who had taken a seat on the board. Needing emergency cover at centre-half, he took his predecessor’s advice and signed Ian Ure from Arsenal, which did not turn out well. When he tried to rebuild by dropping heroes of the Busby era, they were reinstated. His own mistakes – the failed attempts to integrate players such as the 21-year-old forward Carlo Sartori and the defenders Steve James and Paul Edwards, 19 and 21 respectively, with whom he had worked in the youth teams – were not forgotten.

His initial season got off to a bad start but George Best came to his rescue with 13 goals in 14 games before Christmas, hauling them up to eighth position, which was where they finished the season. That was three places better than they had managed under Busby a year earlier, but the seeds of dissatisfaction had taken root. Although the titular upgrade was duly granted, and McGuinness was allowed to clear out some of the veterans, after another poor start and a dreadful run up to Christmas he was gone, forced to watch from the sidelines as Busby returned to mind the shop. The bitterness of his humiliation took years to subside.

In terms of what is at stake for the manager of Manchester United, nothing has changed. David Moyes has a better contract than McGuinness: six years against three. But the weight of expectation is much the same, increased on the morning after the League Cup defeat by the news of a drop to fourth in Deloitte’s table of revenues among Europe’s top clubs, overtaken by Bayern Munich and out of the top three for the first time since 1996-97.

Sir Alex Ferguson, now watching from the directors’ box, left the new man with even higher standards to maintain, starting with a defence of the Premier League title. No one thought Busby wanted McGuinness to fail, and no one suspects that of Ferguson. Both those great managers hand-picked their successors. But sentiment would not be allowed to stand for long in the way of action were a decline to become a crisis, as it was deemed to have done by the Christmas of 1970.

So in comes Juan Mata, riding to the rescue, with Moyes hoping that a £40m capture will induce the sort of psychological lift that a similar outlay on the talent of Mesut Özil achieved for Arsène Wenger six months ago. One man can certainly transform a team, but that man is usually a manager, not a neat, industrious little playmaker. Özil’s arrival at Arsenal coincided with other significant factors, such as the maturing of Aaron Ramsey and the return of Mathieu Flamini. It is too much to expect Mata alone to recalibrate United’s play, restore their morale and halt the downward spiral of their season. That is Moyes’s task.

The new manager kept his dignity as he praised Sunderland after Wednesday’s trauma. But when asked to comment on the manner of his team’s defeat in front of their own supporters, he criticised their performance, giving the headline writers their opportunity. At this stage of what was always going to be a testing season, Moyes needs to erect a screen around the dressing room so dense that not a chink of light escapes. Better to grit his teeth and insist that white is black – for months on end, if necessary – rather than give outsiders any purchase on his own real opinions of the squad’s weaknesses. He has to take all the flak himself, while refusing to use injuries as an excuse, until he has learnt how to press the right buttons.

In 1969 the United board decided against offering the job to Revie. Almost half a century later their successors turned their faces against José Mourinho. The men who hired McGuinness, a virtual unknown to the general public, and Moyes, with no significant European experience, were backing hunches. Ignoring irrefutable evidence, they managed to persuade hard-headed owners – the Manchester wholesale meat trader Louis Edwards in 1969, the Florida investor Malcolm Glazer and his sons in 2013 – to endorse a course of action that would have been dismissed as wildly imprudent in the world of business.

In his biography of Busby, A Strange Kind of Glory, Eamon Dunphy – a former United apprentice – writes: “The senior players didn’t ‘stop playing for Wilf’, as stories had it; these were great pros. [But] the inspiration Busby had provided could not be manufactured. Alas, it was that thing that had made them great players. Intangible, indefinable, potent beyond imagining. Busby.” Like the man who took the present collection of players to last season’s title. Intangible, indefinable, potent beyond imagining. Ferguson.

The sheer presence of Busby and Ferguson, with its complex mixture of adoration and fear, counted for more than tactical work on the training pitch or shrewdness in the transfer market. “I never felt the same respect for Wilf,” Best said, “although I liked him.” Moyes’ record with Everton and his years of directing Premier League players gives him a better chance of recreating the magic than poor McGuinness had. But if the present slump continues, how long will it before opposing fans are gleefully chanting “Five more years”? Wenger has described this as a “short moment” in United’s history, and it may yet have a happy outcome, but Moyes is likely to be growing older before our eyes for a while yet.

• David Moyes
• Manchester United
• George Best

Richard Williams

theguardian.com