David Moyes says Sir Alex Ferguson and Sir Bobby Robson share some great characteristics which have taught him a lot about management.
Moyes will enter the 2022/23 season as the oldest and most experienced manager in the Premier League following Roy Hodgson’s retirement. The 59-year-old has taken charge of 904 matches across his career and is beginning to build something at West Ham which resembles his efforts at Everton, where he spent 11 years in charge.
The Scot made his name as a manager on Merseyside, but he started out at Preston when he was just 35 years old, in 1998. By the time he made it to the Premier League with Everton four years later he was locking horns with some hugely successful and much older managers, like Ferguson and Robson.
Moyes started his Premier League journey with wins over Fulham and Derby before his Everton side were thrashed 6-2 by Robson’s Newcastle. He says he was given a cheeky “welcome to the Premier League” message by the legendary boss, but took it with a pinch of salt due to his previous interaction with Robson.
“I’ve still got a letter from Sir Bobby at home,” Moyes told the Daily Mail . “I wrote to him when I was starting out in coaching with Preston because I wanted to go to Barcelona to watch one of his training sessions.
“I didn’t get a reply and didn’t think I’d get one. Then three months later, I got a letter from Sir Bobby, ‘I’m really sorry, your letter was at the bottom of the pile’. Then he added, ‘But I think I’m about to lose my job to Louis van Gaal’. I didn’t get to go to Barcelona, but I still remember that handwritten letter. It taught me a lot about being a manager.”
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Moyes says the anecdote reminded him of Ferguson, with whom he had a close personal relationship, despite their professional rivalry as leaders of Manchester United and Everton. “It was the same with Sir Alex,” he added. “Sir Alex was great at phoning managers when things weren’t good and wanting to help. He was competitive but also someone who thought about others.”
Moyes’ relationship with Ferguson eventually saw him hand-picked as his successor at United upon his retirement in May 2013. Despite signing a six-year contract, he lasted just 10 months in the job as the pressure told of following Ferguson, who had been in charge for 26 successful years.
The disappointment knocked Moyes back in his career, with stints at Real Sociedad and Sunderland both failing to work out before he arrived at West Ham. Moyes joined the Hammers in November 2017 but was initially let go in May 2018, at the end of the season. He was re-hired in December 2019 and has been in east London ever since, leading West Ham to sixth and seventh-place finishes in the past two campaigns.
