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Beleaguered managers losing their jobs should come as no surprise, but comparing the relative tolerance thresholds of different sets of fans is an interesting exercise. I’d have assumed the global glare of attention on the Premier League would mean there’s more pressure on managers, yet what’s happened at Wrexham recently seems to give that the lie. Andy Morrell job became untenable while a rather more high profile club suffered a tougher time without it looking like time was running out on their boss. The longer the season lingered, the more clear the comparison between David Moyes and Morrell became.
Moyes is obviously under pressure, but the mutterings about him losing his job have been fairly muted despite their massive under-performance on so many fronts. The consensus seems to be that his situation is secure, but with the codicil that nobody is too sure exactly how his American bosses will react when faced with mediocrity for the first time.
The buzz around Morrell’s job security always seemed angrier, but the comparison between the two men’s situation makes that looks rather illogical. The question hovering over Moyes is whether he has the skills for the particular job he has landed. Does he have it in him to step up to the task of managing a big club with European ambitions and an expectation of regular trophy wins, or is he actually a coach capable of getting a mid-table team to over-perform but no more?
Morrell didn’t have to answer that question: his first two seasons in the job showed that he clearly does have the ability to string wins together, to mount a serious title challenge, to win trophies and meet the expectations of a club which frankly doesn’t have much of a history of league success. Much as I’d like to argue otherwise,we ain’t Manchester United!
Furthermore, Morrell ticked another box which is currently blank on Moyes’ balance sheet. The Scot has struggled to build on the success of his predecessor, inheriting a side which won the title by eleven points and turning them into a mid-table side. Morrell inherited a side which had finished in the play-offs from Dean Saunders and pushed them on to a runners-up spot, earning the most points in a season in Wrexham’s history to boot. He then followed that up with the FA Trophy and a run to the play-off final despite losing the core of that side. I’d argue he’d earned the chance to turn things around in a way which Moyes simply hasn’t.
That loss of the spine of the team from two seasons ago is crucial. The question of exactly how competitive our budget has been this season is one I’ll be addressing in a post tomorrow. In a nutshell, I’d argue that while the current budget might be reasonably competitive, it’s still been necessarily reduced year on year since he took over. No such excuses for Moyes!
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not advocating Moyes ought to be sacked, although my anti-United gene is kicking in to demand as much mayhem at The Field of Mediocrity as possible! But I don’t see why people can rationalise his right to see the job through and yet the same courtesy is not extended to someone who has given Wrexham fans plenty to cheer over the last couple of seasons.
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