History repeating itself

From Liverpool's "Boot Room" to this season's failure of Manchester United

An old wooden table, some plastic chairs, a worn carpet and a calendar on the wall. Next to it, newspaper pieces and torn photographs of women models. All these in a 3X3m room. This unappealing description of Bob Peisley was about the most popular football strategy room. The decisions taken in this room lead to the team's success during the period of 1964 – 1990. For almost 30 years this room was responsible of the outstanding performance of the team and the smooth succession of its coaches.

From Bill Sangley to Bob Peisly in 1974 and to Joe Fagan in 1983. The final successor was Kenny Dalglish who did not spend as much time in the "Boot Room" as the rest of them but Peisly and Fagan did invite him to some meetings, since he was a player. It was obvious that he would be the next manager of Reds. He was the man who won the last Football League title in 1990.

It was around the '60s that Bill Sangley, started building the basis of Liverpool's domination in England and Europe inside the "Boot Room". This small room existed next to the locker rooms of Liverpool's players in the Anfield stadium. During the period of 1964 - 1990 the Reds won 42 titles (click here for a list of the titles). The “Boot Room” was a meeting place for Sangley, Peisley, Fagan, Tom Saunder and Reuben Bennet who were discussing for hours about diverse strategies, tactics and opponents analysis but above all they all shared a common vision for the values of Liverpool, thus forming a legend.

The arrogant Souness

After the retirement of Dalglish, Graeme Souness was the new coach. The Scottish may have been a legendary Liverpool player but he had never participated in the "Boot Room" meetings. He made the great mistake of changing the philosophy of the team radically and of replacing the already existing coaching staff. Souness even considered the "Boot Room" as a useless space and he transformed it into a small press room. He was fired three years later, after winning only one League Cup title. The changes that Souness implemented on the team did not only result in temporary failure but obviously still haunt them. The "winner" characteristics of the team were lost and it never conquered the peak of the Premier League again. Liverpool's opponents invented the nickname "Loserpool" since the Reds can not win a Premier League title no matter how hard they try. They almost did it this year but their performance was not enough, again.

The outsider

Moving from Anfield to Old Trafford, the previous goalkeeping coach of Manchester United, Eric Steele, revealed a detail which may explain this year's ineffective coaching by David Moyes. He was the successor of the most talented coach that ever step foot in the Premier League, Ser Alex Ferguson. He was instructed by his predecessor not to change the coaching staff as they would guide him during the first tough period in Manchester United.

Manchester United coach Ser Alex Ferguson (right), assistant manager Mike Phelan (in the middle) and goalkeeping coach Eric Steele (left)

However, Moyes did not listen to the instructions and made a lot of changes. After firing Steele, he replaced Ferguson's main assistant and previous Manchester United player, Mike Phelan with Phil Neville. Neville served Moyes well as a player in Everton and his past with Manchester United made him the perfect candidate. The second coach assistant, René Meulensteen left by himself. All the above facts are similar to Souness behaviour when he became coach of Liverpool. The failure of David Moyes this season is just history repeating itself.

However, the mistake is double sided. Moyes did not listen to Ferguson's advice and made radical changes to the team and the big man of Manchester United did not spend any time to prepare a successor. This second factor is of equal importance with the arrogant stance Moyes adopted by ignoring Ferguson's advices.

Ser Alex Ferguson became a legend. He remained in Old Trafford for 26 seasons. Yet he never trained anyone to become his equal. He did not choose a special “student” in order to initiate him into the secrets of Manchester United. He never built his own "Boot Room" in order to discuss football with some people that he trusted. He could have done this with Ryan Giggs but he did not. He preferred to trust the future of Manchester United to the hands of an outsider. Someone who had never crossed the door of Manchester United's locker room again.

There is of course the ineffective players phenomenon, but in reality they are not the main reason of the disastrous season of Manchester United. Players can not score in an open field, Ferdinard and Vidic have suffered a lot from their old knees, Van Persie got injured, the center line had no productivity and quality and the wing players could not perform well. In this selection of problems add the attitude of Moyes who straightly blamed his players after the defeat from West Brom. This is a mistake Ferguson would never do. He would discuss the facts privately and never publicly. The combination of all these negative facts and attitudes, forms the picture of this year's Manchester United.

The nightmare season and the zero tolerance

Manchester United finished in the seventh place of Premier League. It is their worst season since 1990. At the end of this nightmare season came a disappointing match in Southampton, where a 1-1 draw left the team in the seventh place which does not qualify for European competitions (click here for the full Premier League table after the season's end).

On April 22, David Moyes and Manchester United's ways were finally separated. This happened because things in Old Trafford have changed dramatically over the past 20 years. Back in 1989 Manchester's fans have raised a banner against Ser Alex Ferguson, saying "3 years of excuses and it's still crap...". Ferguson had almost lost the tolerance of the fans before he created the powerful team who dominated Premier League for 20 years. Fans got used to the taste of success. It was expected that they would never show the same amount of tolerance towards David Moyes.

The existence of a "Boot Room", the mistakes of Moyes and Ferguson and the new era that rises for Manchester United after the departure of Vidic, Ferdinard and Evra do not even matter for the fans. They are thirsty for a season similar to the previous 20. They expect to relieve the glorious moments Ser Alex offered them. Surely, they will not tolerate any more failures. There is no space for history repeating itself again.