If anyone wishes to chronicle the last four years of David Moyes' professional life, and are brave enough to sift through the volumes upon volumes of sadness that have been written, they will likely open the book with the anecdote that he ended the season of his first relegation by feebly acceding to John Terry's egomaniacal Chelsea farewell. He confirmed that Sunderland had agreed to boot the ball out of play on the 26th minute to allow Terry be subbed at a time in step with his shirt number.
This anecdote nicely sums up Moyes' decline into a strangely passive man, unable to positively affect anything since being sacked from his dream job as manager of Manchester United. He took a gap year with Real Sociedad and left them with the same number of points in the same position as they had when he took over before taking over at Sunderland to merely add to the gloom encircling the club, speaking of the inevitability of a relegation fight during his introductory press conference.
And there's a nice postscript to the Terry story: Sunderland stopped the game in the 28th minute, meaning they couldn't even get it right.
That was to be the last, depressing act: he resigned from the club after a thoroughly miserable season, which included his threatening physical violence to a female reporter as part of his own skewed vision of gender equality.
But despite all that has happened, Moyes looks set to be rewarded for barely achieving mediocrity. Matt Hughes of reports today that Moyes is the favourite to succeed Gordon Strachan as the manager of the Scotland national team.
The paper report that it is Moyes who tops the SFA's list, despite the slight technical stumbling block that the job is not actually vacant. Strachan is still there, but he is expected to be fired if Scotland lose to England this weekend.
Since beating Ireland in Glasgow during qualifying for Euro 2016, and escaping Dublin with a draw in the return fixture, things have gone south rapidly for Strachan. Having looked like beating Ireland to qualification, they blew it against Georgia, and were eeked out of third place by an Irish team who shocked the Germans in Dublin.
Scotland's World Cup qualification campaign has been miserable thus far, with two losses and a draw from their opening five games.
Should they suffer a third defeat to England on Saturday, that looks like the end for Strachan, and a surprise return to the big time for Moyes.
[The Times]
