David Moyes's reign as Manchester United manager ended just a season into a six-year contract at Old Trafford.
Speaking on BT Sport's Premier League Tonight on Saturday, Rio Ferdinand provided some insight into what went wrong for the man anointed as Alex Ferguson's successor.
"Certain managers come in and change very little, certain managers come in and change quite a lot," said Ferdinand.
It's not just tactically on the pitch, it's off the pitch that certain things happen - messages that are given beforehand that are changing.
Even, for instance, the way Moyes would tell players they weren't in the squad. To win the league, you very much need to have 22-25 players on board.
The difference with say Alex Ferguson was that when he told the fringe players that they were as important as the starting 11. Their time would come when they would define a match or win a match and get you over the line. That's as important as 10 or 11 goals from a striker.
He would tell those players, 'You're not playing' and there was almost a courtesy about how he would do it. He would make sure that people felt they were still part of the squad.
David Moyes, who is his own man, he came in and said 'I'm not going to pander to your needs or do it the way it was done before; this is my way of doing it. It maybe put some people's nerves out of joint.
Ferdinand believes that Moyes failed to delegate sufficiently to others.
"David Moyes's hands were on everything at the club. He was involved in the scouting, he was involved in the analysis of opposing teams, the physiotherapy, the doctors. He was involved in taking every training session. He was involved in every team meeting, every video that was being done.
"You can do that at a club like Everton where the demands are not as big but at Manchester United you've got to delegate.
"One of the best traits Ferguson had was that he delegated and that he trusted other people."
"Moyes' hands were on everything at the club, you can do that at Everton, but at Man Utd, you've got to delegate. Ferguson trusted other people."@rioferdy5 on the cultural differences off the pitch between Sir Alex Ferguson and David Moyes.
Unmissable insight 🔥#PLTonight pic.twitter.com/3SGArwMSSI— Football on BT Sport (@btsportfootball) August 18, 2018
Ferdinand also felt that Moyes's mindset in big games did not mesh with what it had been under Alex Ferguson.
"Our mindset, we never worried about the opposition," said Ferdinand.
"We never set ourselves up and said, 'We need to contain this and contain that'. We were going into games trying to win them based on what we're good at.
"I remember the first couple of games we played against Liverpool and Chelsea. We were talking more about Coutinho and Hazard than our own attacking tactics.
"There's doubt. Players are looking at each other thinking, 'This ain't us. We ain't used to this'.
"You could see even the younger players going, 'Woah, we're better than them. We won the league last year, we can beat these. Put us on the front foot and let us go out and attack these players'.
"That mindset came from being an Everton manager. David Moyes played in the big games, first not to get beat and to see what he could get out of the game.
"Whereas we were always on the front foot. Ye,s we would contain teams, especially away from home, but we still had the mentality that we're going there to win."
"David Moyes in the big games played first not to get beat, then to see what we could get from the game. Before we were always on the front foot."
"That mindset came from being Everton manager."@rioferdy5 giving the inside track on David Moyes' failed Man Utd spell#PLTonight pic.twitter.com/pWX8QD6e1p— Football on BT Sport (@btsportfootball) August 18, 2018
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