Dan Donachie, Everton's former director of medical services, did not think much of what Sir Jim Ratcliffe had to say
File photo dated 06-10-2024 of Sir Jim Ratcliffe. Manchester United co-owner Ineos has been accused of failing to honour a sponsorship agreement with New Zealand Rugby. Issue date: Tuesday February 11, 2025. PA Photo. See PA story RUGBYU New Zealand. Photo credit should read Mike Egerton/PA Wire.
Sir Jim Ratcliffe, the Manchester United co-owner who gave Erik ten Hag more than £200m to spend in the summer before sacking him in October(Image: Mike Egerton/PA Wire.)
Manchester United co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe has been criticised for comments he made about David Moyes. Ratcliffe said that the current Everton manager should have never have been given the chance to take over from Sir Alex Ferguson at the Red Devils.
Moyes called time on his first spell in charge of Everton in the summer of 2013 after he was offered the chance to succeed the legendary Ferguson in the United hotseat. It was recognition of the excellent job the younger Scot had done across 11 years at Goodison Park.
But Moyes' stay at Old Trafford lasted less than 11 months after he was sacked following a 2-0 defeat at his previous club in April 2014. He departed with the Red Devils, who were the then defending Premier League champions, seventh in the standings and a 52.94% win percentage.
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After 26 years and four months of Ferguson, Moyes' dismissal has led to a number of managers being hired and fired at United, with Ratcliffe continuing the trend this season when Erik ten Hag was replaced by the current incumbent Ruben Amorim despite the former being backed to the tune of nearly £206m in the summer.
Amorim guided United to back-to-back wins last week that saw them progress to the Europa League quarter-finals and move above Everton into 13th in the Premier League table.
But the Portuguese has largely struggled in comparison to Moyes, who has led the Blues on a nine-match unbeaten league run since his return to the club in January.
But the 61-year-old was the subject of a dig from Ratcliffe when assessing why the club he now oversees have fallen so spectacularly from grace.
And that has brought about a stinging rebuke from Dan Donachie, Everton's former director of medical services who worked for Moyes during his first stint on the blue half of Merseyside.
Writing on LinkedIn, Donachie said: "Sir Jim Ratcliffe wouldn’t have hired David Moyes at Manchester United for an alarming reason: Because "he doesn’t necessarily have the personality to stand in front of them all".
"By "them" he means big players. This is totally disrespectful to a man who is widely respected in the game. Knowing David Moyes well, in my opinion he absolutely has the personality to manage big players. But this isn’t my point.
"There’s no need to speak so disrespectfully about a well respected man. Especially given many of his own recent decisions.
"David would never speak about a fellow professional publicly in this way. Because he’s a decent man. No-one in football would ever question his personality or his ability to lead a team. His values are rare in a game often devoid of them. Illustrated by these comments."
Ratcliffe's comment came in an interview in The Times. The 72-year-old lifelong United fan, whose decision-making have made him deeply unpopular with supporters, said: "The management of Manchester United have been given a huge amount of rope. The owners just managed the club and left the football side alone and they’ve made a lot of very poor decisions over 12 years, stupid things.
"They made a complete cock-up of it, shocking really. They couldn’t see where they were headed. The first management group, they thought they understood and wanted to get involved in buying footballers but they didn’t have the knowledge to buy footballers, you know, so they went in the marketplace, spraying money around and it was just random, wasn’t it?
"I don't subscribe to the school of thought that says, well, that’s just life in football, ups and downs, these things happen, because if I look at Real Madrid and Barcelona and Bayern Munich, they don’t do that. They just stay at the top. And it’s not like that here because it’s been poorly managed and they’ve made poor decisions.
“Look, I like David Moyes, and I think he’s a really good manager, but to go from Sir Alex Ferguson to Moyes is not where I would have gone. Moyes stepped into the shoes of Ferguson, who’s won the Premier League 13 times, who won the Champions League twice and then you’re handing over to a guy that has never managed big players and had never won anything. He’s not necessarily got the personality to stand in front of them all.
“And I don’t think Real Madrid would have made that choice as coach. If you look at coaches, a club can’t always get it right, but they should have found the best chief executive in the world, and the best coach in the world, because Manchester United is the best club in the world. Instead they got both of those decisions wrong."