United break with tradition in Moyes sacking

LONDON, Apr 23 (AFP): By sacking David Moyes as manager after less than a season in charge, Manchester United contravened the principles explicitly laid out by his illustrious predecessor Alex Ferguson.
Ferguson was granted a three-and-a-half-year grace period before winning the first of his 38 trophies as United manager, in 1990, and he expected his successor, who he hand-picked himself, to be shown the same patience.
His instruction to United's fans to "get behind our new manager" on a rain-lashed day at Old Trafford last May was intended as a rallying cry, but instead it became a millstone around the club's neck.
As Moyes lurched from disaster to disaster, seemingly incapable of preventing the club from sinking into crisis, the one constant in his favour was the consensus that sacking managers was 'not the United way'.