Rio Ferdinand blasts David Moyes, terms his tenure at Manchester United 'embarrassing'

Ed Ran
Rio Ferdinand David Moyes
Rio Ferdinand with David Moyes at a press conference in 2013

Ex-Manchester United boss David Moyes has come in for some scathing criticism from Rio Ferdinand.

The QPR defender, who left Old Trafford this summer, hit out at Moyes’ tactics and man management skills with some harsh words in his autobiography #2sides.

Ferdinand becomes the first player to openly criticize Moyes, although Vidic revealed a lot about the Scot’s ill-fated tenure, albeit in a more diplomatic manner.

Players were confused with Moyes’ tactics: Ferdinand

Ferdinand said that the players never really understood what Moyes wanted from the squad.

“Moyes’s innovations mostly led to negativity and confusion,” he said.

“The biggest confusion was over how he wanted us to move the ball forward. Often he told us to play it long. Some players felt they kicked the ball long more than at any time in their career.

“Sometimes our main tactic was the long, high, diagonal cross. It was embarrassing. In one home game against Fulham we had 81 crosses! I was thinking, why are we doing this? Andy Carroll doesn’t play for us!

“The whole approach was alien. Other times Moyes wanted lots of passing. He’d say: 'Today I want us to have 600 passes in the game. Last week it was only 400’. Who cares? I’d rather score five goals from 10 passes.”

“Moyes was amateurish and had a small-club mentality”

Ferdinand also went on to explain how amateurish and “bizarre” Moyes was when he took the squad to a park to practice set-pieces before playing Bayern Munich in the Champions League.

"It was amateurish," he said. "I mean, why not just send Bayern an email or a DVD?” he said sarcastically.

Rio Moyes
David Moyes oversees a training session at Manchester United

He also revealed how Moyes revealed his team selection and told Ferdinand in front of the others that he would not be playing as Moyes needed pacy defenders.

“It killed me,” Ferdinand explained.

“Inside I wanted to scream and grab him. I'm a team player, so I just had to bite my tongue and stand there.

“But it was probably the worst single moment I ever had at United,” he added.

“I'd never been dropped for a big game like that - and to drop that on me in front of everybody.”

Moyes was never clear with his vision: Ferdinand

He also spoke about how Moyes tried to impose his vision, but failed miserably.

“He tried to impose a vision, but never seemed to be completely clear what that vision should be," said Ferdinand

“Unintentionally, he created a negative vibe where, with Fergie, it had always been positive. He'd slowly lost us. I didn't enjoy playing under him.”

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Edited by Staff Editor