The Chosen One turns out to be The Wrong One

FOR the past 11 months, he was known as The Chosen One. Now, David Moyes will forever be saddled with the unwanted tag of The Sacked One. It was an announcement that, in all honesty, surprised few football fans yesterday, least of all those of Manchester United. Crowned kings of English football yet again last May but now languishing in seventh place in the league, the club gave the beleaguered Scottish manager the boot after a dreadful first season in charge.

His abrupt departure can be seen as a slap in the face for Alex Ferguson, the previous boss who, in his farewell address, wagged his finger at fans and said: "I'd like to remind you that we've had bad times here. The club stood by me. All my staff stood by me. The players stood by me. So your job now is to stand by our new manager. That is important."

Moyes, however, made it very difficult for them to heed those words. Some critics even went as far as to describe those instructions as emotional blackmail. As the Red Devils suffered one painful defeat after another, many of them at the club's Old Trafford stadium, the 50-year-old was brutally exposed as a man way out of his depth, at a club with expectations far too big for his boots. Clearly, the Glazer family - which bought the club in a debt-driven, US$1.4 billion purchase a decade ago - had no wish to follow Ferguson's orders, even if they did give him full control in picking his own successor.