"Playing football the Matt Busby Way," sing Manchester United fans. Perhaps David Moyes' greatest problem was to fail to meet that expectation.
"Just go out there and enjoy yourself," was United's patriarch's most frequent prematch advice. Moyes' team rarely played with such abandonment, and amid the litany of mistakes, he also betrayed a vital Busby principle: a belief in youth.
That United are currently under the temporary control of the self-styled "Class of '92," with Ryan Giggs bringing in Nicky Butt and Paul Scholes to work alongside him, suggests the importance of the homegrown to the club. Moyes introduced just one youth product to the team in the entirety of his season in charge, and that was Adnan Januzaj, who had been included in Sir Alex Ferguson's final 18-man squad at West Brom last May.
Beyond Januzaj, the closest Moyes came to blooding a player was the inclusion of 18-year-old striker James Wilson in the matchday squad at Newcastle on April 5. Moyes suggested that only injuries to Januzaj and Patrice Evra had prevented him from blooding Wilson in a 4-0 St James' Park cakewalk.
"If the opportunity comes we'll do so, but we have a lot of people looking for a game," was Moyes' typically damp response to an MUTV enquiry on when Wilson might actually be handed his first appearance. Jesse Lingard, a hit on last summer's preseason tour, sat on the bench for United's Jan. 11 defeat of Swansea, before being sent back out on loan.
Which left Januzaj, whose first-team selection was a "no-brainer." The recently declared future Belgium international was already far too good for reserve-team football, just as Wayne Rooney had been when Moyes picked him for Everton's first team back in August 2002.
Moyes deserves credit for his part in making sure that Januzaj signed a new contract, when other clubs were trying to tempt him, but then used Januzaj sparingly, showing the type of restraint with a gem that annoyed Rooney at Everton. Similar accusations were made against his treatment of Ross Barkley at Goodison.
"Moyes was never interested in our youth team or players," tweeted Kevin Sheedy, Everton's academy coach, last month. Sheedy, a quiet man hardly known for public outbursts, was voicing a sentiment familiar on Merseyside.
In mitigation for Moyes, he did not inherit a bed of blooming roses. As Andy Mitten has written in these pages, United's youth setup is no longer the market leader it was when churning out the likes of Giggs, Scholes and Butt.
Across town, Manchester City's Etihad Campus complex is taking its gargantuan shape. Manchester's best kids are washing up as Blues, just as they used to when Ferguson first arrived at United in 1986, precipitating the shake-up he would give United's youth systems. Chelsea, playing in their fourth FA Youth Cup final in five years, have the strongest setup around, though, like City, have a poor record of pushing promising kids into the first-team reckoning.
The tradition of youth burns brighter at United, boasting the proud record of featuring a home product in the matchday squad right back to Oct. 23, 1937, when United beat Sheffield Wednesday 1-0 at Old Trafford in the old Second Division. The formation of the Manchester United Junior Athletic Club ahead of the 1938-39 season was the bedrock to Busby's building of the club into the country's strongest force once the Second World War had concluded.
Ferguson's regenerative youth work was key to protecting his position when his first team was failing during the 1989-90 season. Sir Bobby Charlton, then as now on the club's board, was a confirmed admirer of developments that fondly reminded him of his time as a "Busby Babe" three decades before, days Charlton remembered to Busby biographer Eamon Dunphy with the simple but evocative description of "paradise."
Youth graduates are often those players the local fans identify with, see themselves in, even beyond their playing days. Moyes' alienation from Giggs did him few favours, while Scholes was never found a role to his satisfaction. Other sensibilities were offended, too. On the day that Moyes met his end, the latest breaking scandal had been Danny Welbeck's desire to leave United. A local lad, who had only ever wanted to play for United, felt both shunned and disillusioned.
"David has tremendous strength of character and recognises the importance of bringing young players through and developing them alongside world class talent," was Charlton's contribution to the statement that announced Moyes' appointment on May 9 last year. It was viewed as a pointed remark towards Jose Mourinho's short-termism. It would eventually not ring true of David Moyes, either.
The next manager would do well to follow the Busby Way.