With the end of the game approaching and Manchester United having very little to take out of their lacklustre 3-0 loss to Liverpool, the fans at Old Trafford resorted to chanting ‘20 times, 20 times, 20 times!’ If anything, however, this would have given more satisfaction to the small group of Liverpool fans who had witnessed another great display from their team. For the past few years the United faithful have served it up to Liverpool about clinging to their proud history when results haven’t gone their way. Now, it seems the tables have ironically turned. This season hasn’t even finished and the Red Devils are already reminiscing about last season.

While everybody is entitled to their opinion about Manchester’s demise, the only real solution is time. Small steps will ultimately get United back on track. It took Liverpool a few years and more than a few personnel changes to finally see a turnaround in their results. For Manchester however, fond, premiership-winning memories are still fresh in their minds. The fans now want to see the same faith placed in Moyes as was placed in Sir Alex Ferguson at the start of his career as they try and link the two. The difference, however, is that Ferguson was given a comparatively weak squad who were sitting in 19th position and slowly turned them into something special. Moyes was handed a formidable, premiership-winning squad in a gift wrapped box and instantly turned them into a team capable of doing little more than (albeit successfully) squaring it along their backline. Next, they will execute a delicate 40 metre lobbed through ball down the line for a pacey winger to strain all of the muscles in his body in an attempt to knock a loopy first time ball into a box already full of defenders. After which, Van Persie and Rooney will arrive too late and then subsequently be offside for the next cross which is systematically whipped in as soon as possession is regained.

While the idea of having faith in a manager until he settles in is nice, Moyes has already proven that he is no Sir Alex Ferguson and as such doesn’t deserve this faith from fans who have watched poor performance after poor performance. A club of Manchester United’s stature needs to be winning and at the moment there seems to be only one real reason why that isn’t happening. As I said, the solution is time, however, Moyes has had his and now it is at a stage where a new manager needs to be shown that faith as well. While there are more dark days ahead for United it is ridiculous to doggedly persist with a manager that obviously isn’t working in the hope that he turns out to be another Fergie.

Fergie was great, but he was one of a kind. If United were playing attractive Football and succumbing to unlucky goals you could understand the persistence in Moyes. However, the Red Devils were most recently completely outclassed by Liverpool who were themselves in the same position only a few years ago.

Maybe a history lesson wouldn’t be so bad after all.