Is David Moyes' Spanish Adventure at Real Sociedad Coming to an End?
David Moyes didn't move. Not an inch.
Stood in front of the bench, his hands in his pockets and his mouth shut, he wore the expression of a man wedged between injustice and disbelief, his entire being seemingly paralysed by an inner conflict of fuming anger and crushing exasperation. In his eyes was that distant stare of a man sat at a bar, contemplating where and how it all went wrong. You wanted to reach out and pass him a wee dram of Scotland's finest.
He needed it.
For Moyes, it wasn't so much that his Real Sociedad were losing to Atletico Madrid, it was how they were losing—the sequence that had unfolded to leave them there. A sequence of savage cruelty to the manager.
In the 88th minute, Diego Reyes picked up a yellow card. In the next, a mouthful of abuse toward the referee earned him another. Down to 10 men and one goal down was bad enough. But it would get worse. Much.
In the moments that followed, striker Jonathas was brought down in the Atletico box when Jose Gimenez attempted a diving block. With his head. "It is 100 per cent a penalty," Moyes would say later. And he was right. If only the referee had agreed. Instead, play went on and Atletico stormed up the other end to score, Yannick Ferreira Carrasco strolling through exactly where Reyes would have been standing before rounding goalkeeper Geronimo Rulli.
Four Real Sociedad players subsequently saw yellow cards for remonstrating. Jonathas got two. The yellow card went in the air so many times it was as if the referee was creating his own Villarreal tifo, Moyes' players completely losing control. And the end result was catastrophic: Real Sociedad ended the contest both two goals and two men down.
For the casual viewer it bordered on comedy; it belonged on a home-video programme. For Moyes, though, the footage will be given an 18+ classification. Horror might not describe it.
Of course, defeat to Atletico Madrid is no disgrace for Real Sociedad. For almost four years now, Diego Simeone's Atleti have stifled teams into bewilderment, their intensity and relentlessness seeing opponents regularly traverse the spectrum from frustration to insanity. Last season, they had Real Madrid's measure; the season before, they had Barcelona's.
Moyes' men can't be expected to turn over league heavyweights.
But that's not the point here: Though the how was devastating in all of this, it was the when that was far worse for the Scot.
Sunday's meeting with Atletico was Real Sociedad's first outing since the October international break, a break they'd entered after losing 3-1 to Malaga. The same Malaga that hadn't won to that point. The same Malaga that hadn't scored to that point.
Pressure had been building already, doubts abundant. Then Sunday happened.
The defeat to Atletico leaves Moyes' side with one win from eight league games and a total return of six points from a possible 24. They sit 16th in the table, only clear of the relegation zone on goal difference. Perhaps worse, they've scored only six goals all season—last-placed Granada have more, the rather dreadful-looking pair of Levante and Las Palmas have the same and only Malaga have fewer.
Thus, it's not just that La Real couldn't get past Atletico, it's that they couldn't get past Sporting Gijon, Deportivo La Coruna, Espanyol, Athletic Bilbao, Malaga or a 10-man Real Betis, either. Moyes' Real Sociedad not only aren't winning, they aren't scoring. Or attacking. Or entertaining. Or giving any indication they might do so.
Time, you sense, is running out. And maybe has been for a while.
Back in the summer, there was an uneasiness when Moyes attempted to quell expectation in San Sebastian, suggesting his side wasn't ready to compete for a European place after a steady if unspectacular campaign.
"I don't think that right now we have to have Europe as a goal," he said ahead of the season opener in August. "Considering what we did last season, looking to Europe is a very big step."
In fairness, it is. But if that's not the goal, what is? Because this team should be aiming for Europe; the club's sporting director Loren has insisted so. And he's right.
In the summer, Real Sociedad re-signed Asier Illarramendi from Real Madrid for £10.5 million, also bringing in Jonathas for £5 million—a proven striker who netted 14 goals for struggling Elche in 2014-15. Such fees are pipe dreams for half of the division, putting La Real perhaps only behind last season's top six for spending power. Additionally, the highly valued pair of Carlos Vela and Inigo Martinez were held onto, and Rulli was kept in place for another season.
As a squad, Real Sociedad's looked as good as any competing for Europa League places. But they're just not. Not at the moment anyway.
Watching Real Sociedad right now is a difficult experience. Though the team is organised, though they're hardly shambolic, there's an unshakeable sense of confusion in attack, muddled thinking becoming paralysis. The ball goes sideways more than it does forward. Their motion is stagnant more than it is fluid. The buildup is painfully slow. Invention is absent.
According to WhoScored.com, Moyes' side ranks fifth in the league for possession but 14th for shots on goal. For shots on target it's worse: 20th. Dead last.
This is a team that looks good paper but one that, right now, is operating with the dynamism of a hungover bridal party the morning after a wedding. And what's more troubling is the harder tasks are still to come.
Indeed, Sunday's visit from Atletico was La Real's first outing of the season against one of the league's leading sides. Before that, they'd met teams currently sitting in 17th, 14th, 20th, ninth, 10th, 12th and sixth, the latter being Deportivo, who surely won't stay there.
Between now and the second week of January, Moyes' men will face Real Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Sevilla, Villarreal and Celta Vigo.
In this form, that looks more than arduous. And you'd imagine Moyes doesn't have long to turn it around.
It was after 10 games last season that Real Sociedad sacked the Scot's predecessor, Jagoba Arrasate. At the time, Arrasate's record was very similar to that of Moyes this term: one win, three draws and six losses, and his team were 19th on the table. And yet that sole victory had come over Real Madrid. Not Granada.
For Moyes, this current stretch would have been excusable in his first season, but it's not in his second; he's had time to make this team his team. That seems to be the problem, though: Statistically, his team is inferior to those that have gone before it, his side's performance indicators such as winning percentage and goals per game across his 11-month tenure well below those that belonged to Arrasate and the man before him, Philippe Montanier.
"I don't think my position is in danger," he said with conviction on Sunday, but few looking on have the same certainty.
| Moyes | Arrasate | Montanier | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Winning % | 28.57 | 35.42 | 39.47 |
| Goals per Game | 1.09 | 1.50 | 1.53 |
| Points per Game | 1.23 | 1.35 | 1.49 |
Even though Moyes has regularly discussed his adoration for his new home in San Sebastian—"a spectacular city, full of life," he told AS—there's an unavoidable feeling he hasn't settled in northern Spain the way most would have liked.
Almost a year into his stint at Anoeta, the Scot has only just moved out of the city's luxurious Maria Cristina hotel and into his own apartment, something that has given a feeling of a manager yet to embed himself into the environment, as though he's living an almost separate existence. Some have interpreted it as indication that his commitment to the club, to the fiercely proud Basque region, isn't what it could be—that this might be a temporary stop, a footballing getaway.
His frequent comparisons with England haven't helped. Nor has the language barrier.
Though Moyes has been taking Spanish lessons—"I've also learned some basics in Basque," he told Andy Mitten for ESPN FC—the progress has evidently been slow-going, complicating his communication with players and staff. Such a situation isn't unique in football, of course, but here it seems to be preventing the development of a strong rapport between the players and their manager.
"Moyes came to change things and it hasn't worked," said Martinez at the end of last season. More recently, Vela's comment he will continue "until January" didn't exactly serve as a ringing endorsement, either.
Publicly, Moyes' players have regularly expressed their support for the manager, but even if that is the case, there's something else missing—something that's harder to define. A connection, maybe. A bond. A camaraderie. A vibe.
Outwardly, the whole scene feels sort of neutral—not bad but not great; OK but uninspired.
There's also been a hint of discontent between manager and board at Anoeta.
When Real Sociedad were flirting with the relegation zone last season, it was club president Jokin Aperribay who convinced Moyes to take a Spanish journey, the president and club aware of the Scot's sterling record with Everton and his remarkable ability to reinvent squads thanks to an insatiable appetite for scouting and spotting talent.
But this summer, there was resistance from Aperribay and Loren to Moyes' desire for a squad overhaul. Moyes, said AS, wanted a significant revamp; those above him wanted to stick to what they knew, the club's traditional method.
Compromise looks to have been necessary as a result, but it's left Moyes with a team that's not totally his, at a club and in a country he's still getting to grips with. As such, this is a Real Sociedad with a confused identity, unsure of its direction, caught between contrasting ideas, mentalities and cultures.
It's this identity that's currently being seen on the pitch, where it's impossible to determine exactly what La Real are. What they're trying to do. What they're about. It's why there's such a gap between the quality of the squad, of which there is a lot, and their number of points.
Among those to express concern are former players Jesus Maria Satrustegui and Meho Kodro to Mundo Deportivo, the former a club legend and its all-time leading scorer. Loren is concerned too.
"We did not think we would have this number of points at this stage," the sporting director said to Teledonosti (h/t Dermot Corrigan) after the Atletico defeat. "The club has made an effort to put together a high level squad, with sufficient quality to win more games than we have done so far."
He went on to add something we all knew, but it sounded ominous anyway: "Something must change." Quickly, too.
For while Moyes has regularly spoken of the way San Sebastian has made an extremely positive impression upon him, there's a problem: The opposite isn't yet true.
