Former Manchester United captain Nemanja Vidic wasn’t happy to hear the media reports that his Red Devils wouldn’t play for David Moyes, or that they lost respect for their now-fired manager.
In fact, in an interview with BBC Sport, Vidic strongly denied that his club gave anything but its best for Moyes.
“People said we lost faith in David Moyes,” said Vidic. “We didn’t.”
It’s one of several strong statements from the 32-year-old defender, who said the players cooperated with Moyes at every turn.
From the BBC:“The players did argue among ourselves,” he said. “But we were arguing to get better. When you have bad times, people show they care. It hurts but we could say those things to each other because we have been together for so long.
“We had some hard moments in the dressing room but we never argued with the manager or his assistants. Never.”
Saying the players “did everything that was asked of them,” he admitted there were plenty of tense times in an unusual and unsuccessful season for Manchester United.And that doesn’t mean the players expected things to turn out as poorly as they did, with a seventh-place finish and no European soccer for 2014/15.
“From the first day until the last you didn’t hear any player say anything bad about the training. That shows the players have respect for the manager.
“We did argue among ourselves. But we were arguing to get better. We had some hard moments in the dressing room but we never argued with the manager or his assistants”
“I am not saying we have had a good season. It was a bad time and the players could have done better. But everyone lost belief in the team.”
Vidic will ply his trade at Inter Milan next season, and it’s hard to imagine his game struggling to adapt to Serie A. With just 25 games played in the Premier League this year, Vidic is one of several players whose absence may have cost Moyes just as much as anything the manager was doing tactically or motivationally.
And there’s a good chance we’ll never truly learn if this band of misfits could’ve won for any manager in a post-Sir Alex Ferguson, as whoever takes charge will likely be given a load of money to spend on plenty of new, better, younger talent.