David Moyes has Manchester United backing for now, but Arsenal clash is another key marker

MANCHESTER United is about so much more than results as David Moyes faces Arsenal 21 points worse off than this time last year.

ACCORDING to informed sources at Old Trafford, David Moyes’s position as manager at Manchester United is under no immediate threat.

Unless United’s form dips horrifically between now and the summer, he will remain in situ until at least next Christmas.

If Moyes is happy about this security, then it doesn’t show. He says the right things — at least, he tries to — but his manner, mood and body language deliver rather different messages.

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‘I was given a six-year contract because it was a long-term deal,’ said Moyes ahead of tonight’s trip to Arsenal in the Barclays Premier League. ‘It was always going to take time. There is rebuilding going on year after year here and we will continue to try to do that.

‘The right clubs pick the right managers and the right managers pick the right clubs. You pick clubs where you know it’s right for you.’ Yesterday’s press call at United’s Carrington training ground was a terse affair. The broadcast section — for the benefit of TV cameras — lasted three minutes and 15 seconds. Moyes spent a little longer with written journalists but his mood was no brighter. There was no gusto.

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Moyes currently looks a different man to the one who fronted up so resolutely after September’s derby humbling at Manchester City.

‘It’s important that I (came here today and) took the punches,’ he said at a press conference two days later. ‘I’m happy to do that.’ That was impressive stuff.

Currently, however, the United manager appears to sense agendas and perceived slights at every turn. It would surprise nobody if he is checking under the bed at night.

This, in short, is what pressure does and Moyes is not the first manager to sag a little at its whim.

Sir Alex Ferguson fought some of his fiercest battles in press conference rooms but his phoney wars were at least underpinned by defiance.

Ferguson was a scrapper, Moyes claims to be the same.

At the moment, though, results on the field show that he is under-performing and it is to be hoped that his manner on the training field reflects better on him than yesterday’s efforts in the press-conference room.

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Take this brief exchange with one reporter:

Q: ‘You’re 21 points worse off now than you were at this stage last season. How do you explain that with the same group of players?’

A: ‘Well, I was at Everton so I wasn’t 21 points worse off. I was at Everton.’

Q: ‘But Manchester United are 21 points worse off now than they were at this stage last season?’

A: ‘Yeah, that’s right. The improvement in the teams in the Premier League has been big, there have been a lot of improvements from sides in the Premier League and obviously we’ve not done as well as we did last year.’

Moyes’s frustrations are understandable. On another day, Sunday’s domination of Fulham, the Premier League’s bottom club, would have produced a clear victory, rather than a 2-2 draw.

Arguably United didn’t deserve to lose their previous game, at Stoke City, either.

Nevertheless, managers at Old Trafford will only ever be judged on where their team finish in the league and cups and given that United’s forthcoming games are against Arsenal (a), Crystal Palace (a), Olympiacos (a), West Brom (a), Liverpool (h) and Olympiacos (h), Moyes may be in need of some friends by the middle of March.

Today, for example, United chief executive Ed Woodward will take conference calls from investors to coincide with the release of the club’s quarterly results.

Those investors will wish to know what plans the club have for Moyes and what contingencies they have for failure to qualify for the Champions League.

This, in short, is the big picture of life at a club like United. It is not about 81 crosses against Fulham and the misfortune of conceding a deflected goal at Stoke.

Nor does it matter that ‘only one team tried to win’ on Sunday, as Moyes pointed out yesterday.

What matters are results and an impression that the team are, at the very least, moving forward. At the moment, Moyes looks a little blinded by the lights. A good result at the Emirates tonight would help him but, if it doesn’t come, he will need to find another way to get by.