I Was Unfairly Treated At Man United – David Moyes

David Moyes insists he was unfairly treated at Manchester United as he begins his new role at Sunderland.

The Scot was sacked less than a season into a six-year contract after succeeding Sir Alex Ferguson at Old Trafford, with United finishing that 2013-14 campaign outside the European places in seventh.

He then struggled at Spanish side Real Sociedad as well — but saw United make only limited improvements under his successor Louis van Gaal, finishing fourth and then fifth before the Dutchman gave way to Jose Mourinho this summer.

Moyes maintains he was the right man for the job after Ferguson’s departure, having led Everton from the lower reaches of the Premier League into European contention.

“I’ve said all along I was unfairly treated there. When you sign a six-year contract and you end up with 10 months … yeah, I believe I was,” he told English newspapers.

“I didn’t win enough football matches but you must say there were mitigating circumstances. And I think you could say there are maybe things which have gone on since then that would actually justify that even more so.”

Moyes refused suggestions that he was out of his depth at Old Trafford, and said his experience with United only reaffirmed to him that he can be a top manager.

“What my time at Manchester United gave me is an unbelievable idea of what it is at the top. I believe that’s where I can work and that’s where I should be working, and my level is that.

“You don’t get offered the Real Madrid job, the Barcelona job, the Manchester United job, if you’ve not had something to suggest there’s a reason for it,” he said.

“I don’t think I have anything to prove to anybody else, but I am always proving to myself that I want to keep my standards high.

“I think I’ve got the fourth best win record in the Premier League out of all the managers. If I can even bring a bit of that to Sunderland, that will make a difference.”

The experience has not stopped Moyes considering transfer moves for his former United players Marouane Fellaini — who also played under him at Everton — and Adnan Januzaj.

Sunderland have yet to make a single addition to their first-team squad since narrowly avoiding relegation from the Premier League, with departures and injuries leaving them worryingly light on numbers with less than a fortnight to go before the start of the new season.

Moyes thinks that is partially down to the Football Association’s pursuit of his predecessor Sam Allardyce, but he said the club is in a better position to compete than when he took over at Everton.

“I think Sunderland have got more in place than Everton, but we need to change from just bobbing along at the bottom of the league,” he said.

“I took over at Everton and the six years before that they were always at the bottom. For four out of the five years they were always in the bottom six. So there’s a wee bit of a similarity. Apart from one year, when we were 17th, there was always progress and in our last eight years we were always in the top eight.

“So we turned Everton from being a club at the bottom to a club at the top. But that was a journey that took 10 years. I feel, if I can get momentum going here, that people will start to look at this part of the world.

“I want the good players to think they want to come here and that’s the manager I want to work for. I can only do that when I get things going. If I can get a good team, we can get the place jumping a bit, that excites me.

“I think it’s seven [managers] in five years and really that’s a scandalous statistic, it’s not the way to go forward and Ellis [Short, the owner] wants stability.”